What megalithic structures do you know? Natural megaliths or remains of ancient civilizations? Megalithic structures of the Middle East
Among the listed ruins, the ruins of the three walls (“fortress”) of Saxauman, about 600 m long, are of greatest interest. The first and second walls reach a height of 10 m, the third – 5 m. The lower (first) wall consists of andesite and diorite blocks weighing from 100 to 200 tons The largest of them measures 9 x 5 m x 4 m. The blocks of the second and third walls are slightly smaller than the blocks of the first tier.
But both of them are so precisely fitted to each other that it is impossible to insert even a knife blade between them. In addition, all blocks are polyhedra of rather complex shape. They were cut down in a quarry located 20 km from Sacsahuaman. Throughout these 20 km there areseveral gorges, steep ascents and descents!
Cusco
In Cusco there are remains of cyclopean walls made of huge stone blocks, also filigreely fitted to each other. One of these buildings is the Inca Palace.
Ollantaytambo
At Ollantaytambo, giant building blocks of andesite and pink porphyry are found in the base of the Temple of the Sun, the surviving fragments of the back wall and gate of the Temple of the 10 Niches, the "sacred area" (in scattered form) and the first row of terraces. They are also found in various hard-to-reach places in the river valley. Urubamba. Locals they call them “tired stones” (Spanish: piedras cansadas).
The website “Living Ethics in Germany” presents a truly fantastic hypothesis that the ancient builders of South American megalithic structures softened rocky matter to a jelly-like state with the help of their psychic energy. Then they cut it into huge blocks of arbitrary shape, transported them through the air to the building site using telekinesis, and there they laid them in the walls, fitting one to another through the same method of softening rock blocks into a plastic substance, giving them the desired shape on the spot. Only in this way can one explain the strange shape of the giant buildings of Ollantaytambo, the Inca Palace in Cusco, the walls of Sacsahuaman, the ruins of Tiahuanaco, the ahu pedestals on Easter Island and other similar buildings.
Read my work"Siddhi powers and reasons for the superhuman abilities of human predecessors"
Giant monolithic sculptures
South America and Easter Island
In addition to the ruins, an important part of the megalithic culture of South America are giant monolithic sculptures in Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, on the island. Easter, as well as "Olmec heads" in Mexico. The height of such sculptures reaches 7-10 m, and their weight is 20 tons or more. The height of the heads ranges from 2 to 3 m and weighs up to 40 tons.
Moai and ahu - megalithic structures of Easter Island
A particularly large number of sculptures - moai - are located on the island. Easter. There are 887 of them. The largest of them stand on a slopeRano Raraku volcano. They are neck-deep in sediments that have accumulated on the island over its long history. Some moai used to stand on stone pedestals - ahu. The total number of ahu exceeds 300. Their size ranges from several tens of meters to 200 m.
The largest moai “El Gigante” has a height of 21.6 m. It is located in the Rano Raraku quarry and weighs about 150 tons (according to other sources, 270 tons). The largest moai, Paro, standing on a pedestal, is located on the ahu Te Pito Kura. Its height reaches 10 m, and its weight is about 80 tons. The height of the moai scattered along the slope of the Rano Raraku volcano is also about 10 m.
Sculptures of human and animal heads on the Marcaguasi plateau
On a par with the ruins and giant sculptures you can put huge sculptures of human heads with features of Europeans and blacks, as well as images of monkeys, turtles, cows, horses, elephants, lions and camels on the Marcaguasi plateau in Peru, located at an altitude of about 4 km. At least two facts indicate the ancient age of these images. Firstly, the animals “engraved” on the plateau never lived at such a height. Secondly, most of them disappeared from the American continent long before Europeans appeared there - from 10-12 to 150-200 thousand years ago.
Stone balls made of granite and obsidian Central America and Mexico
Further evidence of the existence of highly developed civilizations in pre-Columbian America are stone balls made of granite and obsidian in Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala and the USA (New Mexico). Among them there are real giants with a diameter of up to 3 m.The determination of the absolute age of the Mexican obsidian balls showed that they were formedin the tertiary period "even before man appeared" (no later than 2 million years ago). Trying to find an explanation for this, the American scientist R. Smith hypothesized that they arose naturally from volcanic ash.
Megalithic structures Middle East
Baalbek in Lebanon
The ruins of megalithic structures and other ancient archaeological sites are known far beyond the borders of the American continent. The most magnificent of them are the ruins of Baalbek in Lebanon. The weight of each of the three stone blocks in Trilithon, located at the base of the Temple of Jupiter built by the ancient Romans, is 750 tons. The surfaces of the blocks are perfectly processed, and their dimensions are simply amazing: 19.1 x 4.3 x 5.6 m. Moreover, these monoliths are located... at an eight-meter height! They rest on slightly smaller blocks.
Half a kilometer south of the Temple of Jupiter from the earth at an angle of 30 hail sticks out the world's largest processed stone - Southern or Mother - weighing about 1200 tons and measuring 21.5 x 4.8 x 4.2 m
The author of the books “Gods of the New Millennium” and “The Way of the Phoenix,” Alan Alford, asked heavy-duty crane specialists whether it was possible to lift such a huge thing. They answered in the affirmative, but added that it would be possible to move with the block only if the crane was put on crawler tracks and a good road was made. This means that the builders of the foundation of Baalbek had a similar technique?
In the stone circle of an ancient cemetery, in a place of worship of old, forgotten and eternal gods, pulsating with ancient magic and power, the Wall Crawler raised his hands and a bloody knife. And he screamed. Jubilantly. Wild. Inhuman.
Everything around froze in horror.
Andrzej Sapkowski "God's Warriors"
Among the windy heaths, above the heather, under the low, restless sky - hieroglyphs on gray stone. Worn out by time, lost, alien to our world, thrown into it from another, unknown reality, separated by the abyss of centuries. Carrying the stamp of eternity, the wreckage of forgotten eras has survived more than one generation of legends, in which there is no longer a drop of truth. But still filled with strange strength and invincible greatness. Awe-inspiring even now. Megaliths.
Megaliths (“big stones”) are usually called prehistoric structures made of huge stone blocks connected without the use of mortar. But this definition is very imprecise. A significant part of archaeological sites classified as megaliths are not, in the strict sense, structures at all, since they consist of a single monolith or several slabs not connected to each other.
In addition, the stones of megalithic buildings are not always large. Finally, some buildings built already in the historical time, but either using cyclopean blocks (Temple of Jupiter in Baalbek) or without using a solution (Machu Picchu in Peru, 16th century).
What then unites the megaliths? Perhaps monumental and an aura of mystery. Megalith is the creation of a departed, often nameless people. This is a message from the unimaginably distant “pre-legendary” past. Monument to an unknown builder.
ETERNAL STONES
Alien, surreal, and contrary to all known principles of architecture, the appearance of megaliths feeds the vast “modern mythology” full of Atlanteans, Hyperboreans and other representatives of highly developed civilizations that have sunk into oblivion. But there are at least two reasons not to take such speculation seriously. Firstly, they still do not provide a clear explanation for the appearance of megaliths. Secondly, the real secrets of history are more interesting than the imaginary ones.
The simplest megaliths, those that cannot yet be considered structures, include the sacred stones of seida and menhirs - oblong, roughly processed blocks vertically stuck into the ground, broken off from the rock. A little later they are replaced by orthostats, distinguished by their flat shape and the presence of at least one carefully smoothed edge on which magical signs were drawn or carved.
Single menhirs and seids, as a rule, served as objects of worship. Sacrifices were made near the largest Rudston monolith in England, 7.6 meters high, decorated with fossilized dinosaur tracks. On the plains, glacial blocks always attracted attention and, quite possibly, could be considered the house of the spirit or the weapon of the ancestor. Smaller menhirs usually served as tombstones for leaders. In any case, it was for this purpose that the last of them under the camera was installed at the beginning of the last century in Indonesia. The largest cluster of 3,000 orthostats is the Carnac Stones in Brittany, a prehistoric cemetery.
In some cases, menigirs were placed in a group, forming a circle of cromlechs marking the boundaries of the cult place. Often, in the center of the decorative fence, a platform lined with stone was found, on which the bodies of the dead were burned or animals and captives were sacrificed. Ceremonies, meetings, celebrations and other public events could also be held here. Cults changed. Cromlechs are more durable than religions.
The use of megalithic structures as observatories is also possible. To accurately determine the position of the Moon and the Sun (from the shadow), unshakable landmarks were required. Menhirs placed in a circle fulfilled this role. It should be noted that in the Middle Ages, observatories had a similar structure.
