A wall of huge stones. History: History. Megaliths: who built them? The mystery remains a mystery for now

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 that were built already in historical times are often classified as megaliths, but either using cyclopean blocks (the Temple of Jupiter in Baalbek) or without the use of mortar (Machu Picchu in Peru, 16th century).

What then unites the megaliths? Perhaps monumentality 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 similarity of dolmens from 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.

But sooner or later, building simple stone boxes ceased to bring satisfaction. 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.

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 pyramids in their 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 the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean through the Isthmus of Panama than to drive 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.

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 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 believed exactly the same thing, using record, 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.

In addition to . All photographs were taken on the territory of the former USSR

Megaliths, huge structures made of massive stone blocks, are also found in our country. There are quite a lot of similar structures in Russia, but they are not known as well as the famous Stonehenge in the UK or
Ollantaytambo in Peru. We will get acquainted with the ancient megalithic structures found on the territory of Russia further.

First
where to start the journey is Mount Vottovaara - the highest point
West Karelian Upland - 417.3 m above sea level. Square
mountains 6 sq. km.
The place is simply full of strange artifacts after which
you begin to think about ancient highly developed technologies for
stone processing, let's take a better look at the photo.

Mount Vottovaara.
Megalith blocks are scattered.

Was the near block cut at an angle of 90 degrees or a play of nature?

How
as if they had used a laser:) geologists believe that cracks and faults,
formed as a result of a strong earthquake about 9 thousand years ago
back. The smooth planes of the stones are the result of the properties of the local rock -
quartzite, the structure of which determines such even planes when
split

So is it nature or man-made? Let's take a closer look.

More
it looks like perfectly sawn blocks tightly fitted to each other.
It's hard to imagine an ancient ancestor with a copper chisel somewhere on
grief grinds out such even blocks.

Good angle, perfectly straight wall.

Who lost the ball?)

This obviously involved high technology in stone processing, or is it just a play of nature? :)

Ural. Kvarkush Ridge

Mount Pidan.
At first glance, it looks like an unremarkable pile of cracked rock.

But getting closer it looks more like megalithic masonry.

Looking in
between the blocks, where the stones were less susceptible to erosion from
wind and rain, you can see the handiwork and how the smooth edges have been preserved.

In the place where the joint of the blocks split apart, an even cut can be seen and the technology for laying these blocks opens before us.

Some blocks weigh up to tens of tons.

Despite the colossal destruction, many fragments were preserved well enough to be classified as building materials.

And nature created all this, as scientists say.

This is most likely a product of the natural processes of stone formation and its uneven erosion. Inclusions of different densities may appear as a result of greater resistance to wear.
More like dripping stone wax)

Stone town in the Perm region.
By
According to scientists, Stone Town is the mouth of a river that flows into the Perm
sea ​​millions of years ago, this is what explains the beautiful and smooth, under
right angles, carved stones, their neat laying and
“channels” “mouths” perpendicular to each other.

Stone city.

Look how smooth the sides of the megaliths are, as if they were cut down.

Again the old method of looking between the blocks inside the masonry, look at the far block in the center, an even cut along the entire length of the block.

They say somewhere on the Kola Peninsula there is this pool carved right into the rock.

In the south of Western Siberia in the mountainous Shoria in the Mezhdurechensky region there is a small geological village called Kameshki.
IN
Several educated, talented geologists live in this village. This
Alexander Bespalov, Vyacheslav Pochetkin and others. These people have spent their entire lives
engaged in research into the mountain systems of Western Siberia. One day they
came across strange megalithic structures in the mountains, which for
They couldn’t explain themselves. These were walls made of giant
stone blocks and strange buildings with vertically mounted
stone obelisks. They contacted Georgy Sidorov via the Internet,
This is how the first expedition was assembled.

Mountain Shoria.
Some
the granite blocks below were made of red granite, crowning them
blocks of gray granite, and above lay polygonal masonry of various
blocks, both red and gray granite.

Granite
in some places melted from exposure to enormous temperatures and
flowed under the weight of the upper rows. Kungurov would say about this that it is
traces of melting from a thermonuclear explosion :)

The wall is made of polygonal masonry made of multi-colored blocks.

