Megalithic building for religious purposes. Giant ancient megaliths

The term is not exhaustive, therefore, a rather vague group of buildings falls under the definition of megaliths and megalithic structures. In particular, hewn stones of large sizes, including those not used for the construction of burials and monuments, are called megaliths.

A separate group is represented by megalithic structures, that is, objects largely consisting of megaliths. They are distributed throughout the world. In Europe, for example, this is Stonehenge, structures Cretan-Mycenaean culture or Egypt. IN South America- Machu Picchu, Puma Punku, Ollantaytambo, Pisac, Sacsayhuaman, Tiwanaku.

Their common characteristic feature is stone blocks weighing sometimes more than a hundred tons, often delivered from quarries located tens of kilometers away, sometimes with a large elevation difference relative to the construction site. At the same time, the stones are processed in such a way that it cannot enter the joint between the blocks razor blade .

As a rule, megalithic structures did not serve as housing, and from the period of construction to the present day, no records have come down about the technologies and purpose of construction. The absence of reliable written sources and the fact that all these structures have been significantly damaged under the influence of time make the task of their exhaustive study almost impossible, which, in turn, leaves a wide field for various conjectures.

The purpose of megaliths cannot always be established. For the most part they, according to some scholars, served for burials or were associated with a funeral cult. There are other opinions as well. Apparently, megaliths are communal structures (the function is socializing). Their construction was a most difficult task for primitive technology and required the unification of large masses of people.

Some megalithic structures, such as complex of more than 3000 stones in French Brittany), were important ceremonial centers associated with the cult of the dead. Other megalithic complexes have been used to determine the timing of astronomical events such as the solstice and equinox.

Megalithic structures subject to a specific architectural design. In appearance, researchers divide them into three groups: menhirs, dolmens, cromlechs. These words themselves came to us from the ancient Breton. It was the language of the inhabitants of Brittany, a peninsula in the northwest of France.

MEGALITHIC MONUMENTS IN BRITTANY

Brittany is, of course, a country of megaliths. It was from the words of the Breton language, at the end of the 17th century, that the names of the main types of megalithic buildings were compiled (dolmen: daol - table, men - stone; menhir: men - stone, hir - long; cromlech: kromm - rounded, lec'h - place). In Brittany, the era of megalithic construction began around 5000 BC. and ended around 2500 B.C. The builders of megaliths were not the autochthonous population of Armorica. They came from the shores of the Mediterranean, gradually moving northwest from the south and western coast The Iberian Peninsula, densely populating the coast of Morbihan, between the rivers Vilaine and Ethel, and then other lands of present-day Brittany, rising deep into the peninsula along the rivers and moving along the coast ...

DOLMENS

Dolmens are usually "boxes" made up of stone slabs, which are joined, sometimes, by long or short galleries. They were collective burial chambers, as evidenced by the remains of bones and votive treasures (ceramics, jewelry, axes made of polished stone). Dolmens could be either free-standing structures or be part of more complex structures. Let's consider some of them.

cairn

Cairn is an ensemble of galleries and chambers covered with earth on top, that is, in this case, the dolmens were, as it were, their skeleton. There are relatively many cairns in Brittany, but two of them, which are masterpieces of the megalithic architecture of the West, I would like to dwell on in more detail.

Built around 4700 BC, this prehistoric necropolis could have been destroyed already in our time: it was deliberately turned into a stone quarry for the construction of a tourist road in l955 and only the intervention of one of the most famous Breton archaeologists, Professor Pierre-Roland Giot (Giot ) stopped this technocratic barbarism.
To be precise, the monument in Barnenaise is a structure of two cairns. It is, in total, 72 meters long and 20 to 25 meters wide and includes eleven dolmens (in this case, individual chambers) from each of which a gallery extends to the exit, from 7 to 12 meters long. The first cairn (A) was built around 4350 BC, and the second (B) around 4100 BC.

The necropolis in Barnenez is one of the most ancient architectural structures on the ground. Older than Stonehenge, New Grange, Egyptian pyramids...

Karin on the island of Gavrinis

This monument of megalithic art, built around 4000 BC, is remarkable for its interior design. The cairn itself is not complicated: a thirteen-meter corridor leads to the burial chamber. However, its walls are painted with amazing drawings, more abstract than concrete, carved in stone. Among the elements of the whimsical ornament there are spiral, cruciform and other elements.

covered alley

There is a variety of dolmens, which is called covered alleys. A covered alley is a series of dolmens that make up a gallery, which can end with a chamber not exceeding the width of the gallery, or with a blind end. It looks like this:

Dolmen with gallery

Unlike a covered alley, a dolmen with a gallery, such as the famous Table of Merchants (Table de Marchands) in Lokmarieker (pictured), is a round or square burial chamber, to which a long corridor leads, which is, so to speak, a passage from the world of the living world of the dead(and back probably :)). The plan of dolmens of this type can be supplemented by side rooms (the dolmen in Keriaval, near Ploirnel).

So, nothing is so different from a dolmen as another dolmen. Moreover, not all types of such structures are described here. There are also knee dolmens, transept - dolmens (cruciform) and some others. Frankly, some names had to be invented in the process of working on the article, since they simply do not exist in Russian, and literal translation from other languages ​​usually does not reflect the essence of the objects described here.

As we already know, dolmens are both crypts and tombstones, as evidenced by the bones and votive deposits (decorations, polished axes, ceramics, etc.) found there. We are talking about traces, burials, mostly collective, small or colossal, originally covered with stones (cairns) or earth (mounds), and undoubtedly equipped with additional wooden structures. Breton variations of dolmens are very numerous and their architecture has changed over time. The most ancient were big size, but the burial chambers in them were reduced; this suggests that they were intended for some of the most significant figures of the tribe. Over time, the volume of dolmens decreased, while the size of the burial chambers grew, and they became real collective graves. In the town of Chaussée-Tirancourt, in the Paris Basin, during the study of such a burial, archaeologists discovered about 250 skeletons. Unfortunately, in Brittany, the acidity of the soil often leads to the destruction of bones. In the Bronze Age, burials again become individual. Later, during the time of Roman rule, some dolmens were adapted to meet the religious needs of the conquerors, as evidenced by the numerous terracotta figurines of Roman deities found in them.

How were dolmens built? If we compare the heaviness and bulkiness of these stone structures with the technical arsenal of their creators, then we can only take our hats off to their perseverance and resourcefulness. It was almost like this...

Step 1	Step 2
Step 3	Step 4
Step 5	Step 6

Outcome

Thus, we already know something about one of the types of megalithic architecture. It's time to move on to the next, no less interesting.

MENGIRS

Menhir is vertically dug into the ground stone pillar. Their height varies from 0.80 meters to 20. Menhirs standing alone are usually the highest. The “record holder” was Men-er-Hroech (Stone of the Fairies), from Lokmariaker (Morbihan), which was destroyed around 1727. Its largest fragment was 12 m, and in general, it reached 20 m in height, with an approximate weight of 350 tons. Currently, all the largest menhirs in France are located in Brittany:

- menhir in Kerloas (Finistere) - 12 m.

- menhir in Caelonan (Cote d'Armor) - 11.20 m.

- menhir in Pergale (Cote d'Armor) - 10.30 m.

There are also menhirs lined up in a line (let's call it conditionally rows of stones) sometimes in several parallel rows. The most grandiose ensemble of this kind is located in Karnak, and has about 3,000 (!) Menhirs

Carnac (Department of Morbihan)

Carnac is by far the most famous megalithic ensemble in Brittany and one of only two (along with Stonehenge) in the world. Brittany, and France, too, will not surprise you with a menhir, but Karnak strikes the imagination with an unthinkable concentration of these monuments in a relatively small area. Initially, there were about 10,000 (!) monuments of various sizes in the Karnak complex. In our time, there are approximately 3,000 left. This complex of megaliths (mainly cromlechs and menhirs) of the late Neolithic - early Bronze Age (end of the third - second millennium BC) includes 3 megalithic systems:

Menek is the western part of the Karnak complex. Includes 1,099 menhirs in eleven lines, about 1200 meters long.