Already in ancient times, people sought diversity and were not afraid of experiments. An epochal step forward, a real breakthrough in stone architecture, were thauls - structures made of a large stone mounted on a small one. Then trilithons appeared - arches of three stones - the beauty and pride of Stonehenge. The stability and durability of these structures led primitive builders to the idea of building dolmens - the first stone buildings in human history.
There are a lot of mysteries associated with dolmens, as well as with other simple megaliths. For example, they can never be associated with any specific archaeological culture - that is, with an ancient people whose migrations are tracked by scientists using characteristic ceramics, arrowheads and other finds. The stone does not reveal the age of the building and does not say anything about the creators. Determining the date of the appearance of a dolmen, as a rule, is possible only with an accuracy of several centuries. And during such a period of time, the population of the country changed more than once. The artifacts discovered in and around the structure do not say anything, since it is known that megaliths, passing from hand to hand, remained “in use” for thousands of years.
What can also be quite puzzling is the fact that similar, almost identical megaliths are scattered over a huge area - from the Caucasus to Portugal and from the Orkney Islands to Senegal. In this regard, even a version was put forward about a certain “dolmen culture”, whose representatives once inhabited all these territories. But the hypothesis was not confirmed. No traces of such people were found. Moreover, it was discovered that the age of two identical dolmens located next to each other can differ by a couple of thousand years.
In fact, the similarities of dolmens different countries is explained by the fact that the idea lying on the surface naturally occurred to many people. Any child could make a “house” by placing four flat stones on an edge and placing a fifth one on top of them. Or cover the hole in the stone with a flat block (trough-shaped dolmen). Admiring his creation, the young architect grew up, became a leader and encouraged his fellow tribesmen to build a life-size structure.
One thing can be said with certainty: the appearance of the first megaliths is associated with the transition of the population to a sedentary lifestyle. Wandering hunters had no desire to move the boulders they encountered during migrations. And the groups of people were too small to carry out large-scale work. The first farmers had the opportunity to engage in capital construction. The only thing missing was experience. And for a long time they couldn’t think of anything better than digging two stones into the ground and placing a third on them.
Apparently, the dolmens were crypts. In some of them the remains of hundreds of people were found. The decayed bones formed layer after layer, and new graves were dug right in the resulting mass. Other dolmens are completely empty. Probably, over the past millennia, someone took the trouble to clean them out.
| Path in the labyrinth | |
| A special category of megaliths are flat cairns - lines or drawings laid out from small stones. This includes numerous “stone boats” - Viking burials made in the shape of a ship outlined by boulders, and a unique “stone eagle” - an image of a bird with outstretched wings, created by an unknown tribe of North American Indians. But the most famous flat cairns are “labyrinths”, found in Scandinavia, Finland, England, northern Russia and even on Novaya Zemlya. Rows of stones form an intricate, spiraling path. These are the least noticeable and, at the same time, extremely impressive megaliths. For the labyrinth is a powerful symbol that weaves together reality. The path to the land of spirits is winding. Who left these stone seals, unsolved signs on the northern, meager land? Like most megaliths, labyrinths are anonymous. Sometimes they are associated with the proto-Sami tribes, but the Sami themselves know nothing about spirals. In addition, labyrinths are widespread far beyond the boundaries of the settlement of the ancestors of this people. The Nenets have a separate opinion on this issue, who consider the flat cairns to be the work of the Sirtya - a short, stocky people of blacksmiths who have long gone underground. |
But sooner or later, building simple stone boxes ceased to be satisfying. The dolmen is impressive enough to glorify an individual clan, but not enough to become the pride and cult center of an entire tribal union. People already wanted more. At least just in size.
Individual dolmens began to line up in a long corridor, often with side branches. Sometimes two corridors connected by passages were built. Natural slabs were difficult to match in shape, and for the construction of “walls” masonry began to be used, as in composite dolmens, or solid polished blocks, as in tiled ones.
But even in this case, the structure did not seem majestic enough. Therefore, a colossal cairn was poured on top of the “multi-series” dolmens - an artificial structure in the form of a pile of stones. In order to prevent the pyramid from settling, it was “propped up” with a ring of orthostats along its perimeter. If there was more than one belt, the result was something similar to a ziggurat. The scale of Neolithic gigantomania can be judged by the fact that such structures, which had long ago taken the form of sloping hills, were in modern times operated as quarries for decades before workers discovered the internal chambers.
The most impressive of the Neolithic monuments are now called “corridor tombs” or “megalithic temples.” But the same structure could combine functions or change them over time. In any case, the mounds were poorly suited for rituals. It was too crowded inside. Therefore, cairns continued to coexist with cromlechs until people learned to build real temples, under the arches of which not only priests, but also believers could fit.
The era of megaliths, which began in prehistoric times, has no clear boundaries. It did not end, but only gradually faded away as construction technologies improved. Even in relatively later eras, when the methods of constructing an arch became known, and buildings were built from cut stone and brick, the demand for giant blocks did not disappear. They continued to be used, but rather as a decorative element. And even knowing how to fasten stones with mortar, architects did not always find it necessary to do this. After all, polished stones, fitted to each other, equipped with protrusions and grooves, looked better. Finally, even an unprocessed block sometimes turned out to be in place. The boulder that serves as the base for the equestrian statue of Peter I in St. Petersburg is a typical megalith.
| Titan Towers | |
| Scottish Borchs and Mediterranean Nuraghes are relatively late megaliths, dating back to the Bronze Age. They are towers made of small unprocessed stones without the use of mortar. And the fact that many of these structures, held together only by the weight of the material, still stand today evokes great respect for the builders. The creation of the Borkhs is attributed to the Picts, and the Nuraghes to the Chardins. But both versions are not indisputable. In addition, all that remains of these peoples themselves are the names given to them by foreign chroniclers. The origins and customs of the Picts and Chardins are unknown. And this makes it even more difficult to unravel the purpose of numerous (more than 30,000 nuraghes were built in Sardinia alone) but non-functional structures. Brochs resemble fortifications, but were hardly used for defense because they did not have loopholes and could not accommodate a sufficient number of defenders. They did not light a fire, did not live in them, did not bury the dead and did not store supplies. The objects found in the towers belong almost exclusively to the Celts, who settled Scotland centuries later and tried to come up with some use for the towers. However, they were no more successful than archaeologists. |
SECRETS OF THE BIG STONE
The question remains “how”. How did people deliver huge stones without heavy equipment, how did they lift them, how did they cut them? It is these mysteries that inspire the authors of alternative hypotheses. Which, however, is based on a banal lack of imagination. It is difficult for an unprepared person to imagine how barbarians use stone tools to hew a giant block and manually set it in place. Anyone can imagine how the Atlanteans who have disappeared to who knows where are doing all this for unknown reasons and in an unknown way is within the power of anyone.
But the alternative reasoning contains a fundamental flaw. With cranes and diamond saws, we do not use huge stone monoliths. This is irrational. More convenient materials are now available. Megaliths were built by people who were simply not yet capable of building otherwise.
The stone is really difficult to work with other stone or copper. Therefore, only in the Iron Age did they begin to build from relatively compact hewn “bricks”. After all, the smaller the block, the larger its relative surface. So the Egyptians did not at all seek to complicate their work by using one-and-a-half and two-ton blocks to build the pyramids, which, of course, were not easy to transport and lift. On the contrary, they made it as easy as possible. After all, with the reduction of blocks, the costs of their production would increase sharply, but transportation costs would decrease slightly.
The same weight would have to be transferred. The creators of megaliths thought the same way.
Assessing the complexity of a task “by eye” often leads to mistakes. It seems that the work of the builders of Stonehenge was enormous, but, obviously, the costs of constructing the smallest of the Egyptian and Mesoamerican pyramids were incomparably higher. In turn, all the pyramids of Egypt taken together took four times less labor than the canal alone - a 700-kilometer “understudy” of the Nile bed. This was truly a large-scale project! The Egyptians built the pyramids in free time. For the soul.
Was it difficult to trim and sand a 20-ton slab? Yes. But every peasant or hunter in the Stone Age, during his life, in between cases, in the evenings making the necessary tools, brought about 40 square meters of stone to an almost mirror shine, choosing, if possible, the hardest rocks: only diamond cannot be processed by chipping and grinding on wet sand .