The size of the blocks is impressive; according to one version, the find is a man-made structure over 100 thousand years old.

On
photo Georgy Sidorov, in his opinion this whole megalithic structure
may be the ruins of an ancient power plant or power plant,
which transferred seismic energy into some other energy.

Again
looking inside the masonry where the blocks were less susceptible to erosion, you can see
smooth straight edges, look how the two blocks lie tightly, it’s better here
handicraft is visible.

Polygonal masonry.

Mountain Shoria. Huge blocks.
on
Department of Radiophysics at Tomsk State University
showed photographs on the screen, talked about various types
masonry, about stone locks that hold together giant granite blocks
and not a single scientific physicist said that all this is natural
origin. What surprised them most was how the ancients could lift
giant stone blocks to a height of more than 1000 meters and there
install them on a special platform.

Then
In the Tomsk branch of the Russian Geographical Society, photographs were studied by geologists and geographers. AND
both of them came to the conclusion that the presented artifacts are
man-made.

Sklyarova
asked to comment on the find. And what did he say? What all
the artifacts found are nothing more than cracked at right angles
rocks. That there is nothing man-made here. Just a game of nature, nothing more.
After these words, I am not surprised why LAI does not study Russian megaliths.

Between blocks.

For comparison, on the left is the megalith in Baalbek, on the right is the megalith in the mountainous Shoria, it looks like the author is the same :)

Mount Shaman near the village. Nizhnetambovskoe, Khabarovsk region.

Ancient megalithic masonry.

Again, the handiwork and straight lines are better visible between the blocks.

Large megalith block.

A large megalith block on small stones, this is done for better earthquake resistance.

The megalithic masonry resembles Mountain Shoria.

Kabardino-Balkaria, cave in the Baksan Gorge.
At first
you need to squeeze into a hole measuring 40 by 120 cm, then go down to
rope along a narrow vertical shaft. It is formed by two parallel
stone slabs. After 9 meters - the first “knee”: the hole goes to the side and
it immediately breaks down again. Already here you will be covered by absolute silence -
There is no sound coming from outside. Another 23 meters deep - and new
"knee". To reach the bottom of the cave, you need to overcome more than 80 meters,
and it will take a whole hour. But, having passed the bottleneck, you
You will find yourself in a huge room, which the researchers called the “flask”.
Inside we will see processed walls made of tuff and granite, made of
polished megaliths of different sizes, tightly fitted to each other.

Descent into the cave.

The edges of the blocks and the seams between them are clearly visible.

The smooth masonry is amazing and the seams are clearly adjusted to each other.

The triangular blocks have moved slightly apart.

Barely noticeable seams of blocks on the left half-lunar wall and on the wall behind it.

How do you like the seams?

Rotate the cave at an angle of 90 degrees. Two large megalithic blocks stand on top of each other.

Technologies
the stone treatments are amazing, and the boss’s comment is even more amazing
section of the Kabardino-Balkarian geological exploration expedition of Vera
Davidenko, but she is a realist and believes that nature can do everything and did everything
conclusion: “Tuff is an accumulation of volcanic ejection products -
ash, lava fragments, volcanic glass and, to a small extent,
fragments of rocks that make up the walls of the crater. Release material at
accumulation was hot and therefore cracks formed during solidification
separately - that is, the entire tuff massif appeared to be divided into
blocks. The depression discovered in the area of ​​the village of Zayukovo represents
is one of those gravitational separation cracks for which
characterized by smooth contact surfaces,” but this is the boss
geological exploration expedition, she probably knows better.

Scheme of the structure.

A little fantasy for the finale) Arakul Shikhan, a strange structure in the middle of the forest. I have everything, kick me :)

Petrified liths with ripples along the banks of Rassokha.

Sayan megaliths. Kuturchinskoe Belogorye:

Does anyone need to explain that these are not remnants, but rather REMAINS of structures of an ancient civilization unknown to us?

I hope you can see everything for yourself? No need to comment?

This,. Of course it's difficult. It’s hard to imagine what this structure looked like before, but imagine how thousands, tens of thousands of years, day after day, the rocks were sharpened by wind, sand, water, temperature changes, changes in lighting, glaciers, earthquakes (the area is seismically active, there is even an extinct volcano). Sharp corners were ground down, straight edges were smoothed, and now we see what we see.