Kermario - about 1,000 menhirs in ten lines 1 km long. In the southwestern part, the ensemble is complemented by a dolmen.

Kerleskan - 555 menhirs in thirteen lines, the length of which is 280 meters. In the west, these lines are preceded by a cromlech of 39 stones. The height of the largest menhir in Kerleskan is 6.5 meters.

By 5000 BC, sites located on the island of Hoedic in Morbihan show the existence of small human groups living mainly by hunting, fishing and shellfish gathering. These human groups buried their dead, in some cases resorting to a special ritual. The deceased was supplied on the road not only with stone and bone products, shell decorations, but also crowned with something like a “crown” of deer antlers. During this era, called the Mesolithic, the sea level was about 20 meters lower than today. Starting from about 4500 BC, the first megaliths appear in Carnac (which was observed by that time in other areas of present-day Brittany).

Let's try to reconstruct the method of erecting menhirs:

	Step 1
	Step 2
	Step 3
	Step 4

The purpose of menhirs, which are not tombstones, remains a mystery. Due to the lack of instructions for use left by the builders for future generations, archaeologists carefully manipulate several hypotheses. These hypotheses, which are not mutually exclusive, vary in each case and depend on a variety of factors: whether the menhirs are isolated or not; rows of stones are composed of one row or several, more or less parallel; menhirs oriented in a readable way, etc. Some may mark territory, point to graves, or refer to the cult of the waters.

But the hypothesis most often put forward concerns several large rows of stones oriented between east and west. There is an assumption that these are attributes of the solar-lunar cult, coupled with agricultural methods and astronomical observations, and gathering near them, large crowds of people, for example, during the winter and summer solstices. “The direction of some blocks according to privileged directions is amenable to analysis,” emphasizes Michel Le Goffy, a Breton archaeologist, and when cases repeat themselves, sometimes in a clearly traced system, one can rightfully think that this is not accidental. This is almost exactly the same in many cases, as in Saint-Just and Carnac. But doubts will always exist, due to the lack of direct evidence. Archaeological finds among the rows of stones are indeed very vague, some pottery and processed flints were found, but the remains of ritual fires dating from the same time as the construction of megaliths suggest that they were outside the habitation zone.

KROMLEHI

As an example of a cromlech, one can cite such a well-known building as Stonehenge.

Cromlechs are called ensembles of menhirs standing, most often, in a circle or semicircle and connected by stone slabs lying on top, however, there are menhirs assembled in a rectangle (as in Сrucuno, Morbihan). On the small island of Er Lannic, in the Gulf of Morbihan, there is a "double cromlech" (in the form of two adjoining circles).
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Comparative table of the number of megalithic structures in France and Brittany.

1) Menhirs (from the Celtic word menhir) - one of the types of megalithic monuments in the form of separate 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 Age * in the form of huge stones placed on edge and covered from above with a massive slab; found in Europe, in India and other countries; in the USSR - in the Caucasus and Crimea; they had not only funerary, but also religious and magical significance.

*) Neolithic era - the last era of the Stone Age: 6-5 millennium BC. - 2 millennium BC It is characterized by settled population, the appearance of cattle breeding and agriculture, the invention of ceramics; stone tools are well polished; various products made of bone and wood; spinning and weaving appears. Ancient bronze is an alloy of copper and tin, deposits of these metals are rare in nature, therefore bronze was valued dearly and was available to a few - along with bronze products, people continued to use stone tools until the 7th century BC, when iron began to be mined from marsh and other ores widely distributed in nature. Iron turned out to be an inexpensive and widely available metal of high quality, soon replaced bronze products and firmly entered the life of the peoples of the Old World. The Iron Age has begun.

3) Cromlechs (from the Breton words crom circle and lech - stone) are structures of the Neolithic 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 in Western France (Brittany) and England; they certainly had a religious and magical significance.

Until recently, cromlechs survived in the southern Russian steppes, encircling many mounds of the Yamskaya culture of the 3rd millennium BC. This is a belt of large stone blocks or slabs placed on edge, up to 20 meters in diameter. According to Academician A.A. Formozov, slabs of such a cromlech near the village of Verbovka in the Dnieper region, dragged 60 kilometers from 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 base of the whole structure was hidden in the depths.

Cromlechs - buildings of great antiquity, various countries and peoples. H. P. Blavatsky in her "Secret Doctrine" mentions "a mysterious people who built circles of stones in Galilee and upholstered Neolithic flints in the Jordan Valley."

Both Western European and Russian researchers thoroughly worked on the study of megaliths, all of which have long been registered and described in detail in scientific literature; even a map of dolmens around the world was compiled. But little is known about the occult significance of megaliths, and moreover, this information is often contradictory. It is impossible to use all existing literature for a short article, therefore we must give preference to only a few serious fundamental works that deserve the greatest confidence. Such a work for us, esotericists, is primarily the "Secret Doctrine" by H.P. Blavatsky, in the second volume of which a thorough description of the most outstanding megalithic structures in many countries is given. 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 reliable and trustworthy sources. Here is what H.P. Blavatsky writes about megalithic structures:

"The modern archaeologist, although he will talk endlessly about dolmens and their builders, in reality knows nothing about them or their origin. Nevertheless, these strange and often colossal monuments of unhewn stones, usually consisting of four or seven giant 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 people call them "thrones devil", druidic stones and tombs of giants. The Carnac stones in Morbigan, Brittany (France), stretching almost a mile and numbering up to 11,000 stones distributed in rows, are twin brothers of the stones in Stonehenge (England). The conical menhir at Loch Mariaker at Morbigan it measures 20 yards in length and about two yards across.The menhir at Champ Dolin (near St. 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 local mounds from twenty to thirty-five feet high; in Scotland, in Sweden, where they are called Ganggriten (or graves with corridors); in Germany, where they are known as giant graves (Günen-greben); in Spain, where the Antigera dolmen is located near Malaga; in Africa; in Palestine and Algeria; in Sardinia, together with the Nuraghi and the Sepoltura dei Giganta or Giants' tombs; in Malabar, in India, where they are called the tombs of the Daityas and Rakshasas, demonic 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 would be absent."

In this passage from The Secret Doctrine, let us note that the people call the megaliths devil's thrones and druidic stones. Of course, megaliths never had and have nothing to do with unclean, dark power, and if the people call them "the thrones of the devil", then this only indicates that in ancient times they were associated with religious and magical actions and ceremonies, because under under the influence of the Christian Church, all pre-Christian beliefs and rituals began to be considered pagan, diabolical. As for the "druidic stones", of course, not all megaliths are called such, but only those erected on the territory of ancient Gaul, spiritually nourished by the Druids. All the 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, at the direction and under the guidance of the Druids.

It has been established that most of the surviving dolmen-type megalithic structures both in Europe and on other continents are related to the funeral cult: during excavations in the dolmens themselves or near them, human bones or urns with ashes are found. But even H.P. Blavatsky 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's Mound' and the other as the 'Great Serpent's Mound', were never intended for graves. Here is the following description from one scientific work: "The first of these animals (the alligator) is drawn with considerable art, and it has no less than 260 feet in length ... The inside is a pile of stones, over which a form of thin hard clay was sculpted. The Great Serpent is depicted with its mouth open as it swallows an egg which is 100 feet in diameter at its widest part, the body of the animal is curved in grandiose coils and the tail is curled into a spiral. The entire length of the animal is 1100 feet. It is a masterful creation, one of a kind... and there is nothing on the Old Continent that represents any analogy to this", however, with the exception of his symbol of the Serpent (Time Cycle) swallowing an egg (Cosmos).