It seems difficult to deliver huge stones not only without equipment, but also without horses, even without a wheel. Meanwhile, under Peter I, frigates were transported along the route of the future White Sea Canal in this way. Peasants and soldiers pulled the ships along wooden rails, placing wooden rollers on them. Moreover, the cargo had to be dragged onto multi-meter cliffs more than once. In such cases, it was necessary to build a mantel, and sometimes use counterweights in the form of cages with stones. But when giving the order, the king probably did not think long, since we were talking about a completely ordinary operation. The Spaniards also thought it was faster and safer to drag galleons from Caribbean Sea V Pacific Ocean across the Isthmus of Panama rather than driving them around Cape Horn.
Valuable information was provided by a study of Maltese megalithic temples, one of which was suddenly abandoned during construction. Everything that workers usually took with them - stone rollers and sleds - remained in place. Even drawings have been preserved that looked like a miniature model of the structure (this is how they built it - from a model, not from paper - until the 18th century). In addition, in Malta, and later in other megalith-rich regions, “stone rails” were discovered - parallel grooves left by repeated rolling of round stones under heavy sleds.
| Hobby holes |
| The megalithic structures of Skara Brae are unique primarily in that they are residential. Typically, Neolithic people built houses from eternal stone only for the dead. But Scotland at that time was the northern outpost of agriculture. So the surprisingly short people, smaller than the pygmies, who decided to settle on this harsh land, had to dig in conscientiously. The lack of wood also had its effect. The “hobbits” could only rely on logs brought by the sea waves. Other interesting feature these megaliths - in their masonry there is little that would deserve the epithet “mega”. The stones are mostly small. The houses were clearly built by one family, who were unable to deliver a monolithic dolmen slab to the site and install it on the structure. The “hobbit” roofs were made of wood and turf. But in each room there were several miniature megaliths - stone stools and whatnots. |
But still, wasn’t the work too much? Was it really necessary for unknown barbarians to complicate their already difficult life by delivering and lifting 50-ton blocks of Stonehenge? And not for the sake of profit, but for beauty, for fame. Realizing that the arches of the cult center can be made of wood.
The inhabitants of Neolithic England thought not too much. The Romans thought the same thing, using record-breaking, unimaginable 800-ton blocks in Baalbek, although they could have easily gotten by with ordinary ones. The Incas agreed with them, cutting intricate puzzles out of stone to assemble the walls of Machu Picchu. Megalithic buildings amaze the imagination even now. They struck him then too. They hit much harder. With their work, the builders glorified the deity, and a little - themselves. And considering that they achieved their goals - although their names are forgotten, their glory, having survived the birth and end of many civilizations, thunders through the millennia - can we say that the work was too great?
On the contrary, it was a very economical solution.
| What to play? |
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1) Menhirs (from the Celtic word menhir) - one of the types of megalithic monuments in the form of individual vertically placed stones, sometimes forming parallel rows several kilometers long; found in Brittany (France), England and Scandinavia; on the territory of the USSR - in the Caucasus and Siberia.
2) Dolmens (from the Breton words tol - table, and men - stone) - structures of the Neolithic, Bronze and Early Iron Ages * in the form of huge stones, placed on edge and covered with a massive slab on top; found in Europe, India and other countries; in the USSR - in the Caucasus and Crimea; they had not only funeral, but also religious and magical significance.
*) Neolithic era - the last era of the Stone Age: 6-5 millennium BC. - 2nd millennium BC Characterized by a settled population, the emergence of cattle breeding and agriculture, and the invention of ceramics; stone tools are well polished; a variety of products made of bone and wood; spinning and weaving appear. Ancient bronze is an alloy of copper and tin; deposits of these metals are rare in nature, therefore bronze was highly valued and was accessible to few - along with bronze products, people continued to use stone tools, until the 7th century BC, when they began to mine iron from bog and other ores widely distributed in nature. Iron turned out to be an inexpensive and widely available metal of high quality; it soon replaced bronze products and became firmly established in the life of the peoples of the Old World. The Iron Age began.
3) Cromlechs (from the Breton words crom circle and lech - stone) are structures of the Neolithic era and mainly of the Bronze Age in the form of round fences made of huge stone blocks and pillars (up to 6-7 meters in height); found in Europe, Asia and America; most of them are in Western France (Brittany) and England; they certainly had religious and magical significance.
In the southern Russian steppes, until recently, cromlechs were preserved, encircling many mounds of the Yamsk culture of the 3rd millennium BC. This is a belt of large stone blocks or slabs placed on edge, with a diameter of up to 20 meters. According to academician A.A. Formozov, slabs of such a cromlech near the village of Verbovka in the Dnieper region, dragged 60 kilometers from near Chigirin, were covered with various geometric patterns. Once upon a time, a wooden tent rested on this stone ornamental frieze, and the earthen and turf foundation of the entire structure was hidden in the depths."
Cromlechs are structures of great antiquity, from various countries and peoples. H. P. Blavatsky in her "Secret Doctrine" mentions "a mysterious people who built circles of stones in Galilee and covered Neolithic flints in the Jordan Valley."
Both Western European and Russian researchers worked thoroughly on the study of megaliths, all of them have long been registered and described in detail in the scientific literature; a map of dolmens around the world has even been compiled. But little is still known about the occult significance of megaliths, and this information is often contradictory. It is impossible to use all the existing literature for a short article, so we must give preference to just a few serious fundamental works that deserve the greatest confidence. Such a work for us, esotericists, is, first of all, the “Secret Doctrine” of H. P. Blavatsky, in the second volume of which a thorough description is given of the most outstanding megalithic structures in many countries ancient world and their occult significance is explained. Therefore, we will use the material collected by H. P. Blavatsky and supplement it with information from other also reliable and trustworthy sources. Here is what H. P. Blavatsky writes about megalithic structures:
"The modern archaeologist, although he will speculate ad infinitum about dolmens and their builders, actually knows nothing about them or their origin. Nevertheless, these strange and often colossal monuments of rough stones, usually consisting of four or seven gigantic blocks, placed side by side, scattered in groups or rows throughout Asia, Europe, America and Africa. Stones of enormous size are placed horizontally and variously on two, three or four blocks, and in Poitou on six or seven. the devil", druidic stones and the graves of giants. The stones of Carnac at Morbigan, Brittany (France), stretching for almost a mile and numbering up to 11,000 stones distributed in rows, are twin brothers of the stones at Stonehenge (England). The conical menhir at Loch Mariaker at Morbihan it measures 20 yards in length and about two yards across. The menhir at Champ Dolen (near Saint-Malo) rises thirty feet above the ground and goes fifteen feet underground. Similar dolmens and prehistoric monuments are found at almost every latitude. They are found in the Mediterranean reservoir; in Denmark among the local mounds from twenty to thirty-five feet in height; in Scotland, in Sweden, where they are called Ganggriften (or graves with corridors); in Germany, where they are known as the graves of giants (Günen-greb); in Spain, where the Antiguera dolmen is located near Malaga; in Africa; in Palestine and Algeria; in Sardinia, together with Nuraghi and Sepolture dei Giganta or tombs of giants; in Malabar, in India, where they are called the graves of Daityas and Rakshasas, demon people from Lanka... in Peru and Bolivia, where they are called Chul-pa or burial places, and so on. There is no country in which they are absent."
In this passage from The Secret Doctrine, let us pay attention to the fact that people call megaliths the thrones of the devil and Druid stones. Of course, megaliths have never had and have nothing to do with evil, dark forces, and if people call them “thrones of the devil,” this only indicates that in ancient times they were associated with religious and magical actions and ceremonies, because under influence christian church all pre-Christian beliefs and rituals began to be considered pagan, devilish. As for “Druidic stones,” then, of course, not all megaliths are called such, but only those erected on the territory of ancient Gaul, spiritually nourished by the Druids. All megalithic structures that have survived to this day in France were once erected by the hands of the ancient Gauls, and in England by the hands of the ancient Britons, under the instructions and under the leadership of the Druids.