The climate in these places is very harsh, in such a climate what would remain of Machu Picchu is the same as in this photo, I have no doubt about it.

Complete this arch in your mind and imagine a vaulted ceiling above your head. Are the dimensions of the “corridor” impressive?

It was built absolutely in accordance with seismic resistance technology, which was used in Mesoamerican megalithic structures, and in the “temple” in the Middle East: At the base there are small blocks, larger ones are laid on them, and on top it doesn’t matter. Small ones work like a shock absorber, and polygonal masonry is the best invention of masons of all time. It can only be destroyed by breaking off piece by piece, or by a powerful explosion, after which a kurumnik appears in place of the monolith - a stone river of debris.

These structures are also so poorly identified as “man-made” because they were subjected to powerful impacts from changes in the landscape itself. Mountains “breathe”; heights and deviations from the horizontal constantly change.

Pay attention to the sun... yes! The same “megandavid” that is considered to be a symbol of Judaism!

Only the load-bearing supports have survived.

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 base 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, the second volume of which gives a thorough description of the most outstanding megalithic structures in many countries of the ancient world and explains their occult significance. 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 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 under the influence of the Christian church, all pre-Christian beliefs and rituals began to be considered pagan, devilish. As for “Druid 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 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 his mouth open as he swallows an egg, the diameter of which was 100 feet at its widest part, the body of the animal bending in grandiose twists and the tail curled 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 they moved, spoke, pronounced 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 placed on 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 on 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 located.

"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 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 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 by names corresponding to these bulks. In addition, these huge, swinging stones, sometimes called Pouters, placed with one end 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, surface and plane, convex and concave in turn - all this connects them with cyclopean structures, which can be said with sufficient reason, repeating the words of De la Vega that "apparently the demons worked more on them than the 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 astonishment on reading the descriptions given by Sir J. Simpson of the cup-shaped marks on the stones and rocks of England, Scotland and other Western countries, "showing an extraordinary resemblance to the marks on the boulders which surrounded .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.” 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 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 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 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, sacred 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. the inhabitants of Picardy could cross to 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 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 voyages along the coast of Africa, were not yet born. All we know with certainty is 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."

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 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 Southeast Asia, on the Malay Peninsula, there existed in ancient times 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 “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 the Black Sea coast of 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 incoming 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, Spain, France and England, Denmark and the southern regions of Scandinavia, 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 motionless 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 the Caucasian tombs similar to the 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 the belief 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 ground, 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 homes of our 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 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 size of the 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. In the 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 “from archaeological monuments 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 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. The local population still vaguely remembered 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, and stone pillars on their knees slid down a certain number of times. 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. During 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 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." So writes academician A.A. Formozov.

Dr. A.M. Aseev
Asuncion, November 1972

Studying megalithic structures will reveal the technologies of the past. How many civilizations existed in ancient times and can we find traces of them that will complement our understanding of the history of our world?

Who built the huge megalithic structures, the age of which scientists cannot always accurately determine? What technologies were used in their construction and what secrets of stone processing have we lost? What are modern scientists hiding when they deliberately destroy many ancient artifacts? Alexander Koltypin, Candidate of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, is confident that a new approach to the study of ancient monuments can provide answers to these questions.

Alexander Koltypin: A single underground-ground megalithic complex, like a foundation, the foundation of some previous world destroyed by a catastrophe. I’m not even sure that this is one world, because if we compare geological and folklore legends of catastrophes that destroy previous worlds, then there were at least 4 of them, because, for example, according to Aztec legends, Mayan legends, Indian legends there were 5 or 6 worlds , and according to Jain almost 7 religious texts, and they were destroyed by global disasters.

Therefore, this complex, which consists of underground structures, underground cities, ruins and some kind of megalithic buildings, passing smoothly through underground structures, and sometimes between them you don’t even see any joints, fastenings, as if, here are megalithic the blocks, as it were, were cut out of the rocky base themselves and continued it further. Perhaps this is one last world destroyed, the previous one preceding ours, perhaps there are different worlds in different places, that is, not only the penultimate world, but also the worlds preceding this penultimate one. This is difficult to say, because these complexes are silent, they do not contain any minerals, and to determine its absolute age, I see only one possibility so far, this is to scrape off monomineral fractions from the crusts of secondary altered rocks of underground cities and isolate there, for example, potassium minerals, carry out analysis using the potassium-argon method, we will determine not the age of construction of these structures, but only the time when this crust of secondary altered rocks was formed.