H.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-magic, as occult centers, a kind of "radio station" (for international communications initiates, to perform 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, was in a living, indissoluble connection with it, then the mineral kingdom was 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", in which historical evidence is collected that in antiquity, in the days of miracles, both pagan and biblical stones they moved, spoke, uttered prophecies and even sang... In "Achaika" we see how Pausanias admits that at the beginning of his work he considered the Greeks very stupid for their "veneration of stones". But when he reached Arcadia, he adds: "I have changed my mind." Therefore, without any worship of stones or stone idols and statues, which is one and the same thing - a crime in which the Catholics of the Roman Church unreasonably reproach the pagans - one can be allowed to believe in what so many great philosophers and saints believed, without deserving the nickname "idiot" from modern Pavzani.

The reader is invited to apply to 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 subdivided into ophites and siderites, into "Serpent Stone" and "Star Stone".

"Ophit is rough, hard, heavy, black and has the gift of words: when he is thrown, he 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 Biblus, speaking of these "betyles", call them "animate stones." Photius repeats what Damascius, Asclepiades, Isidore, and the physician Eusebius had asserted before him. In particular, Eusebius never parted with his ophite, which he wore on his chest and received from him prophecies, transmitted to him "in a low voice, reminiscent of a light whistle." Of course, this is the same as the "quiet voice" heard by Ilya 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, admits that when he met one of these stones, he could never help 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 talking stone," and he raised his voice only to name the king who was to be elected. Cambry, in his Celtic Monuments, says that he saw it while it was still inscribed:

Ni fallat fatum, Scoti quocumque locatum Invenient lapidem, regnasse tenentur ibidem. Swinging or "logan" stones have various names: such as the clacha-brath of the Celts, "stone of fate or judgment"; a prophesying stone or "testing stone", and a stone oracle; the moving or animated 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; on British Isles, in France, Italy, Russia, Germany, etc., as well as in North America. (See "Letters from North America"Hodson, Volume II, p. 440). Pliny mentions several of these in Asia." Natural history", vol. I, p. 96). And Apollonius of Rhodes expands on swaying stones and says that they are "stones placed on the top of the Mound, and they are so sensitive 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 "flee 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 Druidic 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 barely touch the ground, and although they can be set in motion by the slightest touch of a finger, yet they do not succumb to the efforts of twenty people should they try 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 this form; such are the "mountain peaks" in the West of England. All scientists believe that all these "swinging stones owe their origin to natural causes, wind, rain, etc., causing the destruction of rocky layers" and emphatically reject H. P. Blavatsky's statement, especially because, according to their observation, "This process of changing the rocks is going on around us to this day." Therefore, this issue needs to be thoroughly studied.

Geologists recognize 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 their current location.

"William Tooke, speaking of 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 must have been brought "from afar with the help of fabulous efforts" Charton speaks of a sample of such a rock from Ireland, which was subjected to analysis by a famous English geologist, who determined its alien origin, 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 accursed Hamit". 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 moving rocks or "swinging stones" placed on the slope of Golkar ("Wizard"), says: "The amazing movement of these blocks, set in balance, made the Celts equate them with the gods." In scientific Flinders Petrie's work "Stonehenge" says that: "Stonhenge is built of stone located in the district 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 mentioning the considerations 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 put the most powerful machines to the test. In a word, there are blocks scattered throughout the globe, boulders at the sight of which the imagination is confused and the designation of which by the word materials seems devoid of meaning, they should be called by names corresponding to these bulks.In addition, these huge, swaying stones, sometimes called Pouters, placed with one end of their on the point of such a 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, which can be said with sufficient reason, echoing De la Vega's words that, "apparently the demons of pain They worked harder on them than people."

And further H. P. Blavatsky writes: "We have no intention of touching upon the various traditions associated with rocking stones. However, it may not be bad to remind the reader of Giraldus Cambrensis, who mentions a similar stone on the island of Mona, which returned to its place, despite At the time of the conquest of Ireland by Henry II, Count Hugo Sestrenzis, wanting to see for himself 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 on his usual The scholar William Salisbury corroborates this fact by testifying to the presence of this stone in the stere of a church where he saw it in 1554. This reminds us of what Pliny says about the stone left by the Argonauts at Sizicum and which the inhabitants of Sizicum placed in the Prytheneum. , "from where he escaped several times, so they had to weigh him down with lead. "But here we are dealing with huge stones, attested by all antiquity , as "living, moving, talking and self-moving". Also, apparently, they could put people to flight, for they were called "routers", from the word "rout" or "put to flight". De Musso points out that they were all prophetic stones and were sometimes called "mad stones".

The rocking stone is recognized by science. But why is he swinging? One would have to be blind not to see that the movement was another way for 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 astounded to find in the Sahara Desert the same triliths and uplifted stones that they had encountered in Asia, the Caucasus, Circassia, Etruria, and throughout Northern Europe. Rivett-Karnak of Allahabad, the famous archaeologist, expresses the same astonishment when he read the descriptions given by Sir J. Simpson of the bowl-shaped signs on the stones and rocks of England, Scotland, and others. Western countries, "showing an extraordinary resemblance to the signs on the boulders that surrounded. the burial mounds near Nagpur - the City of Serpents. An 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 betils, litas and in general "magic stones". The bowl-shaped signs noted by Sir J. Simpson, and "depressions carved into the surface" of rocks and monuments found by Rivette-Carnack, "of various sizes from six inches to an inch and a half in diameter and from one to an inch and a half deep, usually placed along perpendicular lines, revealing numerous changes in the number and size and distribution of bowls" - are simply 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 the Rocks in Kumaon, India", etc., will find in them the most primitive style of marks or records. 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 such recorded records, for the Runic letters resemble signs, bowls, and long and short lines. In the Tome of Johann Magnus, one can see the image of a demigod, the giant Starkhaterus (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 miraculous 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 bears witness to the same fact in later ages. 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 perfectly clear code for the initiated priests, who alone held the keys to this ancient method of reading. Wormius and Olaus Magnus show that it was by order of the oracle, whose voice spoke through "these 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 (Persian Otizoe) that the magicians had to ask for advice when choosing their rulers." (Pliny. - "Natural History", 37, 54). And further Pliny describes a stone block above Harpasa in Asia, and installed in such a way that "a touch with one finger can set it in motion, while it cannot be moved by the whole weight of the body." (Ibid., 2, 38). Why, then, could not the rocking stones of Ireland or Brimgam, Yorkshire, serve for the same methods of divination and prophetic messages? The largest among them are obviously the relics of the Atlanteans; smaller ones, like the rocks of Bringam, with revolving stones on their tops, are copies from older stones. If in the Middle Ages the bishops had not destroyed all the plans of Draconia, on which only they could lay their hand, science would know more about these stones. But nevertheless we know that they were in general use throughout many prehistoric ages, and they all served the same purpose, divination and magical purposes. E. Biot, a member of the Institute of France, published an article in "Antiquites de France" (Volume IX) proving the identity of the location of Chatamperamba ("Field of Death" or ancient burial places in Malabar) with ancient graves in Karnak; that is, that they have "an elevation into the central grave."

Esotericists know that in ancient times, initiates of all peoples, including the Slavic Magi, traveled a lot and visited the occult-religious centers of other, often very distant countries. H. P. Blavatsky writes about such journeys of Egyptian priests - initiates; according to her, there are records that they "traveled in a northerly direction overland, in a way that later became the Strait of Gibraltar, then turned north and passed through the future settlements of the Phoenicians in southern Gaul; then still further north until they reached Karnak (Morbihan), and then they again turned to the West 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 mainland. the inhabitants of Picardy could cross into Great Britain without crossing the canal. The British Isles were connected to Gaul by an isthmus, which has since been covered by waters."