It has been established that most of the surviving megalithic structures such as dolmens, both in Europe and on other continents, are related to the funeral cult: during excavations in or near the dolmens, human bones or urns with ashes are found. But E.P. Blavatsky also drew attention to the fact that not all megalithic (or in her terminology, Cyclopean) structures were intended for tombs. According to her, "it is certain that the two famous mounds, one in the Mississippi Valley and the other in Ohio, respectively known as the Alligator Mound and the other as the Great Serpent Mound, were never intended for graves. The following is a description from one scientific work: “The first of these animals (the alligator) is drawn with considerable skill, and it is no less than 260 feet in length... The interior is a pile of stones, over which a form has been sculpted from thin, hard clay. The Great Serpent is depicted with open mouth at the moment of swallowing the egg, the diameter of which was 100 feet at its widest part, the body of the animal bends in grandiose convolutions and the tail is coiled into a spiral. The entire length of the animal is 1100 feet. This is a masterful creation, one of a kind... and there is nothing on the Old Continent that would represent any analogy to it,” however, with the exception of its symbol of the Serpent (Cycle of Time) swallowing an egg (Cosmos).
E.P. Blavatsky is certainly right: in ancient times, megalithic structures were erected not only as tombs of ancestors, but also had a higher purpose, for example, religious and religious-magical, as occult centers, a kind of “radio station” (for international communication initiates, for performing cosmic mysteries, etc.). We must not forget that in ancient times, not only in the Paleolithic, but also in the Neolithic era, man was closer to nature than now, he was in a living, indissoluble connection with it, then the mineral kingdom stood closer to the human world, between man and stones there was contact and even a kind of mutual understanding.
H.P. Blavatsky in the second volume of her “Secret Doctrine” refers to the extensive work of De Mirville: “Memoires adressees aux Academies”, which contains historical evidence that in ancient times, in the days of miracles, both pagan and biblical stones moved, spoke, uttered prophecies and even sang... In “Achaica” we see how Pausanias admits that at the beginning of his work he considered the Greeks very stupid for their “worship of stones.” But when he reached Arcadia, he adds: "I changed my mind." Therefore, without any worship of stones or stone idols and statues, which is one and the same thing - a crime for which the Catholics of the Roman Church foolishly reproach the pagans - one can be allowed to believe in what so many great philosophers and holy men believed in, without deserving the nickname "idiot" from modern Pausanias.
The reader is invited to contact the Academie des Inscriptions if he wishes to study the various properties of flints and stones from the point of view of magical and psychic powers. In the poem about the Stones, attributed to Orpheus, these stones are divided into ophites and siderites, into the “Snake Stone” and the “Star Stone”.
“The Ophite is rough, hard, heavy, black and has the gift of speech: when thrown, it makes a sound like the cry of a child. It was through this stone that Helenius predicted the death of Troy, his homeland.”
Sanchuniathon and Philo of Byblos, speaking of these “betyles,” call them “animate stones.” Photius repeats what Damascius, Asclepiades, Isidore and the physician Eusebius asserted before him. In particular, Eusebius never parted with his ophite, which he wore on his chest and received prophecies from it, transmitted to him “in a quiet voice, reminiscent of a light whistle.” Of course, this is the same as the “still small voice” heard by Elijah after the earthquake at the entrance to the cave.
Arnobius, a holy man who “from a pagan became one of the lights of the church,” as Christians tell their readers, confesses that when he encountered one of these stones, he could never resist asking him a question, “to which he sometimes received answer in a clear and distinct voice." Where, then, is the difference between a Christian and a pagan ophite, we ask?
The famous stone at Westminster was called Liafail, the "speaking stone," and it raised its voice only to name the king to be chosen. Cambree, in his work "Celtic Monuments," says that he saw it when it still had the inscription:
Ni fallat fatum, Scoti quocumque locatum Invenient lapidem, regnasse tenentur ibidem. Rocking stones or "logan" have various names: such as clacha-brath among the Celts, "stone of fate or judgment"; the prophecy stone or "test stone", and the stone oracle; the moving or animate stone of the Phoenicians; grumbling stone of the Irish. The Bretons have their "swinging stones" in Huelgoat "e. They are found in the Old and New Worlds; in the British Isles, France, Italy, Russia, Germany, etc., as well as in North America. (See " Letters from North America" Hodson, vol. II, p. 440). Pliny mentions several of these in Asia. ("Natural History", vol. I, p. 96). And Apollonius of Rhodes expands on rocking stones and says that they are "stones set on the top of the Mound, and so sensitive are they that thought can set them in motion" (Ackerman, "Art. Index", p. 34), no doubt referring to the ancient priests who moved such stones by will at a distance.
Finally, Svid speaks of a certain Herescus, who could, at one glance, distinguish motionless stones from those that were endowed with movement. And Pliny mentions stones that “ran away when a hand touched them” (See Abbot Bertrand’s “Dictionary of Religions”).
H. P. Blavatsky draws attention to the ruins of Stonehenge, where, according to her, there are real forests of rocks - huge monoliths, some of them weigh about 500,000 kilograms. There is an assumption that these "hanging" stones in the Salisbury valley represent the remains of a Druid temple. They are distributed in such a symmetrical order that they represent a planisphere. They are set on such a remarkable point of balance that they seem to scarcely touch the ground, and although they can be set in motion by the slightest touch of a finger, yet they would not yield to the efforts of twenty men if they attempted to move them.
H. P. Blavatsky considers most of these monoliths to be relics of the last Atlanteans and disputes the opinion of geologists who claim their natural origin: as if the rocks were weathered, i.e. under atmospheric influences they lose layer after layer of their substance and take on this form; these are the "mountain peaks" in Western England. All scientists believe that all these "swaying stones owe their origin to natural causes, wind, rain, etc., causing the destruction of rocky layers" and strongly reject the statement of H. P. Blavatsky, especially for the reason that according to their observation, “This process of changing rocks continues around us to this day.” Therefore, this issue needs to be thoroughly studied.
Geologists admit that often these gigantic blocks of stone are completely alien to the places where they are now located and belong to rocks that are found only far beyond the seas and are completely unknown in the places where they are now found.
"William Tooke, discussing the huge blocks of granite scattered in Southern Russia and Siberia, says that where they are now there are no rocks or mountains, and that they had to be brought “from afar with the help of fabulous efforts.” Charton speaks of a sample of such rock from Ireland, which was analyzed by a famous English geologist, who determined its origin was foreign, perhaps even African.
This is a strange coincidence, for Irish tradition attributes the origin of its round stones to a sorcerer who brought them from Africa. De Mirville sees in this sorcerer the “damned Hamite.” We see in him only an Atlantean, or perhaps even one of the early Lemurians who survived before the birth of the British Isles.
"Dr. John Watson, speaking of the moving rocks or "swinging stones" placed on the slope of Golkar ("Sorcerer"), says: "The amazing movement of these blocks, set in balance, caused the Celts to equate them with gods." Flinders Petrie's work "Stonehenge" states that: "Stonehenge is built of stone located in the area of red sandstone or sarsen stone, locally called "gray rams." But some of the stones, especially those said to be of astronomical significance, were brought from afar, probably from Northern Ireland."
In conclusion, it is worth citing the thoughts on this issue of one scientist in an article published in 1850 in the Archaeological Review: “Each stone is a block, the weight of which would test the most powerful machines. In a word, there are blocks scattered throughout to the globe, blocks, at the sight of which the imagination is confused and the designation of which by the word materials seems meaningless; they should be called names corresponding to these communities. Moreover, these huge, swinging stones, sometimes called Pouters, placed at one end on a point of such perfect balance that the slightest touch is enough to set them in motion... reveal the most positive knowledge of statics. Mutual opposition, surface and plane, convex and concave in turn - all this connects them with Cyclopean structures, about which it can be said with sufficient grounds, repeating the words of De la Vega, that “apparently demons worked more on them than people ".
And further H. P. Blavatsky writes: “We do not intend to touch upon the various traditions associated with swinging stones. However, it may not be a bad idea to remind the reader of Giraldus Cambrenzis, who mentions the same stone on the island of Mona, which returned to its place, despite to all efforts to keep it in another. During the conquest of Ireland by Henry II., Count Hugo Sestrenzis, wanting to personally verify the truth of this fact, tied the stone of Mona to a much larger stone and ordered them to be thrown into the sea. The next morning the stone was found in its usual place. place. The scientist William Salisbury confirms this fact, testifying to the presence of this stone in the church, where he saw it in 1554. This reminds us of what Pliny says about the stone left by the Argonauts in Sizicum and which the inhabitants of Sizicum placed in the Prytheneum. , “from which he escaped several times, so that they must have weighed him down with lead.” But here we are dealing with huge stones, attested by all antiquity as “living, moving, speaking and self-moving.” They also apparently could put people to flight, for they were called "routers", from the word "rout" or "to put to flight." De Musso points out that they were all prophecy stones and were sometimes called "mad stones."