At least, determine its age by the coals of rock found in them, as they do now, by scraps of clothing, there, the remains of some baskets, skeletal remains that could get there, say, after 50, after 10 million years, so , this is completely wrong. It turns out that these megalithic structures, although they form, in my opinion, one complex throughout the world, which is globally distributed throughout the world, covering the entire globe, it is also developed at the bottom of the oceans. It is represented in the master plan by 3 different entities. These are underground structures, and some underground structures, they are simply amazing in the clarity of execution, clearly neither chisels nor some kind of handicraft tools were working here, absolutely perfectly carved dome-shaped caves, with completely smooth walls, that these are clearly some kind of machines, machine processing . In the Gavrin region of Israel, in the bell caves, 30 meters high and about a hundred meters in diameter, traces of drilling are visible, and some kind of drill with an expanding diameter was coming from above, they are clearly visible. What civilization did all this? On many structures, for example, the same structures in Mareshi and in Israel, pyramidal or trapezoidal holes are cut out that run along the perimeter. For what purpose? For what? The acoustics in these rooms are usually stunning, and operas are held there. Or, for example, as we saw this year in Bulgaria, on the outside of such structures, on the contrary, trapezoidal holes are often visible, which are also located according to a certain system, but there are no acoustics at all, there is simply no echo, they are called “deaf stones” , due to this.

That is, this is also probably not some kind of coincidence, in one case there is such an echo that it is simply difficult to withstand it, in another there is no echo at all, that is, ancient civilizations built these structures, taking into account the obvious use of them for some reason. then acoustic properties. This second complex is simply megalithic, the ruins of some kind of megalithic buildings, castles, buildings, most often they are often made of basalts, indesites, limestones, completely different stones, moreover, different blocks are also square in shape, some are also complexly carved, here as, for example, in Hattusash, and some kind of stairs, there, ledges were cut out. Sometimes there are rectangular blocks, there are 500, 600, 1000 even a ton, like in Levan there is such a colossus that is leaning against. And the third type is on the tops of the mountains that we saw, I call them Perpheus fortresses, on the periphery there are megalithic blocks, sometimes they are several tons, sometimes there are dozens of tons, and many tens of tons. As a rule, there are round wells on the site, some arches that go down, which, in our opinion, were completely deliberately filled up by someone so that they would not be studied.

As a rule, there are no excursions there; reference materials, for example, tourist guides, say nothing about them at all. For example, when I started talking about Hattusas, I forgot to say that when describing Hattusas, not a single word was said about the fact that there are megalithic structures there in any tourist guide, not in any description on the Internet, not in any archaeological material about this that I read, not a word was said either. We only went there, assuming that we could find such blocks, because there was Sklyarov’s expedition there before us, which described that there was megalithic masonry there, moreover, in a neighboring place in Alaki-Khayu, and we saw such an abundance. Either there is a silencing going on, or they don’t know, or the archaeologists who are working really understand that this complex does not fit into the dating they are doing, and they are just trying to keep quiet about its presence. This also applies to stone statues, for example, in the museums of Ankara, in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara there are stone sphinxes and stone lions, they are also in a place that also dates back to the Hittite era. When we compare these destroyed sphinxes, which have torn off ears, heads, eaten by erosion, a powerful crust of secondary changes, when we compare them with a perfectly preserved ceramic vase, well, that they are of the same age, a very big, to put it mildly, doubt arises. These structures were built by completely different people or creatures, that is, these are the structures that are folded in blocks that weigh about a hundred, tens and hundreds of tons, loaded onto a mountain, or somewhere we see in such, well, not quite on a mountain, in mountainous areas, but which previously occupied a large area. It seems that they were actually built by some giants, and there are many legends about giants who, with the help of their psychic energy, with the help of levitation, moved these stones, without even expending effort on this themselves, but possessing some kind of superhuman abilities .