H. P. Blavatsky raises 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 placed? According to her, "archaic records testify that initiates of the second sub-race of the Aryan family moved from one country to another in order to oversee the structures of menhirs and dolmens, colossal Zodiacs made of stones, as well as the places of tombs that were supposed to serve as a container for the ashes of future generations. When did this happen? The fact that they crossed from France to Great Britain by land may 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 valley of the Somna did not yet exist to the depth it has reached now; Sicily was connected with Africa, the Barbary possessions with Spain, Carthage, the pyramids of Egypt, the palaces of Uxamala and Palenque did not yet exist, and the brave navigators of Tyre and Sidon, who in later times were destined to make their dangerous journeys along the coast of Africa, did not yet come into being. We know for sure only that European man was a contemporary of the extinct species of the Quaternary era.

"The aforementioned journeys of the Egyptian initiates, precisely, 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 Druidic, but universal. Also, it was not the Druids who built them, for they were only the heirs of the legends of the Cyclopes, bequeathed to them by generations of powerful builders and "magicians, both good and bad."

So writes H. P. Blavatsky. It also recalls the striking similarity between the ancient colossal buildings in Peru (for example, in Cuenlap) with the architecture of archaic European peoples. In her opinion, the similarity between the ruins of the Inca civilization and the Cyclopean remains of the Pelasgians in Italy and Greece is not a mere accident - there is a certain connection between them, which is explained simply by the origin of the groups of peoples who erected these structures from one common center on the Atlantic mainland.

The above information about ancient megalithic structures from the "Secret Doctrine" of H. P. Blavatsky is very interesting and significant, but not complete. Therefore, we will supplement them with some data on the megaliths that have survived to this day in the eastern and South Asia and on the territory of the USSR.

In eastern Indochina, in Upper Laos, on the Channin plateau, megalithic structures are still preserved - concentric rows of monolithic stones. According to M. Kolani, the Puok people living on this plateau claim that these megaliths served as a meeting place for the Kha-Tuong, and the central stone was occupied by the supreme leader. About who the Kha-Tuongs were, Kolani cites a legend common in Upper Laos:

"Kxia-tuongs were the ancestors of the kings of the country. Having been defeated by the Thai, descending from Tibet, they went south and ended up in the area 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 descendants of the ancient Jarai kings and revere them.

This legend tells about the 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 far North, during which the people were led by sorcerers armed with magic swords and bringing with them the foundations of a megalithic cult and ideas about power. Similar legends about the arrival from the far North have been preserved among other Indonesian peoples of eastern Indochina: the Rade, the Jarais and others. Unfortunately, the legends have not preserved exact indications of the route of these migrations; only the arrival from the north along the Mekong is mentioned.

*) The etymology of the Jaraian term "patao" is significant. According to the scientist S. Meyer, this word means not only "king", but also "stone". Therefore, the Jarai kings are, first of all, the guardians of the sacred stone in which the spirit of Yang Patao dwells. The word "Yang" actually means "spirit".

In his 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 essential 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 somewhat predating the Indian influence in Indo-China.

Ancient megaliths, moreover, all the main types of these structures, known to modern scientists, have survived to this day in Tibet, a country that has still been relatively little explored and is fraught with many surprises. In 1928, the Central Asian expedition of Nicholas Konstantinovich Roerich discovered typical menhirs, dolmens, and cromlechs in the Trans-Himalayas. N.K. Roerich writes:

"You can imagine how wonderful it is to see these long rows of stones, these stone circles that bring you vividly to Carnac, to Brittany, to the ocean. After a long journey, the prehistoric druids remembered their distant homeland ... In any case, this discovery completed our search for the movement of peoples.

Thus, according to the highly authoritative opinion of N.K. , under the leadership of their spiritual leaders the Druids, the same megalithic structures as in their distant Asian ancestral home.

Very peculiar megalithic structures were discovered in Tibet by Yuri Nikolayevich Roerich (the eldest son of Nikolai Konstantinovich). Northeast of Lhasa, he discovered a whole group of megaliths, of which the outermost stone has the form of an arrow and, in his opinion, should be considered as a symbol of lightning, and in general, this entire site with megaliths is a reflection of the cult of nature and, as it were, represents a stage for cosmic rituals.

Other researchers adhere to a similar opinion: Z. Hummel, J. Tucci and A. Franke; they believe that Tibetan megalithic structures are labyrinth sites for cosmic mysteries.

A similar interpretation is given by the English astronomer J. Hawkins to the well-known 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 a calculating machine. As a result, he came to the conclusion that the strange at first glance, the location of the stones of Stonehenge accurately reflects the position of the rising and setting sun on certain days of the year, and that with the help of this structure, eclipses can even be predicted.

Most of the megalithic structures scattered all over the face of the earth are a reflection of the idea that found its most vivid embodiment in ancient Gaul, in the Druidic megaliths. However, not all megaliths are related in spirit to druidic ones and are related to telluric and cosmic mysteries. For example, in eastern India, in the densely forested valley of the Dhansira River, amazing stone monoliths have survived 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 form (these monoliths are in the form of male and female fertility symbols), they belong to a phallic cult. Fuhrer-Heimendorf calls this group of monoliths "a stone orgy of fertility symbols".

In the valley of the Dhansira River in the 16th century there was Dimapur, the ancient capital of the Kachari state, which in the 14th-17th centuries. extended its power to a significant part of modern Asam. But the possibility is not ruled out that the monoliths were not created by the Kachari, but by the civilization that preceded them, as some researchers tend to think (this issue has not yet been finally resolved).

Finally, it should be noted that in Southeast Asia, on the Malay Peninsula, there existed in antiquity its own special civilization, 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 "the ancient cult of stones, which is now hardly accessible to direct observation, but was once the most important component of natural, in particular cosmological cults, as can be judged by Skeet's remark: that the firmament is a kind of stone or rock, which they call "batu hampar", i.e. a flat stone, and the appearance of stars is due (as they thought) to 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 the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus, significant groups of dolmens have survived to this day near Gelendzhik, Dzhubga, Lazarevsky, Esheri and in some other places. These tombs primitive era are strange stone houses built of five huge hewn slabs. The earliest of them were erected 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 before R. X.) that real dolmens ceased to be erected in the Caucasus, but crypts similar in shape to them, but made not of monoliths, but of small stones, were erected until the 11th-12th centuries. new era.)

Once, 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 decrease rapidly, because the newcomer Russian population did not spare these alien and "homeless" monuments of antiquity. *

The dolmens of the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus are, indeed, cyclopean structures, although they were erected not by giants, but by the most ordinary people. For example, one of the dolmens on Asheri is made of slabs 3.7 meters long and up to half a meter thick. One roof 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. Often stones were delivered for many kilometers. Far from the mountains in the steppe Kuban region, a dolmen was found, covered with a slab, which ten people threw down with difficulty. Undoubtedly, it would be necessary to try many options for burial structures in order to arrive at a classical design: four slabs placed on edge, bearing a fifth - a flat ceiling ... The whole complexity of this matter can only be comprehended from one's own experience.

*) Academician A.A. Formozov writes: “Most of all dolmens were in the Kuban region - in the upper reaches of the Belaya River and along the valleys of Pshekha, Fars, Gubs and Khodzi. In 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. No wonder the Adyghe called the dolmens "syrpun" - the houses of dwarfs, and the Kuban Cossacks - "heroic huts". the foundations of dwellings, or even just like that, for fun. Now only the teeth of split slabs stick out of the ground on Bogatyrskaya Polyana. Dolmens were destroyed before archaeologists had time to seriously deal with them. Even where 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, traces of such architectural experiments on Caucasian coast archaeologists did not find it, they immediately began to build dolmens of the classical type. According to A.A. Formozov, dolmens, very similar to the Caucasian ones, were built in the same era in Syria, Palestine in North Africa, in Spain, France and England, in Denmark and southern regions Scandinavia, Iran, India and Southeast 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 should undoubtedly have a common origin ... Undoubtedly, the attraction of dolmens to coastal areas, indicating the role of maritime relations in the spread of these peculiar tombs."

