Rude Stone Monuments in All Countries: Their Age and Uses — John Shaqi
Rude Stone Monuments in All Countries: Their Age and UsesFergusson, James
History
Rude Stone Monuments in All Countries: Their Age and Uses
Fergusson, James
Megalithic monuments
suffices to prove the case and to establish the main facts of their
history and use, wholly independently of any system or of any external
testimony.
Direct literary evidence, in the sense in which the term is usually
understood, cannot be said to exist. As before mentioned, no classical
author alludes, either directly or indirectly, to these megalithic
structures; yet they could not have been ignorant of them if they
existed. When Cæsar and his army witnessed the fight between his
galleys and the fleet of the Veneti in the Morbihan, he must have
stood--if he occupied the best place--on Mont St. Michel, if it then
existed, and among the stone avenues of Carnac. Is it likely that such
an artist would have omitted the chance of heightening his picture by
an allusion to the "standing stones" of Dariorigum? The Romans occupied
Old Sarum probably during the whole time they remained in this island,
and the Via Badonica passed so immediately under Silbury Hill that they
could not have been ignorant of either Stonehenge or Avebury. Nor in
France could they possibly have missed seeing the numerous dolmens with
which the country is covered. Notwithstanding all this, the silence is
absolute. The circular temple of the Hyperboreans is the only thing any
one has ever pretended to quote against this; and that, for reasons
given above being inadmissible, any argument based on it falls to the
ground.
Neither Cæsar nor Tacitus, though describing the religious observances
of our forefathers, make any mention of temples; nor, indeed, does
any other classical author. Tacitus[23] tells us that the Germans
worshipped only in groves; and though this is hardly to the point, his
relations with Agricola were so intimate that had the Gauls and Britons
had temples of stone, he could hardly have avoided alluding to them.
The inference from Cæsar and all the other authors is the same, but
there is no direct evidence either way.
There is no passage in any classical authors which connects the Druids,
either directly or indirectly, with any stone temples or stones of any
sort. Dracontia are wholly the creation of Dr. Stukeley's very fertile
imagination.
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