Secondly, this is, undoubtedly, in Turkey, in the Phrygian Valley, we saw this when we traveled to a number of objects, many structures were built by people or creatures of similar physique to humans, and underground structures. Because, for example, the rooms that have been preserved, the windows have been preserved, the doors to these rooms have been preserved, you walk through them completely normally, you feel completely comfortable in them, these are all carved in stone. So, that is, the creatures were building, but the fact that they pulled these blocks up the mountain, and these are not only blocks, these are the rooms in which we are sitting comfortably, about the same size, carved entirely out of stone. Here was a stone, there was such a block, and a hole was cut out, then windows were cut out, and so on, all this was dragged up the mountain. That is, these, again, are creatures who possessed some unimaginable superhuman ability. Also, many underground structures, for example, because, for example, in Taklarin I saw a preserved toilet underground, which was clearly for creatures of an ordinary, normal human physique, approximately, it was built according to a similar principle. And at the same time, some buildings, such as in Cappadocia, were apparently built by some kind of dwarfs. I can’t give a better comparison than this Chud, which is in the Urals, and, by the way, that there were people there Chud, we were told about this back in the first year of the institute so unofficially that all copper deposits were found in the footsteps of this mysterious dwarf people, Chud. In fairy tales this is called gnomes, that is, some kind of dwarf shelter, because you literally have to crawl through many underground structures almost on all fours. This is especially evident in Cappadacia, Israel, in underground cities, that their construction often took place in several stages.

That is, at first some machines worked, mechanisms made halls, magnificent vaulted arches, columns carved in stone, sculptures, apparently, stood. I even found some kind of handwritten writing in one such room, and showed it to the specialists, the stamped writing was clearly from the time when it was built. Their interpretation was different, one specialist from Serbia said that this is approximately an ancient Slavic date, which approximately corresponds to the third millennium BC. Now, given that this building, since there are many bas-relief crosses carved into it, officially dates back to the Byzantine era. Well, you understand, this is our Christian era. Other experts generally said that this is not a date, but is written, like, I don’t remember verbatim now, “legacy from past to future civilizations.” Here, that is, as it were, this is what we will die, or we will perish, but this will survive centuries and remain forever, that is, this is the translation of this structure, but this is quite interesting. And, apparently, there were some kind of statues, and, for example, in the Valley of Love in Cappadocia I saw a place where the bas-reliefs of these statues were preserved. They are eaten away by severe erosion, smoothed out, in the Greater Yazilikaya plateau in Turkey in the Phrygian Valley, between Athinyonkarahisar city and Şehir, about 200 kilometers west of Ankara. On the Great Yazilikaya plateau, where erosion is also smoothed out, stone monuments of lions, elephants, some birds and other mythical animals have been preserved and are quite clearly visible in photographs; their contours are difficult to recognize, but they are recognizable from different angles, because, apparently , millions of years have passed since they were made. Stone thrones, wells, and so on have been preserved there, that is, all this is the heritage of ancient civilizations.

Civilizations, as I said, most likely were different, that is, giants, civilization, some of these were built, some were built by creatures close to us in physique, at least those cities that I call elven. Perhaps these are mythical elves who had superpowers. The Dwarves, it’s just that ordinary people came next, who... Each civilization that occurred made changes to the underground cities, completed their construction. For example, if at first the machines were working, then they started working with the help of ordinary stone chisels, and this is often misleading. In addition, for example, in Turkey, again in the Çavuşin region, we observed how some modern forces were driving around and using chisels, spoiling these perfectly carved stone structures. Apparently, in order to also create the illusion among tourists, perhaps among specialists, that this is not an ancient building of some primitive savages, but of some kind of high civilization.

* Additional Information:
On the website “” you will find a detailed story about artifacts and evidence of the ancient history of mankind. -

Megalithic structures appeared and spread widely during the Bronze Age. Megaliths include the following structures:

• menhirs;
• dolmens;
• alinemans;
• cromlechs;
• covered walkways;
• and other buildings made of large stone blocks and slabs.

