Trevethy cromlech, in the parish of St. Cleer, Cornwall, has a hole perforating the capstone. The Maison des Fées at Grammont, in Hérault, has a hole bored through the head or western supporter. Another, now destroyed, was at Cahaignes, in Normandy. The covered avenue of Conflans now transferred to the fosse of the Musée, St. Germain, has not only the round hole bored in one upright, but also the stone that closed this opening.[45] Holes in like manner have been bored in the cromlechs of Avening and Rodmarton. Those in Circassia, in Palestine, and in India, have also holes. Colonel Meadows Taylor found that 1,100 dolmens out of 2,219 in the Dekhan had these holes in them. Similar holes have been observed in the dolmens of Sardinia. [Illustration: _Fig. 44._--DOLMEN WITH HOLE AND PLUG, IN THE CAUCASUS (_after Cartailhac_).] [Illustration: _Fig. 45._--DOLMEN IN THE CRIMEA, WITH HOLE IN THE SIDE (_after Cartailhac._)] In a majority of cases these holes will not serve the purpose of giving admission to the interior of the monument, though in some large enough. These megalithic structures were ossuaries; often, no doubt, the dead was laid in one as he had died; but in a great many cases, always where the dead had fallen in battle at a distance from the family mausoleum, his bones were cleaned of flesh and sinew before being brought to it. The bones bear marks of the scraper that cleared them of flesh, and they are not put together in correct position. In like manner the Landgrave Ludwig, husband of St. Elizabeth, died at Otranto, in 1227; his body was boiled to get the flesh off the bones, and then the bones alone were conveyed to Germany, to be interred at Eisenach. It has often been noticed that along with ordinary interments in barrows, incineration has been practised. This was probably another means of transporting the remains of those who had died at a distance from the family or clan burial mound. The holes in the dolmens[46] are in many cases too small to allow of anyone crawling through to carry within the remains of the last member of the family, who had succumbed and was to be placed in the dolmen. Some other explanation must be sought. [Illustration: _Fig. 46._--THE INNER INCOMPLETE CIRCLE, STONEHENGE, _restored_.] Now, it is remarkable that the circles of upright stones that enclose cairns and stone graves or kistvaens are rarely complete. They have been purposely made imperfect circles, with a gap or a stop in the circle; and we may ask whether the interruption in the circle has some meaning analogous to that of the hole in the stone chest.