Where did the idea of ​​building dolmens come from in the Caucasus? Archaeologists do not give an accurate and reasonable answer to this question, but on the basis of 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 burial structures. But it is also undoubted that during the construction of these tombs and burials, special rites were performed, and then periodically repeated sacrifices were made. The researchers drew attention to the fact that usually in front of the dolmens, standing on the side of the mountain, there is a flat area. Near the village of Kamennomostskaya, large pillar-shaped stones - menhirs - were 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 Druidic megaliths, these Caucasian structures were placed at the intersections of telluric currents, where there was a particularly strong electromagnetic voltage. These structures, according to Paul Boucher, were used by the Druids as a kind of wireless telegraph station, thus maintaining regular communication with very distant countries. In this way, contact was established between initiates of various 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 upper slab of the dolmens or on special stones in front of them, cup recesses for sacrifices and libations were carved in some places. The Adyghe tribe of the Shapsugs brought sacrificial food to the dolmens in the 19th century. This rite has been preserved since ancient times, when relatives of the buried came to the cemetery with food.

Similar sacrifices also existed among the steppes of the Eneolithic and Bronze Ages. So near Simferopol in the village. Bakhchi-Eli, a large rectangular slab was found, on its upper end side there are two rows of round depressions. The same recesses-bowls on stones were hollowed out in various eras for both cult and practical purposes. A stone with pits was found even at the Mousterian site of La Ferracy. In the 19th century, ethnographers unexpectedly discovered similar depressions on recent peasant tombstones in Brittany, Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland and began to ask about their purpose. The Bretons poured water into these motionless vessels "to cool the souls of the dead." Often water was replaced with milk. IN Scandinavian countries offerings were placed there "for children" and for "dwarfs", in other words - food for the little soul of the deceased. These rites were performed from century to century in old cemeteries, they were also transferred to fresh burials.

In Azerbaijan, where there are many ancient cup stones, in the villages to this day cups are beaten out on gravestones. Similar monuments existed in the Northern Black Sea region. There is information about a stone covered with pits, which stood among the barrows near the village of Rozmaritsina in the Kherson region.

Some archaeologists think that the dolmen reproduces the form of the Egyptian tomb - the mastaba. And in the opinion of A.A. tombs."

What tribes built the Caucasian dolmens? According to A.A.Formozov, settlements of tribes that buried their dead in dolmens were discovered both on the Black Sea coast and in the Kuban region. Traces of dwellings revealed during excavations are absolutely not similar to burial houses. The dwellings have adobe floors, wattle walls coated with clay, and, in rare cases, a foundation made of small pieces of torn stone. The builders of dolmens - the giants of the 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 were studied as in the mounds near the station. Novosvobodnaya. People huddled there in caves, like Neanderthals.

In the II millennium BC. e. among the population of the Caucasus, very rich leaders have already come to the fore. The grave with a canopy and other treasures in the Maykop burial mound is even older than dolmens. Nevertheless, until the Iron Age, the foundations of the primitive community in the Caucasus were not shaken. Probably the whole family worked on each stone crypt. One and a half hundred people spent time and energy to adequately arrange the transition of their brother to another world, and none of them thought that it would be better to use this time and energy to cultivate the fields, improve tools or artistic creativity.

"The people who built the dolmens sculpted dishes by hand, although in the southern regions of Transcaucasia, from the middle of the 2nd millennium BC, the potter's wheel spread. and stone tools of purely Neolithic forms and hunted with such primitive weapons as a sling (sling balls were found more than once during excavations of dolmens). and a potter's wheel, who mastered iron and saddled a horse. A characteristic example of the one-sided development of society, a phenomenon that strikes us in history from antiquity to the present day. In the 20th century, it looks ridiculous. Devoting one's life to the creation of monumental tombs seems senseless to us, but you never know less strange ideas seized mankind for centuries, and even for millennia. these false premises were fruitless for culture, for art. So it is here - excessive, hypertrophied concern for the afterlife and the eternal homes of the ancestors led the primitive man to architecture.

The construction of dolmens was extremely difficult and complex, taking into account the primitive technology of the Neolithic and Bronze Age. This clearly proves such a case, given by A.A. Formozov. In 1960, it was decided to transport (I emphasize: do not build a new dolmen, but only transport the old one a relatively short distance by truck along a good highway) to Sukhum, to the courtyard of the Abkhaz Museum, one dolmen from Esheri. They chose the smallest one and brought a crane to it. No matter how they fixed the loops of the lifting steel cable on the cover plate, it did not move. A second crane was called. Two cranes removed a multi-ton monolith, but they were unable to lift it onto a truck. Exactly a year the roof lay in Esheri, waiting for a more powerful mechanism to arrive in Sukhum. In 1961, with the help of this mechanism, all the stones were loaded onto vehicles. But the main thing was ahead: to reassemble the house. Before this was possible, a fair amount of time passed, the trees of the museum garden were peeled off, and one wall of the dolmen was broken. And yet, the reconstruction was carried out only partially. The roof was lowered onto four walls, but they could not turn it so that their edges fit into the grooves on the inner surface of the roof. In ancient times, the plates were fitted to each other so much that the blade of a knife could not crawl between them. Now there is a big gap.

How were dolmens built in ancient times with extremely limited technical means? Restoring mentally the successive stages of their construction, A.A. Formozov writes that “the material was dragged from the quarry on oxen. Obviously, the simplest rollers, levers, earth filling, temporary supports were used to support the slabs in a vertical position until they were pressed by the ceiling. But in the foreground was the muscular work of many, many dozens of people.According to the calculation of B.A. Kuftin, at least 150 people lifted the upper slab of the Escher dolmen.

Now about the size of the Caucasian dolmens. If we look at the table with these data, we will notice that the farther from the sea, the smaller and smaller their dimensions. In Asheri, the height of the front plate 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 Pshadsky dolmen even reach a length of 4 m. The Kuban "heroic huts" of the Bagovskaya, Novosvobodnaya, Dakhovskaya villages are much smaller: their facade is not higher than a meter, and the total length is on average 1.8 m. In the more eastern regions there are no real dolmens , but here on Kafar and Teberda medieval crypts imitating them in form were found. They are rectangular in plan, with a round inlet, but they are already built from many small stones.

So A.A. Formozov comes to the conclusion that "from 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 they 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 to be "skillful architects. Almost everywhere, the side slabs and the roof protrude somewhat above the front wall. It turns out a U-shaped portal. The back wall is usually lower than the front, and the roof lies obliquely. All this allows to single out structural elements in the building - bearing the vault of the support and express a sense of strength, 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. Solidity, invincibility makes Caucasian tombs related to Egyptian pyramids. " These are the Caucasian megaliths. We can only tell about their sad fate. Here is what A.A. Formozov writes:

"The Caucasian tribes of the Iron Age took care of the ancient cemeteries. A hundred years ago, the Russian Cossacks, who settled in the Kuban region, came across completely intact dolmens. to perform these rituals.The Adyghe people were sure that damage to the dolmens would entail pestilence and misfortune.A sense of respect for distant ancestors and fear of disturbing their peace for forty centuries was transmitted from grandfathers to fathers, from fathers to children, and even peoples alien in 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. Church messages of the Middle Ages are known, which forbade pilgrimage to these pagan structures. But in the fight against millennial beliefs, the church was powerless. Then began the "Christianization" of the megaliths. Crosses were installed on them, and churches were erected over some dolmens.

The same thing happened in Transcaucasia. Here, menhirs had sanctuaries, roosters and rams were sacrificed to them, stone pillars on their knees crawled a certain number of times. Christianity legalized these rites. And here we find chapels above the menhirs.