The rocking stone is recognized by science. But why does it swing? One would have to be blind not to see that this movement was another means of divination and that for this reason they were called “stones of truth.” (De Mirville, ibid., p. 291).
Richardson and Barth are said to have been amazed to find in the Sahara Desert the same trilithons and raised stones that they had encountered in Asia, the Caucasus, Circassia, Etruria and throughout Northern Europe. Rivett-Carnac of Allahabad, a renowned archaeologist, expresses the same amazement after reading the descriptions given by Sir J. Simpson of cup marks on stones and rocks in England, Scotland and other Western countries, "showing an extraordinary resemblance to the signs on the boulders that surrounded the mounds near Nagpur - the City of Snakes. The outstanding scientist saw in this "another and very unusual addition to the whole mass of evidence that a branch of nomadic tribes, which in an ancient era passed through Europe, also penetrated into India." "We say, Lemuria, Atlantis and its Giants and the earliest races of the Fifth Root Race, all had a hand in the construction of these betyls, litas and generally "magic stones." The bowl-shaped marks noted by Sir J. Simpson, and the "recesses cut into the surface" of rocks and monuments found by Rivett-Carnac, "of various sizes from six inches to one and a half inches in diameter and from one to one and a half inches in depth, usually placed along perpendicular lines, showing numerous variations in the number and size and distribution of cups" - are simply the recorded records of the most ancient races. Whoever carefully examines the drawings made from the same signs in the "Archaeological Notes on Ancient Inscriptions on Rocks in Kumaon, India", etc., will find in them the most primitive style of notes or recordings. Something similar was adopted by the American inventors of the Morse telegraph code, which reminds us of the Ogham letter, a combination of long and short lines, as Rivette-Carnac describes it, “carved into sandstone.” Sweden, Norway and Scandinavia are full of similar recorded records, for Runic letters resemble signs, in the form of a bowl and long and short lines. In the Tome of Johannes Magnus one can see the image of a demigod, the giant Starhaterus (Starkad, a student of Hrosaharsgrani, a magician), who holds under each hand a huge stone with runic inscriptions on it. This Starkad, according to Scandinavian legends, went to Ireland and performed wonderful feats in the North and South, East and West. (See "Azgard and the Gods", pp. 218-221).
This is history, for the past of prehistoric times testifies to the same fact in later centuries. Dracontia, dedicated to the Moon and the Serpent, were the most ancient “rocks of fate” of the oldest peoples; and their movement or swing was a completely clear code for the initiated priests, who alone possessed the keys to this ancient method of reading. Vormius and Olaus Magnus show that it was by order of the oracle, whose voice spoke through “those huge blocks of stone, raised by the colossal power of the (ancient) giants,” that the kings of Scandinavia were elected. So, Pliny says:
“In India and Persia, it was from her (the Persian Otisoe) that the magicians had to seek advice when electing their rulers.” (Pliny - “Natural History”, 37, 54). And further Pliny describes a block of stone over Kharpasa in Asia, and installed in such a way that “the touch of one finger can set it in motion, while it cannot be moved from its place by the entire weight of the body.” (Ibid., 2, 38). Why, then, could not the rocking stones of Ireland, or at Brimham, in Yorkshire, serve for the same methods of divination and prophetic messages? The largest among them are obviously relics of the Atlanteans; the smaller ones, like the rocks of Bringham, with rotating stones on their tops, are copies of older stones. If in the Middle Ages the bishops had not destroyed all the plans of Dracontia that only they could lay their hands on, science would have known more about these stones. But nevertheless we know that they were in general use throughout many prehistoric centuries, and they all served the same purpose, for divination and magical purposes. E. Biot, a member of the Institute of France, published an article in the "Antiquites de France" (Vol. IX) proving the identity in the location of Chatamperamba ("Field of Death" or ancient burial places in Malabar) with the ancient tombs at Karnak; that is, that they have "an elevation into the central grave."
Esotericists know that in ancient times initiates of all nations, including the Slavic Magi, traveled a lot and visited occult and religious centers of other, often very distant countries. H. P. Blavatsky writes about such travels of Egyptian priests - initiates; According to her, there are records that they “traveled northwards overland, along a path that later became the Strait of Gibraltar, then turned north and passed through the future settlements of the Phoenicians in southern Gaul; then further north until they reached Karnaca (Morbigan), and then they turned West again and arrived, continuing to go overland to the northwestern cape of the New Continent,” to that land “that is now the British Isles, which were then not yet separated from the main continent of the Ancients. residents of Picardy could cross into Great Britain without crossing the canal. British Isles were connected to Gaul by an isthmus, which has since been covered by waters."
H. P. Blavatsky poses the question: what was the purpose of the long journey of the Egyptian priests? And how far back should the time of such visits be taken? According to her, “archaic records indicate that initiates of the second sub-race of the Aryan family moved from one country to another for the purpose of overseeing the construction of menhirs and dolmens, colossal Zodiacs made of stones, as well as tomb sites that were to serve as receptacles for the ashes of future generations. When did this happen? The fact of their passage from France to Great Britain by land can give an idea of the time when such a journey could have been made by land.”
This was when "the level of the Baltic and North Seas was 400 feet higher than at present. The Somne Valley did not yet exist to the depth that it has now reached; Sicily was connected to Africa, the Barbary possessions to Spain, Carthage, the pyramids of Egypt, the palaces of Uxamala and Palenque did not yet exist, and the brave sailors of Tire and Sidon, who in later times were destined to make their dangerous journeys along the coast of Africa, have not yet been born. We only know with certainty that European man was a contemporary of the extinct species of the Quaternary era.
"The above-mentioned journeys of the Egyptian initiates, namely, had to do with the so-called Druidic remains, like Karnak in Brittany and Stonehenge in Great Britain. And all these gigantic monuments are symbolic records of world history. They are not Druidical, but universal. Also, it was not the Druids who built them, for they were only the heirs of the legends about the Cyclops, bequeathed to them by generations of powerful builders and “magicians, both good and bad.”
This is what H. P. Blavatsky writes. It also recalls the striking similarities between the ancient colossal buildings in Peru (for example, at Kuenlap) with the architecture of the archaic European peoples. According to her, the similarity between the ruins of the Inca civilization and the Cyclopean remains of the Pelasgians in Italy and Greece is not a mere coincidence - there is a certain connection between them, which can be explained simply by the origin of the groups of peoples who erected these structures from one common center on the Atlantic continent.
The above information about ancient megalithic structures from the “Secret Doctrine” of H. P. Blavatsky is very interesting and significant, but not complete. Therefore, let us supplement them with some data on megaliths that have survived to this day in eastern and southern Asia and on the territory of the USSR.
In eastern Indochina, in Upper Laos on the Channing plateau, megalithic structures - concentric rows of monolithic stones - are still preserved. According to M. Kolani, the Puok people living on this plateau claim that these megaliths served as a meeting place for the Kha Tuongs, and the central stone was occupied by the supreme leader. About who the Kha-Thuongs were, Kolani cites a legend widespread in Upper Laos:
"The Kxia-tuongs were the ancestors of the kings of the country. Having been defeated by the Thais, descending from Tibet, they went south and ended up in the region between Bandon and Annam. Their descendants became the kings of water and fire. The first lives in Patao-Ya, the second in Patao -Lum.* All Kha consider these kings to be the descendants of the ancient Jarai kings and revere them.
This legend tells about events of ancient times. It is significant that the myths about the kings of water and fire are supplemented by the peoples of eastern Indochina with a whole series of legends about migrations from the distant North, during which the people were led by sorcerers armed with magic swords and who brought with them the foundations of the megalithic cult and ideas of power. Similar legends about the arrival from the distant North were preserved among other Indonesian peoples of eastern Indochina: the Rade, the Jarai and others. Unfortunately, the legends do not contain precise instructions about the route of these migrations; only the arrival from the north along the Mekong is mentioned.
*) The etymology of the Jarayan term “patao” is significant. According to the scientist S. Meyer, this word means not only “king”, but also “stone”. Therefore, the Jarai kings are primarily the guardians of the sacred stone in which the spirit of Yang Patao resides. The word "Yang" actually means "spirit".
In her work on the megaliths of Laos, M. Kolani did not resolve the issue of the ethnicity of the builders of the megaliths, but this is not of significant importance for us; the main thing is that she rightly considers the megaliths of Laos to be one of the stages of megalithic migration and, based on the finds of iron objects accompanying them, dates them to the first centuries of our era, i.e. a time slightly preceding Indian influence in Indochina.
