Megalith
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Bronze age wedge tomb in the Burren area of Ireland |
A
megalith is a large
stone which has been used to construct a structure or monument either alone or with other stones.
Megalithic means made of such stones, but uses an interlocking system without the use of mortar or cement. The word
megalith comes from the
Ancient Greek megas meaning
large, and
lithos meaning
stone.
The term can be used to describe buildings erected by people from many parts of the world living in many different periods. In the early 20th century, some scholars believed that all megaliths belonged to one global "Megalithic culture" (
Hyperdiffusionism, e. g. by
Grafton Elliot Smith and
William James Perry), but this has long been disproved by modern dating methods.
Nabta Playa was once a large lake in the
Nubian Desert, located 500 miles south of modern day
Cairo [
1]. By the
5th millennium BC the peoples in Nabta Playa had fashioned the world's earliest known
astronomical device, 1000 years older than but comparable to
Stonehenge [
2].
Research shows it to be a prehistoric
calendar that accurately marks the
summer solstice [
3]. Findings indicate that the region was occupied only seasonally, likely only in the
summer when the local lake filled with water for grazing
cattle [
4], [
5].
In
Western Europe and the
Mediterranean, megaliths are generally constructions erected during the
Neolithic or late
stone age and
Chalcolithic or Copper Age (4500 - 1500 B.C.E).Perhaps the most famous megalithic structure is
Stonehenge in
England, although many others are known throughout the world.
The French
Comte de Caylus was the first to describe the
Carnac stones.
Legrand d'Aussy introduced the terms
menhir and
dolmen, both taken from the
Breton language, into antiquarian terminology. He interpreted megaliths as gallic tombs.
In Britain, the
antiquarians
Aubrey and
Stukeley conducted early research into megaliths. In
1805,
Jacques Cambry published a book called
Monuments celtiques, ou recherches sur le culte des Pierres, précédées d'une notice sur les Celtes et sur les Druides, et suivies d'Etymologie celtiques, where he proposed a
Celtic stone cult. This completely unfounded connection between
druids and megaliths has haunted the public imagination since.
In Belgium there is a megalithic site at Wéris, a little town situated in the
Ardennes. In the
Netherlands megalithic structures can be found in the north-east of the current, mostly in the province of
Drenthe.
|
Inside the burial chamber, Mane Braz |
Different megalithic structures include:
*
Dolmen: This is a free standing chamber consisting of standing stones covered by a capstone as a lid. They were used for burial and were covered by mounds.
*
Menhir: This is single standing stone.
*
Orthostat: This is an upright slab forming part of a larger structure.
*
Stone circle (or
cromlech in
Welsh)
*
Stone row*
Stone ship*
Taula: This is a straight standing stone, topped with another forming a 'T' shape.
*
Trilithon: Two parallel upright stones with a horizontal stone (called a lintel) placed on top, e.g. Stonehenge.
Main article: Megalithic tomb
Many megalithic monuments were burial mounds which were often re-used by different generations. The
chambered cairn is a common type of collective tomb. Some of these are
passage graves generally built of drystone walling and/or megaliths often with a round burial chamber in a round mound with a straight passage leading out.
Gallery graves have a long megalithic chamber with parallel sides often in a long mound with an entrance at one end.
Many megaliths were thought to have a purpose in determining important astronomical events such as the
solstice and
equinox dates (see
archaeoastronomy). Cup marks on megaliths have been thought by some to represent stars and thus to show the stellar orientation of megalithic sites.
There are even some modern megalithic structures. The
Coral Castle is an unusual stone structure created in the
1920s in
Homestead, Florida by
Edward Leedskalnin.
Other megaliths include:
*
Almendres Cromlech,
Alentejo,
Portugal.
*
Ale's Stones,
Skåne,
Sweden.
*
Bryn Celli Ddu,
Anglesey.
*
Carnac,
Brittany,
France.
*
Callanish stone circle, on
Lewis in the
Outer Hebrides.
*
Cueva de Menga,
Antequera,
Spain.
*
Easter Island.
*
Filitosa,
Corsica, France.
*
Ġgantija,
Gozo,
Malta, the oldest known free-standing structure.
*
Ħaġar Qim,
Malta.
*
Mnajdra,
Malta.
*
Newgrange,
Ireland.
*
Skara Brae,
Orkney,
Scotland.
*
Stanton Drew,
Somerset, UK.
*
Tarxien,
Malta.
*
Cloghanmore court tomb,
Donegal,
Ireland.
*
Talayots,
Balearic Islands.
*
Pre-historic art*
Monolith*
Dolmen*
Dolmens, Menhirs and Megaliths in the Languedoc in the South of France*
Dolmen Path - Russian Megaliths*
The Megalithic Portal and Megalith Map*
The Modern Antiquarian*
Pretanic World - Megaliths and Monuments