Megalithic structures can be found in every corner of the globe: in the Caucasus, Crimea, Western and Northern Europe (England, France, Denmark, Holland), India, Iran, the Balkan Peninsula, North Africa and other countries.

Figure 1. Megalithic structures. Author24 - online exchange of student work

History of the appearance of megalithic structures and types

The appearance of various types of megalithic structures is often associated with cults of veneration of ancestors, the sun or fire, and totems. Large-scale work on processing and moving stone blocks was carried out with the help of a huge number of people under the primitive community of labor organization. The most common monuments of this type are dolmens.

Definition 1

Dolmens are burial structures that consist of several slabs arranged vertically and covered with a horizontal slab.

The weight of the slabs reached several tens of tons. Initially, dolmens reached a length of two meters, their height did not exceed 150 centimeters. However, over time, their size became larger; the approach to them was arranged in the form of a stone gallery. The length of such galleries could reach 20 meters. Another type of megalithic structures are menhirs.

Definition 2

Menhirs are vertically installed stone pillars that have a rounded cross-section, a height of up to 20 meters, and a weight of about 300 tons.

Menhirs are located near dolmens, so there is an assumption that funeral rites connect them. Menhirs can often be found in small groups that are arranged in parallel rows. It happens that the length of such rows reaches 30 kilometers.

An example is Carnac in Brittany, where the number of menhirs reaches 3000. It is believed that each menhir is a monument to a deceased person.

Note 1

Menhirs did not arise out of vital necessity, when a person needed to build a home or warehouses. The creation of menhirs was based on an idea that is not related to the struggle for existence. But, despite this, considerable efforts were made to extract, deliver and hoist these blocks, which reached impressive sizes and considerable weight.

The fact of such a rapid spread of this type of megalithic structure indicates that menhirs were a kind of expression of ideas that were the same for the people of that era, regardless of their actual location.

It is no coincidence that these stones were enormous in size and weight. If we take into account their historical relationship with subsequent structures that had architectural features, then a menhir is a funerary monument or monument that is similar in its memorial column, but a dolmen is a crypt, tomb or sarcophagus. The cromlech at Stonehenge is already a kind of temple, albeit a very primitive one.

Definition 3

Cromlechs are large groups of menhirs that are arranged in closed circles. Sometimes circles consist of several rows of vertically placed stones.

An example of a complex megalithic structure is Stonehenge. This is a circle with a diameter of 30 meters, which consists of vertically placed stones. From above they are covered with horizontal slabs. In the middle of the structure there are two rings of low stones, and between them there is a third ring of tall blocks arranged in pairs. In the center is a single stone, which is believed to be an altar. Stonehenge is a famous megalithic structure, which already has such architectural elements as center, rhythm, symmetry.

In this type one can see a structure in which a technical problem not only found a certain type of solution, but also received an aesthetic embodiment, which indicates the architect’s mastery of a sense of rhythm, space, form, scale and proportions. Other megaliths do not possess such qualities, since according to all the above characteristics, they are all closer to amorphous natural creatures than to the work of human hands.

Despite this, the cromlech located in Stonehenge also cannot be called an architectural structure. It is too massive in relation to the horizontals, its verticals are too heavy. The technicality of the appearance in this case prevails over its artistic composition. Exactly the same as in all other structures that preceded the formation of the cromlech:

• dugouts;
• semi-dugouts;
• huts;
• above-ground adobe structures that had a utilitarian purpose.

The artistic form arose only when the utilitarian form reached perfection. It was also at the final stage of the Bronze Age, when crafts and the artistic industry actively emerged.

A huge number of megalithic structures have been collected in the Caucasus. Stone alleys, which in Armenia were called the stone army, became widespread here. There are also stone images of fish, which were the personification of the deity of fertility.

Magical architecture of megalithic structures

The origins of architecture date back to the late Neolithic. At that time, stone was already used to create monumental structures. All megaliths of antiquity can be divided into two large groups:

• Ancient architectural structures of prehistoric societies: cromlechs, menhirs, dolmens, temples of Malta. Almost unprocessed stones were used to build such structures. Cultures that used such structures are called megalithic. This culture also includes labyrinths made of small stones, as well as individual stone blocks with petroglyphs. Megalithic architecture also includes dolmens of the Korean nobility and tombs of Japanese emperors.
• Megalithic structures of more developed architecture. These are structures made of large stone blocks that have a regular geometric shape. Such megalithic architecture is characteristic of early powers, which were not built in later times. This includes monuments of the Mediterranean: megalithic structures of the Mycenaean civilization, pyramids in Egypt, the temple mount located in Jerusalem.