Ancient megaliths, and all the main types of these structures known to modern scientists, have been preserved to this day in Tibet, a country that has been relatively little explored and is fraught with many surprises. In 1928, the Central Asian expedition of Nicholas Roerich discovered typical menhirs, dolmens, and cromlechs in the Trans-Himalayan region. N.K. Roerich writes:
"You can imagine how wonderful it is to see these long rows of stones, these stone circles, which vividly transport you to Carnac, to Brittany, to the ocean shore. After a long journey, the prehistoric Druids remembered their distant homeland... In any case, this discovery completed our quest for the movement of peoples."
Thus, according to the highly authoritative opinion of N.K. Roerich, the ancient Celts, the builders of the Karnak megaliths, came to Europe from Tibet (or one of the countries adjacent to it) and on the new lands they developed, on the territory of modern France and Belgium, began to build according to tradition , under the leadership of their spiritual leaders the Druids, the same megalithic structures as in their distant Asian ancestral home.
Very unique megalithic structures were discovered in Tibet by Yuri Nikolaevich Roerich (the eldest son of Nicholas Konstantinovich). Northeast of Lhasa, he discovered a whole group of megaliths, of which the outermost stone has the shape of an arrow and, in his opinion, should be considered as a symbol of lightning, and in general this entire area with megaliths is a reflection of the cult of nature and, as it were, represents a stage for cosmic rituals.
Other researchers hold a similar opinion: Z. Hummel, G. Tucci and A. Franke; they believe that Tibetan megalithic structures are labyrinthine sites for cosmic mysteries.
A similar interpretation is given by the English astronomer J. Hawkins to the famous megalithic structure of Great Britain - Stonehenge. He compared his observations with the stories of the descendants of the Celtic priests (Druids) and then processed all the data obtained using an electronic computer. As a result, he came to the conclusion that the seemingly strange arrangement of the Stonehenge stones accurately reflects the position of the rising and setting sun on certain days of the year and that with the help of this structure it is even possible to predict eclipses.
Most of the megalithic structures scattered throughout the face of the earth are a reflection of the idea that found its most vivid embodiment in ancient Gaul, in the Druid megaliths. However, not all megaliths are related in spirit to the Druid ones and are related to the telluric and cosmic mysteries. For example, in eastern India, in the densely forested valley of the Dhansira River, amazing stone monoliths have been preserved to this day, which are 16 huge blocks of sandstone arranged in four rows. Images of peacocks, parrots, buffaloes, and various plants are carved on them. Judging by their shape (these monoliths are shaped like male and female fertility symbols), they belong to the phallic cult. Führer-Haimendorff calls this group of monoliths "a stone orgy of fertility symbols."
Dimapur was located in the valley of the Dhansira River in the 16th century - ancient capital Kachari state, which in the XIV-XVII centuries. extended its power to a significant part of modern Assam. But the possibility cannot be ruled out that the monoliths were created not by the Kachars, but by the vanished civilization that preceded them, as some researchers are inclined to think (this issue has not yet been finally resolved).
Finally, it should be noted that in South-East Asia, the Malacca Peninsula had its own special civilization in ancient times, the development of which was stimulated by constant ties with India, China and the countries of the Arab East. One of the foundations of this peculiar civilization was “an ancient cult of stones, now hardly accessible to direct observation, but once the most important component of natural, in particular cosmological Cults, as can be judged by Skeet’s remark: “... some Malays imagined that the firmament is something like a stone or rock, which they call “batu hampar”, i.e. flat stone, and the appearance of stars is explained (as they thought) by the fact that light penetrates through holes made in this stone."
Let us now consider the megaliths of the Caucasus, based on the work of academician A.A. Formozov: “Monuments of primitive art on the territory of the USSR”, Moscow, 1966, p. 128; The fourth chapter of this study (pp. 76-87) is devoted to Caucasian dolmens.
On Black Sea coast In the Caucasus, significant groups of dolmens have survived to this day near Gelendzhik, Dzhubga, Lazarevsky, Esheri and some other places. These tombs of the primitive era are strange stone houses, built from five huge hewn slabs. The earliest of them were built more than four thousand years ago, and the latest date back to the middle of the first millennium BC. It was then (about five hundred years BC) that real dolmens stopped being built in the Caucasus, but crypts similar in shape, built not from monoliths, but from small stones, were erected until the 11th-12th centuries. new era.)
Once upon a time, before the conquest of the Caucasus by Russia, there were thousands of dolmens there, standing untouched for 3-4 thousand years. But after the annexation of the Caucasus to Russia, their number began to quickly decrease, because the newly arrived Russian population did not spare these alien and “orphan” ancient monuments.*
The dolmens of the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus are, indeed, cyclopean structures, although they were erected not by giants, but by ordinary people. For example, one of the dolmens on Esheri is made of slabs 3.7 meters long and up to half a meter thick. Its roof alone weighs 22.5 tons. It is not easy to lift such a weight to the level of the walls, and this is by no means the only problem. Stones were often delivered many kilometers away. Far from the mountains in the steppe Kuban region, a dolmen was found covered with a slab, which was thrown down with difficulty by ten people. Undoubtedly, it would be necessary to try many variants of funeral structures in order to arrive at the classic design: four slabs placed on an edge, carrying a fifth slab - a flat ceiling... The entire complexity of this matter can only be comprehended through personal experience.
*) Academician A.A. Formozov writes: “The most dolmens were in the Kuban region - in the upper reaches of the Belaya River and along the valleys of Pshekha, Fars, Gubs and Khodzi. At the “heroic glade” near the village of Novosvobodnaya, at one time there were 360 dolmens. in rows, they resembled the streets in a small village. It was not for nothing that the Adyghe people called the dolmens “syrpun” - the houses of dwarfs, and the Kuban Cossacks - “heroic huts”. Then, over the course of three to four decades, the Cossacks destroyed the ancient tombs, sometimes to obtain stone for paving roads and roads. the foundations of dwellings, or even just for fun. Now in Bogatyrskaya Meadow only the teeth of broken slabs stick out from the ground; they were destroyed before archaeologists had time to take them seriously. Even where the roofs and walls were preserved, everything inside was dug up by treasure hunters. the bones of the buried and the clay vessels were broken and thrown out. Therefore, our information about the dolmens is very incomplete.”
However, archaeologists did not find traces of such architectural experiments on the Caucasian coast; dolmens of the classical type immediately began to be built here. According to A.A. Formozov, dolmens, very similar to those in the Caucasus, were built in the same era in Syria, Palestine in North Africa, in Spain, France and England, in Denmark and southern Scandinavia, in Iran, India and south-east Asia. At the same time, they were built by “different tribes and not always in the same era, but the idea of such a construction undoubtedly must have had a common origin... There is no doubt that dolmens are drawn to coastal areas, indicating the role of maritime relations in the spread of these unique tombs.”
Where did the idea of building dolmens come to the Caucasus? Archaeologists do not give an accurate and substantiated answer to this question, but based on logical conclusions, we believe that this idea came to the Caucasus from ancient Gaul - from the Druids, with whom the builders of the Caucasian dolmens were in spiritual communication.
Caucasian dolmens were undoubtedly erected as funeral structures. But it is also certain that during the construction of these tombs and funerals, special rites were performed, and then periodically repeated sacrifices were made. Researchers noticed that there is usually a flat area in front of dolmens standing on a mountain slope. Near the village of Kamennomostskaya, large pillar-shaped stones - menhirs - are dug around the site. There are similar sites or “courtyards” in other countries - in Spain, England and France.* There is no doubt that some religious and religious-magical ceremonies were performed on these sites. It is also possible that, like the Druid megaliths, these Caucasian structures were erected at places where telluric currents crossed, where there was particularly strong electromagnetic voltage. According to Paul Boucher, the Druids used these structures as a kind of wireless telegraph stations, thus maintaining regular communication with very distant countries. In this way contact was established between initiates of different tribes and peoples. It is possible that the initiates of the Caucasus were also included in this chain.
*) A.A. Formozov notes that on the top slab of the dolmens or on special stones in front of them, in some places there are cup-shaped recesses for sacrifices and libations. The Adyghe tribe of Shapsugs brought sacrificial food to the dolmens back in the 19th century. This ritual has been preserved since ancient times, when relatives of the buried came to the cemetery with food.