Protected by popular worship, the megaliths of Brittany and Transcaucasia have successfully survived to this day. Dolmens are not so lucky. 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, whatever they may be. Unfortunately, the Kuban Cossacks, having inherited their places, do not imitate this laudable feature of the highlanders." (E.D. Felitsyn. - Kuban antiquities. Ekaterinodar, 1879, p. 13). Even before the revolution, hundreds of dolmens were destroyed. Often they were smashed without a purpose, just to "test the strength." Even intelligent engineers contributed to the destruction of monuments, ordering to use their slabs for crushed stone for the Black Sea Highway. Sadly, our tractor drivers also like to try on the dolmens "who will take whom" - the tractor will break a stone house or break. And here are the results. In 1885, there were 360 ​​dolmens on Bogatyrskaya Polyana, and in 1928 - 20, and now there are none at all.

So, the dark illiterate Adyghe did not damage the dolmens in any way, and the people with a higher culture wiped them off the face of the earth. The key to the paradox is that for the Adyghes "syrpun" was something sacred, and for Russians it was alien, unusual and unnecessary.

Now the fate of the silent witnesses of the past worries not only archaeologists and art historians. Losses from the destruction of monuments became too obvious. Let's take a lesson from the history of dolmens. In our opinion, it is formulated as follows: those who love them, who cherish them, can save the monuments, but by no means those who are perplexed "why all this is necessary." In ancient times, religion protected them, now they are protected by culture. In a period when religion has lost its former role, and there is still no understanding of the value of cultural heritage, archaeological objects and works usually die ancient art. 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 else, 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 settlements of adobe-wattle, "turluch" houses, relatively recently acquainted with metal. Each tomb required hard, many days of work, and yet one generation after another gave up their daily activities for her sake.

Gradually, the idea of ​​dolmens spread from the coast to the mountains and crossed the Caucasus Range ... Century after century flashed by, the world changed beyond recognition, and the old Shapsugs still carried food for spirits to the dolmens. Then a foreign people came and destroyed the "heroic huts". Such is the history of dolmens. Indeed, standing in front of the last of them, there is something to think about. "So writes Academician A.A. Formozov.

Dr. A.M. Aseev
Asuncion, November 1972

On the surface of the globe, with the exception of Australia, there are many mysterious and ancient buildings.

Modern studies have shown that they were built in the Neolithic, Eneolithic and Bronze Ages. Previously, it was believed that they all represent one common culture, but today more and more scientists are questioning this theory. So, by whom and why were such megalithic structures created? Why do they have this or that form and what do they mean? Where can you see these monuments of ancient culture?

What are megaliths? Before considering and studying megalithic structures, you need to understand what elements they can consist of. Today it is considered to be the smallest unit of constructions of this type of megalith. This term was officially introduced into scientific terminology in 1867, at the suggestion of the English specialist A. Herbert. The word "megalith" is Greek, translated into Russian means "big stone".

An exact and exhaustive definition of what megaliths are does not yet exist. Today, this concept refers to ancient structures made of stone blocks, slabs or simple blocks of various sizes without the use of any cementing or binding compounds and solutions. The simplest type of megalithic structures, consisting of only one block, are menhirs.

The main features of megalithic structures In different eras, various peoples erected huge structures from large stones, blocks and slabs. The temple in Baalbek and the Egyptian pyramids are also megaliths, it's just not customary to call them that. Thus, megalithic structures are various structures created by different ancient civilizations and consisting of large stones or slabs.

However, all structures that are considered megaliths have a number of features that unite them: 1. They are all made of stones, blocks and slabs of gigantic size, the weight of which can range from several tens of kilograms to hundreds of tons. 2. Ancient megalithic structures were built from rocks that were strong and resistant to destruction: limestone, andesites, basalts, diorites and others. 3. During construction, no cement was used - neither in the solution for fastening, nor for the manufacture of blocks. 4. In most buildings, the surface of the blocks from which they are composed is carefully processed, and the blocks themselves are tightly fitted to each other. The accuracy is such that a knife blade cannot be inserted between two megalithic blocks of volcanic rocks. 5. Quite often, later civilizations used the preserved fragments of megalithic structures as a foundation for their own buildings, which is clearly seen in the buildings on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

When were they created? Most of the megalithic objects located in Great Britain, Ireland and other countries of Western Europe date back to the 5th-4th millennium BC. e. The most ancient megalithic structures located on the territory of our country date back to the 4th-2nd millennia BC. Types of megalithic structures The whole variety of megalithic structures can be conditionally divided into two large groups: funerary; non-funeral: profane; sacred. If everything is more or less clear with funerary megaliths, then scientists are building hypotheses about the purpose of profane structures, such as various gigantic calculations of walls and roads, combat and residential towers.

There is no accurate and reliable information about how ancient people used sacred megalithic structures: menhirs, cromlechs and others. What are they like? The most common types of megaliths are: menhirs - single, vertically installed stele stones up to 20 meters high; cromlech - the union of several menhirs around the largest, forming a semicircle or circle; dolmens - the most common type of megaliths in Europe, are one or more large stone slabs laid on other blocks or boulders; covered gallery - one of the varieties of dolmens interconnected; trilith - a stone structure consisting of two or more vertical and one horizontally laid stones on top of them; taula - a stone structure in the form of the Russian letter "T"; cairn, also known as "gurii" or "tour" - an underground or ground structure, laid out in the form of a cone of many stones; stone rows are vertically and parallel blocks of stone; seid - a stone boulder or block, installed by one or another people in a special place, usually on a hill, for various mystical ceremonies. Only the most famous types of megalithic structures are listed here. Let's take a closer look at some of them.

Dolmen Translated from Breton into Russian means "stone table". As a rule, it consists of three stones, one of which lies on two vertically installed, in the form of the letter "P". During the construction of such structures, ancient people did not adhere to any single scheme, so there are many options for dolmens that carry various functions. The most famous megalithic structures of this type are located on the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts of Africa and Europe, in India, Scandinavia, and the Caucasus. Trilith One of the subspecies of the dolmen, consisting of three stones, scientists consider trilith. As a rule, such a term is applied not to separately located megaliths, but to monuments that are components of more complex structures. For example, in such a famous megalithic complex as Stonehenge, the central part consists of five triliths.

Cairn. Another type of megalithic buildings is the cairn, or tour. This is a cone-shaped mound of stones, although in Ireland this name means a structure of only five stones. They can be located both on the surface of the earth and under it. In scientific circles, cairn most often means megalithic structures located underground: labyrinths, galleries and burial chambers. Menhirs.

Ancient and simplest form megalithic structures - menhirs. These are single, vertically massive boulders or stones. Menhirs differ from ordinary, natural stone blocks by their surface with traces of processing and by the fact that their vertical size is always larger than the horizontal one. They can either stand alone or be part of complex megalithic complexes. In the Caucasus, menhirs were shaped like fish and called vishap. On the Iberian Peninsula, on the territory of modern France, in the Crimea and the Black Sea region, quite a lot of anthropomorphic Magalites have been preserved - stone women. Post-megalithic menhirs are also runic stones and stone crosses created much later. Cromlech Several menhirs, set in the form of a semicircle or circle and covered with stone slabs on top, are called cromlechs. The most famous example is Stonehenge.

However, in addition to round ones, there are cromlechs and rectangular ones, as, for example, in Morbihan or Khakassia. On the island of Malta, the cromlech temple complexes are built in the form of "petals". To create such megalithic structures, not only stone was used, but also wood, which was confirmed by the finds obtained during archaeological work in English county Norfolk. " flying stones Lapland” The most common megalithic structures in Russia, oddly enough, are seids – huge boulders set on small stands. Sometimes the main block is decorated with one or more small stones, folded into a "pyramid". This type of megaliths is widespread from the shores of Onega and Ladoga lakes up to the coast of the Barents Sea, that is, throughout the north of the European part of Russia. On the Kola Peninsula and in Karelia, there are seids ranging in size from several tens of centimeters to six meters and weighing from tens of kilograms to several tons , depending on the rock from which they were made. In addition to the Russian North, quite a few megaliths of this type are found in the taiga regions of Finland, northern and central Norway, and the mountains of Sweden. Seids can be single, group and massive, including from a dozen to several hundred megaliths.