The most beautiful megalithic structures in the world

Gobekli Tepe, Türkiye. The complex is located on the Armenian Highlands. This megalithic structure is considered the oldest in the world. According to historical data, it was formed in the 10th–9th millennium BC. People at that time were engaged in gathering and hunting. The shape of this megalithic temple resembles circles, of which there are more than 20 pieces. According to experts, this architectural complex was deliberately covered with sand. Its height reached 15 meters, and its diameter was 300 meters.

Megaliths in Carnac (Brittany) France. Many megalithic structures were represented as ceremonial centers in which cults for the burial of the dead were carried out. This includes the megalith complex in Carnac (Brittany), which is located in France. It contains about 3000 stones. The megaliths reached a height of 4 meters, they were arranged in the form of an alley, the rows ran parallel to each other. This architectural complex can be dated back to the 5th–4th millennium BC. There were legends that Merlin ordered the ranks of Roman legionnaires to be turned to stone.

Figure 8. Megaliths at Carnac (Brittany), France. Author24 - online exchange of student work

Nabta Observatory, Nubia, which is located in the Sahara. Some megalithic structures were previously used to determine astronomical events (equinox and solstices). At that time, a megalithic structure was found in the Nubian desert in the Nabta Playa area, which was used for astronomical purposes. Thanks to the special arrangement of the megaliths, it was possible to determine the day of the summer solstice. Archaeologists believe that people then lived seasonally, only when there was water in the lake. That's why they needed a calendar.

Stonehenge, UK, Salisbury. Stonehenge is a megalithic structure, which is presented in the form of 82 columns, 30 stone blocks and five huge trilithons. The weight of the columns reaches 5 tons, stone blocks - 25 tons, and huge stones weigh 50 tons. The stacked blocks form arches that previously pointed to the cardinal directions. According to scientists, this structure was erected in 3100 BC. The ancient monolith was not only a lunar and solar calendar, but was also an exact cross-section of the solar system.

Figure 9. Stonehenge, UK, Salisbury. Author24 - online exchange of student work

By comparing the mathematical parameters of the geometric figures of the cromlech, it was possible to establish that they all reflect the parameters of the various planets of the solar system, and also model the orbits of their rotation. What is surprising is that Stonehenge is a representation of the 12 planets of the solar system, although today it is believed that there are only 9 of them. Astronomers have long believed that there are two more planets beyond the outer orbit of Pluto, and the asteroid belt is the remains of a previously existing 12th planets. How could the ancient builders of the cromlech know about this?

There is another interesting version about the purpose of Stonehenge. During the excavation of the path along which ritual processions were carried out, the hypothesis that the cromlech was built along the relief of the Ice Age was once again confirmed. This place was special: the natural landscape was located along the solstice axis, connecting heaven and earth.

Cromlech Broughgar or Sun Temple, Orkney. Initially, this structure had 60 elements, but today only 27 rocks have been preserved. The place where the cromlech is located is ritual. It is “stuffed” with various mounds and burials. All the monuments here are united into a single architectural complex, which is preserved by UNESCO. Today, archaeological excavations are being carried out on the islands.

Temples of Ggantija in Šara. It is located in the central part of the island of Gozo and is one of the world's most important attractions. The megalithic structure is presented in the form of two separate temples, each of which has a concave façade. In front of the entrance there is a platform made of stone blocks. The oldest temple of the architectural complex consists of several semicircular rooms arranged in the shape of a trefoil.

Figure 10. Ggantija Temples in Šara. Author24 - online exchange of student work

Scientists believe that such a trinity is a symbol of the past, present and future. According to historians, the temple complex is a sanctuary for worshipers of the goddess of fertility. However, there is a version that the Ggantija temple is a tomb, because the population of the megalithic era followed traditions. They revered their ancestors and erected tombs, and later these places became sanctuaries where they worshiped the gods.