Similar sacrifices also existed among the steppe people of the Chalcolithic and Bronze Ages. So near Simferopol in the village. A large rectangular slab was found in Bakhchi-Eli; on its upper end there are two rows of round recesses. The same bowl-like depressions were hollowed out on stones in various eras for both cultic and practical purposes. Stones with pits were found even at the Mousterian site of La Ferrassie. In the 19th century, ethnographers unexpectedly discovered similar indentations on recent peasant tombstones in Brittany, Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland and began asking questions about their purpose. The Bretons poured water into these immobile vessels “to cool the souls of the dead.” Often water was replaced with milk. In the Scandinavian countries, offerings were placed there “for children” and for “dwarfs,” in other words, food for the little soul of the deceased. From century to century these rituals were performed in old cemeteries, and they were transferred to new burials.
In Azerbaijan, where there are many ancient cup stones, in villages to this day cups are knocked out on gravestones. Similar monuments existed in the Northern Black Sea region. There is information about a stone covered with pits that stood among the mounds near the village of Rozmaritsina in the Kherson region.
Some archaeologists think that the dolmen reproduces the shape of an Egyptian tomb - a mastaba. And according to A.A. Formozov, “solidity and indestructibility make Caucasian tombs similar to Egyptian pyramids. The similarity is natural. Both were supposed to serve as eternal dwellings for people who considered this life only a temporary refuge and embodied their faith in another life in monumental stone tombs."
Which tribes built the Caucasian dolmens? According to A.A. Formozov, settlements of tribes who buried their dead in dolmens were discovered both on the Black Sea coast and in the Kuban region. Traces of dwellings revealed during excavations do not at all resemble burial houses. The dwellings have adobe floors, walls made of wattle fence coated with clay, and in rare cases, foundations made of small pieces of torn stone. The builders of the dolmens, the giants of Adyghe legends, who mowed quadrangular blocks on their shoulders, actually lived in miserable shacks. Moreover. On the Belaya River and in the vicinity of Adler, in several caves, sites with the same pottery as in the mounds near the station were studied. Newly free. People huddled there in caves, like Neanderthals.
In the 2nd millennium BC. e. Very rich leaders have already emerged among the population of the Caucasus. The grave with a canopy and other treasures in the Maykop mound is even older than the dolmens. Yet, until the Iron Age, the foundations of the primitive community in the Caucasus were not shaken. Probably the entire family worked on each stone crypt. Fifteen hundred people spent their energy and time to adequately arrange the transition of their fellow man to another world, and none of them thought that it would be better to use this energy and time on cultivating the fields, improving tools or artistic creativity.
"The people who built the dolmens sculpted the dishes by hand, although the potter's wheel spread in the southern regions of Transcaucasia from the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. The inhabitants of the northwestern Caucasus hoeed the land, not thinking about the plow, long known in Mesopotamia, they used many bone and stone tools of purely Neolithic forms and hunted with such primitive weapons as slings (balls for slings were found more than once during excavations of dolmens. And with all this technical poverty, the same people moved twenty-two-ton monoliths, which were not approached by later tribes familiar with the plow). and the potter's wheel, who mastered iron and rode a horse. A characteristic example of the one-sided development of society, a phenomenon that has amazed us in history from ancient times to the present day. In the 20th century, it seems absurd to dedicate our lives to the creation of monumental tombs, but you never know. less strange ideas took hold of humanity for centuries, or even millennia. And these false premises were not always fruitless for culture, for art. So here too - excessive, hypertrophied concern for the afterlife and the eternal houses of their ancestors led primitive man to architecture."
The construction of dolmens was extremely difficult and complex, taking into account the primitive technology of the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. This is clearly proven by a case cited by A.A. Formozov. In 1960, it was decided to transport (I emphasize: not to build a new dolmen, but only to transport the old one a relatively short distance by truck along a good highway) to Sukhum, to the courtyard of the Abkhazian Museum, one dolmen from Esheri. We chose the smallest one and brought a crane to it. No matter how they fastened the loops of the lifting steel cable to the cover plate, it did not budge. They called the second tap. Two cranes removed the multi-ton monolith, but they were unable to lift it onto a truck. For exactly a year the roof lay in Esheri, waiting for a more powerful mechanism to arrive in Sukhum. In 1961, using this mechanism, all the stones were loaded onto vehicles. But the main thing was ahead: to reassemble the house. Before this was achieved, a fair amount of time passed, the trees of the museum garden were stripped, and one wall of the dolmen was broken. Still, the reconstruction was only partially completed. The roof was lowered onto four walls, but they could not turn it around so that their edges fit into the grooves on the inner surface of the roof. In ancient times, the plates were fitted so close to each other that a knife blade could not fit between them. Now there is a big gap left here.
How were dolmens built in ancient times with extremely limited technical means? Reconstructing mentally the successive stages of their construction, A.A. Formozov writes that “the material was dragged from the quarry on oxen. Obviously, they used the simplest rollers, levers, adding earth, temporary supports that supported the slabs in a vertical position until the ceiling pressed on them. But in the foreground was the muscular labor of many, many dozens of people. According to B.A. Kuftin’s calculations, the upper slab of the Esher dolmen was lifted by at least 150 people.
Now about the sizes of Caucasian dolmens. If we look at the table with this data, we will notice that the further from the sea, the smaller and smaller their dimensions. In Asheri, the height of the front slab is about 2.5 meters, and the length of the side walls is 3-3.5 m. Equally massive stones were used in the ancient cemeteries of Gelendzhik, Dzhubga, Lazarevsky. The walls of the Pshad dolmen reach a length of even 4 m. The Kuban “heroic huts” of Bagovskaya, Novosvobodnaya, and Dakhovskaya villages are much smaller: their façade is no higher than a meter, and the total length is on average 1.8 m. More eastern regions there are no real dolmens, but here on Kafar and Teberda medieval crypts imitating them in shape were found. They are rectangular in plan, with a round entrance hole, but are already made up of many small stones.
So A.A. Formozov comes to the conclusion that “according to archaeological sites one can judge the very process of spreading the idea of a dolmen from the coast to the more remote corners of the Caucasus. We see that another process was going on in parallel: people gradually made their task easier: first they reduced the size of the tombs, and then began to build them from the same material as the huts, abandoning the stones of the monoliths."
By placing massive slabs with precise construction calculations, the creators of dolmens proved themselves to be “skillful architects. Almost everywhere, the side slabs and roof protrude somewhat above the front wall. The result is a U-shaped portal. The back wall is usually lower than the front, and the roof lies inclined. All this allows highlight the structural elements in the building - the supports supporting the arch and express the feeling of strength and inviolability of the dolmen. It was the desire for strength that required the construction of dolmens from five large slabs, and not from paving stones or torn stone. Monolithicity and indestructibility make the Caucasian tombs similar to the Egyptian pyramids." These are the Caucasian megaliths. We can only talk about their sad fate. Here is what A.A. Formozov writes:
“Caucasian tribes of the Iron Age took care of ancient cemeteries. A hundred years ago, Russian Cossacks who settled in the Kuban region came across completely intact dolmens. Most of them were plugged with (stone) plugs. Local population still vaguely remembered the worship at ancient graves, and in some places continued to perform these rituals. The Adyghe people were sure that damage to the dolmens would lead to pestilence and misfortune. The feeling of respect for distant ancestors and the fear of disturbing their peace for forty centuries was passed on from grandfathers to fathers, from fathers to children, and even to peoples alien by origin.
This phenomenon is observed wherever there are megalithic monuments. In Brittany, at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, sick people were brought to them in the hope of healing, and girls who dreamed of getting married went to pray. French ethnographers described round dances around menhirs. There are known church messages from the Middle Ages that prohibited pilgrimages to these pagan buildings. But in the fight against millennia-old beliefs, the church was powerless. Then the “Christianization” of megaliths began. Crosses were installed on them, and churches were erected above some dolmens.
The same thing happened in Transcaucasia. Here the menhirs had sanctuaries, they sacrificed roosters and rams, crawled a certain number of times stone pillars on the knees. Christianity legalized these rituals. And here we find chapels above the menhirs.