Today people look at giant skyscrapers and consider them the pinnacle of human engineering. At the same time, many are not even aware of the technological wonders of ancient history - buildings and temples that, it would seem, could not be built at that distant time. In this review, little-known examples of amazing ancient buildings.

1. Pueblo Bonito

2. Chatal

3. Lokmariake

4. Colossi of Memnon

5. Pillar of Pompey

6. Dolmen Menga

7. Quirigua

8. Dur Sharrukin

9. Hajar-Kim

10. Tiwanaku

The Neolithic, Eneolithic and Early Bronze Age in Europe are characterized by megalithic structures (from the Greek words "mega" - large and "lithos" - stone). These are gigantic, especially for those times, structures of various shapes: Dolmens (tombs with stone pillars and ceilings), menhirs (separate vertically placed stones), cromlechs (circular menhirs), stone boxes and galleries. Ancient people built them from one or many blocks of raw, and sometimes roughly processed stone. Most of these buildings served for burials or were associated with funeral cults. But some of them, according to scientists, were some kind of astronomical observatories. It is clear that the megaliths were built collectively - by whole clans by tribes, because their construction required huge costs and muscular strength. Megaliths are widespread in Western Europe. Available maps indicate that the main strip of their location stretches along the coast of the Atlantic, its seas and bays - from Portugal and Spain, through France. Ireland and southern England to Denmark and southern Sweden. Thousands of megalithic structures have been found on this territory: in France there are about 5000 of them, in the British Isles - about 2000, in Denmark - about 3000. These are mainly burial grounds. Cyclopean structures, of course, are much smaller. The list of World Heritage Sites includes two megaliths that are among the most unique. These are archaeological sites in the valley of the river Wars, as well as Stonehenge (Stonehenge) and Avebury. Speaking about the wonders of primitive culture, one cannot ignore the monuments of a material nature. The most grandiose and, perhaps, the most famous is the Scottish Stonehenge. The ancient Celts divided the year into cold (from Samhain) and warm (from Beltane) periods. The Celts counted the cold period from the time the cattle came from the pastures, and the beginning of the warm period - from the pasture of the cattle to the pasture. Labor experience convinced people that the periods of agricultural work should be coordinated with the movement of the moon and the sun. A striking example of the development of astronomical knowledge and their use by the peoples of the West is the Stonehenge cromlech, located in England between Bristol and Salisbury, as well as the Scottish Stonehenge, which is located near the city of Stornoway, the capital of the islands - Harris and Lewis (Herbit Islands). These structures were two concentric circles. The English Stonehenge consisted of 38 pairs of vertically standing stones, its design also included a third structure made of hewn stones dug into the ground, covered with stone slabs. Scottish Stonehenge consisted, as already mentioned, of 13 monoliths. In the center of such structures stood one huge stone - a monolith, and to the north-east of it outside the structure was another. The researchers drew attention to the fact that the axes of each of these mysterious structures, drawn from the central monolith to the outer one, are directed to the point on the horizon where the sun rises on the day of the summer solstice. These cromlechs are undoubtedly the oldest astronomical structures in Europe for observing the rising and setting of heavenly bodies - the sun and moon, which is necessary to determine the time. According to legend, in front of such altars, the Druids (Celtic priests) performed a solemn service on June 21, which began at the first rays of the sun. In recent years, in England, adherents of Celtic antiquity have organized a modern order of the Druids, whose members are trying to reconstruct the old Druidic rituals and ceremonies. At the initiative of the order, the annual service of the summer solstice at Stonehenge began to be again celebrated, and it is performed in the same place and at the same hour as in ancient times. The mystery of megaliths has long been of concern to mankind. And recently, interest in them has sharply increased again due to the discovery of megalithic structures at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, 40 kilometers from the Bahamas. Megaliths belong to different eras. They were erected in the VIII millennium BC, they were built on the islands of Polynesia just a few decades ago. Who was the first builder, and for what purpose were multi-ton megalithic structures created? It is known that all megaliths clearly gravitate towards the sea, and the farther from it, the smaller they become. stone buildings. Legends, like fog, enveloped them, but there is something in common in all these legends that makes us think again about the mysterious ancient history of the Earth that left an indelible mark on the memory of human generations. The Ring of Brodar is located in the vicinity of the town of Orkney, Scotland. A circle of stones with a diameter of 104 meters carries fewer mysteries than Stonehenge. The age of this building has never been determined, although there is an opinion that it is about 2500 - 2000 BC. According to legends, this megalithic monument was called (temple of the sun). In it, the male (second) part of the three-stage rite of betrothal was performed. Initially, the circle included 60 stones, but by the end of the 20th century there were only 27 of them left. The stones were set inside a circular moat up to three meters deep and 9 wide. His last study was carried out in the 70s. Brodgar's Ring in Orkney is considered the third largest stone circle in the British Isles, but little is known about it. Circle of Brodgar is a Neolithic cromlech on the Mainland, the largest island in the Orkney archipelago (Scotland). It is located on a narrow isthmus between lakes Stennes and Harrey. There are many hypotheses about the purpose of this unique structure. The exact age and number of stones originally installed is still unknown. To date mysterious ring Brodgar is a wide range of vertically arranged megaliths, some of which reach 4.8 meters in height. Once the ring was huge - 340 feet across (approximately 103.6 meters). Each stone is a block of roughly hewn sandstone. Today, the position of 40 stones is known, but there is still enough free space for at least 20, scientists say. Previously, there were 60 megaliths around the site with a diameter of 104 m. Only 27 have survived to this day. There are 13 mounds around the ring, which for some reason have not yet been studied by scientists. At the moment, archaeologists are preparing to conduct a large-scale study, which will last a month, should shed light on the history of its occurrence, age and purpose. The newest project involves repeated excavations and expansion of research areas. It is also planned to conduct geophysical measurements to accurately determine the location of standing stones. What secrets these megaliths will reveal, the future will show ... Concrete menhirs (processed or natural rock, installed by man, in which the vertical dimensions noticeably exceed the horizontal ones) are also devoted to many legends. The Christian Church gave many of them their own interpretation, finding in them the image of the cross and a number of biblical scenes. The most famous and most mysterious of them, of course, is Stonehenge. In England and Scotland, several hundred of such structures, from 2 to 113 meters in diameter, have been found. Although, as you know, the remains of cromlechs are found in many other countries of the world, however, the ruins of Stonehenge amaze with their grandeur. This unique building was erected several centuries before the fall of Homeric Troy, i.e. almost 4 thousand years ago. In the center of Stonehenge is a huge stone measuring 4.8 × 1.0 × 0.5 meters. This stone, called the altar stone, was originally located, apparently, in another place and its purpose is not fully known. Around it, in the form of a gigantic horseshoe, with a diameter of about 15 meters, five triliths rise - structures of two vertical stones, on which a third is laid. The height of triliths varies from 6.0 to 7.2 meters and increases towards the center of the horseshoe, and their weight reaches 5 tons. Triliths at one time were surrounded by thirty vertical stones about 5.5 meters high and weighing 25 tons. On these supports, forming a ring, lay horizontal slabs. The diameter of this ring, which is called sarsen, is about 30 meters. Behind the sarsen ring there were several more ring structures. The entrance to Stonehenge is made from the northeast, it was in this direction that the horseshoe of the triliths opened. In the same direction, at a distance of about 35 meters from the center of the complex, there is a stone menhir pillar about 6 meters high and weighing about 35 tons. It is often called the Heel Stone, although there is no heel-shaped depression on the menhir. What purpose did he serve ancient monument created by an unknown civilization? What is it - a temple of the sun or a place of ritual sacrifices? Even with the help of modern technology, it is very difficult to create such a huge majestic structure of giant boulders, whose weight reaches 50 tons. One legend tells of the giants who lived before the Flood, who were able to build Stonehenge, which still surprises and amazes people. And to this day, it poses many unsolved tasks for scientists, archaeologists, astronomers, ufologists all over the world, and literally every stone has a secret hidden here. Scientists have found that the stones from which Stonehenge was erected were delivered 210 kilometers from the mountains of Poesselia, but this was in a straight line, but they were transported along the rivers, dragged on gurneys as much as 380 kilometers. And it would take 300 years. To organize works of this scale several thousand years ago seems absolutely incredible. Why were such inhuman efforts necessary? Astronomer Gerald Hawkins in the 60s of the last century first suggested and then proved that Stonehenge was used in antiquity as an observatory, which made it possible to carry out astronomical observations with high accuracy. The scientist even discovered something like a "computing machine" - 56 holes located along the perimeter of a regular circle at an equal distance from each other. By shifting stones from one hole to another, it was possible to predict lunar eclipses. A few years ago, Stonehenge was explored by mathematician and astronomer Valentin Tereshin and Vladimir Avinsky, chairman of the Samara UFO Club. studying geometric features the relative position of the individual elements of the megalithic structure, they made sure that the dimensions of the Earth and the Moon, as well as the dimensions of the planets of the solar system, were encrypted with high accuracy. Moreover, a comparison of these data with modern ones revealed only a small discrepancy of a few percent. English geologists have calculated that Stonehenge was built between 1900 and 1600 BC. At that time there were no centralized states. The peoples, who were mainly engaged in hunting and primitive agriculture, did not need to build such gigantic structure. And, most importantly, even the most civilized inhabitants mediterranean countries did not know at that time the true size of the planets and did not have accurate geodetic instruments with which huge stones would be placed. More recently, two more new versions of the purpose of this structure have been made. This summer, after two weeks of excavation inside Stonehenge, two archeology professors Tim Darvill and Geoff Wainwright from the University of Bournesmouth said they were as close as possible to unraveling the mystery of the prehistoric monument. Scientists believe that Stonehenge could serve as a magical hospital. This is confirmed by the found remains of human bodies, the examination of which showed that many of the dead had serious injuries. And thanks to the analysis of their teeth, it was possible to establish that most of them came from remote villages. Over a 600-year period, from 150 to 240 men, women and children were buried at Stonehenge. According to Darvill and Wainwright, people of those times believed that the blue stones of Stonehenge had healing powers, which is why healing rituals were performed there. Another version of the purpose of Stonehenge appeared a little later. According to Professor Mike Parker Pearson, who led the excavations, the world-famous megalithic structure served as a cemetery for the royal dynasty of antiquity. The archaeologist came to such conclusions after conducting a radiocarbon analysis of human remains found on the territory of the complex. The cremated remains - human bones and teeth - were found as a result of excavations back in the 1950s and were kept in a museum in Salisbury. To the conclusion about the royal affiliation of the deceased, the scientist was prompted by an unexpected find - a stone scepter.

Easter Island poses many mysteries to scientists, it is here that hundreds of giant stone idols were discovered. Solve the mysteries of mysterious island in the world - Easter Islands in pacific ocean - tried many. The last serious expeditions there were led by famous travelers Thor Heyerdahl and Jacques Yves Cousteau. After measuring many idols (and there are 887 of them on the island), mathematician Shamil Tsyganov, an accomplice of the expedition, came to the conclusion that the projection of their center of gravity is shifted to the front edge of the base of the idol, which makes the entire structure very unstable. And if you take into account. In addition, a huge “cap” was also installed on the head of the idol (by the way, without any fixation), the multi-ton structure became completely unstable: it was enough to push it lightly and it would fall face down, and the “cap” would fly far forward. By the way, all the idols on Easter Island lie like that - face down. But the most curious thing was that on the pedestals for the idols (ahu), the platforms on which they stood are hemispherical stone structures. If you put an idol with a “cap” on this platform, then it will immediately fall, since the hemisphere on the pedestal will turn due to the shifted center of gravity of the idol. The Japanese, however, installed several groups of idols, but they did this by planting each on a strong metal pin and reinforcing everything with concrete. Despite the fact that the most modern achievements of modern construction technology were used, the Japanese managed to install the “caps” of idols only in a few cases. Hemispherical structures on the pedestals were destroyed, and the recesses for them were filled with concrete. Pedestals - ahu were originally made of an unusual very hard stone, which, by the way, is not found in natural rock outcrops on Easter Island. This stone was brought from some other place. Megalithic slabs, hemispherical bases and much more are made of it. Each ahu, as shown by the instruments, is a source of infrared radiation. The compass in the ahu zone does not work. The bodies of the idols are made of soft volcanic tuff. The eye sockets are carved with cutters, the base and upper part of the head are cut off with some kind of saw. The hats of the idols are made of baked clay, in the quarry where they were made, it can be seen that part of the clay slope was subjected to unusual heat treatment, as if a giant microwave oven was working. The eyes are made of an incomprehensible porcelain-like material. And the pupils are made of red burnt clay. How the ancient tribes could use such technologies, where they learned about them - one can only guess. As it turned out, the mysterious idols from Easter Island are not unique in their kind. Similar figures have been found in the Caucasus, Altai and Mongolia. They are called "stone women". They are much smaller than on Easter Island (0.5 - 2.5 meters high). They, like idols, do not have a brain part of the skull, there is often a pin for a hat, there are no legs, the contours of the back are smoothed out, the hands are folded on the stomach and the emphasis is on the face with clearly defined “organs of death” - nose, eyes, mouth, and ears . But the facial expressions of stone women are kinder. In Mongolia, there are also analogues of standing idols, the bases of which go deep into the ground. In Altai, idols are called "deer stones", their height reaches 3 meters. Most of them have no faces: they were destroyed because they were too scary. There are "deer stones" on which there are no traces of a chip, that is, they were obviously made without a face. On the rocky island of Corsica in the Mediterranean, there are dozens of stone colossi with toothless mouths, massive chins and empty, expressionless eyes. In the form of heavily armed warriors, daggers, knives and long swords hang across their stone chests. Armor or chain mail is clearly visible on the chest and back, round helmets with curved edges are on the heads, a lamellar canopy protects the neck from behind, and horns were probably created on the helmets, then beaten off (there were recesses from the horns on the helmet). These sculptures were created approximately 3200 years ago.

Dolmens are amazing monuments of antiquity. In translation, dolmen means "stone table". There are about 9000 of them in the world. They are scattered all over the earth. Along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, in France, Spain, Portugal, there are also in England, India, Malta, Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, North Korea, and Egypt. There are dolmens on the territory of Russia. Dolmens are structures made of heavy stone slabs of quartz sandstone. There are about 3,000 Caucasian dolmens, and they are located in the coastal strip of the Stavropol Territory, which stretches from Novorossiysk to Ochamchira (Georgia) for 400 km. In width, this strip goes into the mountains for 75 km almost to Maikop. The age of the Caucasian dolmens is more than 7 thousand years. Spheres and hemispheres are often depicted on the facade slab of dolmens. Most of the excavated dolmens have a round hole in the front plate. It is closed with stone plugs, which are mostly destroyed by time. Even with modern technical means it is difficult to build this grandiose structure. Here is how A. Formozov describes the transportation of such a dolmen in the book "Monuments of Primitive Art": They chose the smallest one and brought a crane to it. No matter how they fixed the loops of the steel cable to the cover plate, it did not move. A second crane was called. Two cranes removed a multi-ton monolith, but they were unable to lift it onto a truck. Exactly a year the roof lay in Esheri, waiting for a more powerful mechanism to arrive in Sukhumi. In 1961, with the help of another mechanism, all the stones were loaded onto vehicles. But the main thing was ahead: to reassemble the house. The reconstruction was carried out only partially. The roof was lowered onto four walls, but they could not turn it so that their edges fit into the grooves on the inner surface of the roof. In ancient times, the plates were adjusted to each other so much that the blade of a knife did not crawl between them. And now there is a big gap. Until now, the purpose of dolmens remains a mystery.

primitive culture art building megalith