Protected by popular worship, the megaliths of Brittany and Transcaucasia have safely survived to this day. The dolmens were out of luck. In 1897, the founder of the Ekaterinodar Museum E.D. Felitsyn complained: “The highlanders, our predecessors in the Trans-Kuban region, generally treat ancient monuments with great respect, no matter what they are. Unfortunately, the Kuban Cossacks, having inherited their places, do not imitate this commendable trait of the mountaineers." (E.D. Felitsyn. - Kuban antiquities. Ekaterinodar, 1879, p. 13). Even before the revolution, hundreds of dolmens were destroyed. Often they were broken without a purpose, just to “test their strength.” Even intelligent engineers contributed to the destruction of monuments by ordering their slabs to be used as crushed stone for the Black Sea Highway. As sad as it may be, our tractor drivers also like to try on dolmens “who will take whom” - whether the tractor will break the stone house or break down. And here are the results. In 1885, there were 360 dolmens in Bogatyrskaya Polyana, and in 1928 - 20, and now there are none at all.
So, the dark, illiterate Adyghe people did not damage the dolmens in any way, and the people with a higher culture wiped them off the face of the earth. The solution to the paradox is that for the Adyghe people “syrpun” was something sacred, but for the Russians it was alien, unusual and unnecessary.
Now the fate of the silent witnesses of the past worries not only archaeologists and art historians. The losses from the destruction of monuments became too obvious. Let us draw a lesson from the history of dolmens. In our opinion, it is formulated as follows: monuments can be preserved by those who love them, who value them, but not by those who wonder “why is all this necessary.” In the old days, religion protected them, now culture protects them. In a period when religion lost its former role, and understanding of the value cultural heritage not yet, archaeological objects and works of ancient art usually perish. It was under such circumstances that the dolmens of the Kuban region perished.
Their fate is dramatic and surprising. Four thousand years ago, carried away by the doctrine of life and death borrowed from somewhere from outside, the tribes of the northwestern Caucasus began to build megalithic tombs designed to last for centuries. The oldest and largest dolmens appeared on the shores of the Black Sea. The creators of these tombs were not mythical giants. These were people who lived in caves or villages made of adobe and wattle, "turluch" houses, who became acquainted with metal relatively recently. Each tomb required many days of hard work, and yet one generation after another gave up their daily activities for its sake.
Gradually, the idea of dolmens spread from the coast to the mountains and crossed the Caucasus ridge... Century after century flashed by, the world was transformed beyond recognition, and the old Shapsugs still carried food for the spirits to the dolmens. Then a foreign people came and destroyed the “heroic huts.” This is the history of dolmens. Really, standing in front of the last of them, there is something to think about." This is what academician A.A. Formozov writes.
Dr. A.M. Aseev
Asuncion, November 1972
Megaliths are the oldest structures consisting of blocks or single modules. The definition of megaliths is not clear and includes groups of different structures. An example of this is such structures as the menhir, cromlech, dolmen, taula, trilith, seid, cairn. And since most of The underwater surfaces of the oceans remain unexplored to this day; it would be reckless to claim that we know even a small part about these buildings and their creators. After all, it is in salt water that buildings of this type are best preserved. But the cost of such scientific research is prohibitively high, so for now archaeologists are forced to content themselves with ground-based research.
Purpose of megaliths
Megaliths are widespread in paralyzed areas. According to scientists, the purpose of megalithic structures is very diverse. So, in some areas they served for burials, in others - to unite large communities, and thirdly, they were ceremonial buildings that cultivated the spirits of the dead, and they could also be used for astronomical purposes. However big picture no, scientists are arguing to this day and cannot come to one solution. On this moment There are more than a dozen conflicting theories, and all of them are equally probable and unreliable.
In Europe, megaliths date back to the period from the third to the second millennium BC. In England, a peculiarity is that megalithic buildings date back to the New Stone Age. The current analysis of pundits refutes previous attempts to link the megaliths to a single large megalithic culture.
Megaliths and folk tales
In many countries of the world, legends are made up about megaliths; to be more precise, they mostly tell about the creatures who were engaged in this titanic work. If you believe the Polynesians, the creatures were dwarfs, no more than ninety centimeters tall. The extraordinary strength that overwhelmed them helped them to fell huge trees with just one glance. They were distinguished by their extreme friendliness towards human creatures and therefore helped them in energy-consuming work.
Hawaiian megaliths Photo: http://earth-chronicles.ru/Publications_9/17/5/SamosirMegalith.jpg
According to legends, the megalithic structures of the menehune, as they were called in Polynesia, were built at night, since sunlight was unbearable for them, and sometimes even destructive. The widespread folklore does not allow skeptical pundits to completely refute these speculations.
Therefore, for now, this mystical origin of megaliths remains the deepest secret of our ancestors. Or rather, their legends, since there is also no evidence of the preservation of reliable facts in folklore.
Classification of megaliths
The simplest representative of megaliths appears to archaeologists of different times, the menhir. The menhir is an inelegantly crafted pillar, wide at the base and tapering towards the top.
Most often there are menhirs installed in groups; in some areas they are displayed in entire alleys. Cromlechs are also commonly referred to as menhirs. The term cromlechs was established only in continental Europe. Cromlechs, in turn, are structures erected until the early Middle Ages.
Cromlech with menhir. Goncharsky Dendrological Park named after. P.V. Bukreeva: Goncharka, Giaginsky district, Adygea
Author: BubukaGala – own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49107361
The term characterizing this construction comes from the Celtic dialect and vaguely resembles dolmens, which is why archaeological communities in Russia often call them that, which creates some confusion in the wording. In the UK, not far from the town of Salisbury, there is the most popular cromlech for tourists and more than mysterious for researchers called Stonehenge.
The dimensions of menhirs are also very diverse and can reach twenty meters in height with a weight of about three hundred tons.
The mystery of the megaliths
Over time, on younger megaliths, not only images, but also carved ornaments begin to be found, which is how they compare favorably with more ancient structures.
Almost until the 19th century, without proper opportunities for full-fledged research, it was assumed that the Druids used these structures for sacrifices.
Author: Alexandr frolov – own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57324831
Today, structures of a mystical nature still leave the purpose of their installation beyond the understanding of modern man. And one can only guess how such bulky and heavy structures could be erected, taking into account the fact that the more developed a civilization is, the more traces of its existence remain on the planet. And we are dealing with rare, albeit extremely interesting, traces of a lost civilization.
Location of megaliths
Menhirs are most often found in Western Europe, they are also widely represented in Asia and Africa. You can also find them on the territory of the Russian Federation, for example, in the Baikal region, the Caucasus and Crimea
Author: Rost.galis – own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48934260
Horizontal installation of stones is less durable, therefore modern society, using the wisdom of the ancients, to this day resorts to a stronger and more durable vertical practice in structures, for example, wanting to perpetuate an event in a particular area.
The history of these buildings has yet to be unraveled. Or maybe it will remain an intriguing mystery of antiquity.
Honestly, I didn’t hesitate for a second when choosing a topic. It is so interesting, multifaceted, not a single generation of scientists, archaeologists, and researchers has thought about it. It is interesting to me because so far no tools have been found that could be used to cut huge blocks of stone with such incredible precision, nor what they were used to deliver to the installation site and according to what laws they were installed. Their meaning is also not clearly known: some are inclined towards the occult, for example E. P. Blavatsky, others believe that thanks to them electromagnetic waves and energy were transmitted, there are even energy maps, but more on that later. You are reading this work and do not understand what it is about.
What are megaliths?
Megaliths (from the Greek ????? - large, ????? - stone) - structures made of huge stone blocks, characteristic mainly of the final Neolithic and Chalcolithic (IV--III millennium BC . in Europe, or later in Asia and Africa). The term was coined in 1849 English explorer A. Herbert in the book Cyclops Christianus, and in 1867 officially adopted at the congress in Paris. The term is not exhaustive, so a vague group of structures falls under the definition of megaliths and megalithic structures. In particular, this is the name given to large-sized hewn stones, including those not used for the construction of burials and monuments.
Categories of megaliths
All megaliths can be divided into two categories: For the first time, the most ancient architectural structures prehistoric (preliterate) societies (temples of the island of Malta, menhirs, cromlechs, dolmens). For them, stones were either not processed at all or with minimal processing. The cultures that left these monuments are called megalithic. Megaliths often include structures made of fairly small stones (labyrinths) and individual stones with petroglyphs (traces). Some buildings of more advanced societies (the tombs of Japanese emperors and dolmens of the Korean nobility) carry a similar architectural aesthetic.
The second category consists of structures of more developed architecture, largely consisting of very large stones, which are usually given a geometrically regular shape. They are typical for early states, but were also built in later times. In the Mediterranean, for example, these are the pyramids of Egypt, the buildings of the Mycenaean culture, and the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. IN South America-- some buildings in Tiwanaku, Sacsayhuaman, Ollantaytambo.