Megalithic structures: types and types. Megalithic structures: types and types (11 photos)

Among the listed ruins, the ruins of three walls (“fortress”) of Saksauman, about 600 m long, are of the greatest interest. The first and second walls reach a height of 10 m, the third - 5 m. The lower (first) wall consists of andesite and diorite blocks weighing from 100 to tons. The largest of them has dimensions of 9 x 5 m x 4 m. The blocks of the second and third walls are slightly smaller than the blocks of the first tier.

But both of them are so precisely fitted to each other that even the blade of a knife cannot be inserted between them. In addition, all blocks are polyhedra of a rather complex shape. They were cut down in a quarry, lying 20 km from Saxahuaman. Within these 20 km areseveral gorges, steep ascents and descents!

Cusco
In Cuzco there are remains of cyclopean walls, built of huge stone blocks, also filigree fitted to each other. One of these buildings is the Inca Palace.

Ollantaytambo
At Ollantaytambo, giant building blocks of andesite and pink porphyry are found at the base of the Temple of the Sun, preserved fragments of the back wall and gate of the 10 Nis temple, the "sacred zone" (in scattered form) and the first row of terraces. They are also found in various hard-to-reach places in the river valley. Urubamba. The locals call them "burnt stones" (Spanish: piedras cansadas).

The Living Ethics in Germany website provides a truly fantastic hypothesis that the ancient builders of South American megalithic structures softened rocky matter to a jelly-like state with the help of their psychic energy. Then they cut it into huge blocks of arbitrary shape, transported them through the air to the construction site using telekinesis, and there they laid them in the walls, fitting one to the other using the same method of softening rock blocks to a plastic substance, giving them the desired shape on the spot. Only in this way can one explain the strange form that the giant buildings of Ollantaytambo, the Inca palace in Cusco, the walls of Saxhuaman, the ruins of Tiahuanaco, the ahu pedestals on Easter Island and other similar buildings have.

Read my work"Siddhi-powers and the causes of superhuman abilities of the predecessors of people"

Giant monolithic sculptures South America and Easter Island

In addition to ruins, an important integral part megalithic culture of South America are giant monolithic sculptures in Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, on about. Easter, as well as "Olmec heads" in Mexico. The height of such sculptures reaches 7-10 m, and the weight is 20 or more tons. The height of the heads ranges from 2 to 3 m with a weight of up to 40 tons.

Moai and ahu - megalithic structures of Easter Island

A particularly large number of sculptures - moai - are located on about. Easter. There are 887 of them. The largest of them stand on a slopevolcano Rano Raraku. They are immersed up to their necks in sediments accumulated on the island during its long history. Some moai used to stand on stone plinths - ahu. The total number of ahu exceeds 300. Their size ranges from several tens of meters to 200 m.
The largest moai "El Giante» (El Gigante) has a height of 21.6 m. It is located in the Rano Raraku quarry and weighs about 150 tons (according to other sources, 270 tons). The largest moai "Paro" (Paro), standing on a pedestal, is located on the ahu "Te Pito Kura" (Ahu Te Pito Kura). Its height reaches 10 m, and its weight is about 80 tons. The height of the moai scattered along the slope of the Rano Raraku volcano is also about 10 m.

Statues of human and animal heads on the Marcaguasi plateau

On a par with the ruins and giant sculptures, you can put huge sculptures of human heads with features of Europeans and blacks, as well as images of monkeys, turtles, cows, horses, elephants, lions and camels on the Marcaguasi plateau in Peru, located at an altitude of about 4 km. ABOUT ancient age These images testify to at least two facts. Firstly, the animals "engraved" on the plateau never lived at such a height. Secondly, most of them have disappeared since American continent long before the appearance of Europeans there - from 10-12 to 150-200 thousand years ago.

Stone balls from granite and obsidian of Central America and Mexico

The next evidence of the existence of highly developed civilizations in pre-Columbian America are stone balls made of granite and obsidian in Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala and the USA (state of New Mexico). Among them there are real giants with a diameter of up to 3 m.The determination of the absolute age of Mexican obsidian balls showed that they were formedin the tertiary period "Even before the advent of man" (no later than 2 million years ago). Trying to find an explanation for this, the American scientist R. Smith hypothesized that they arose naturally from volcanic ash.

Megalithic structures Middle East

Baalbek in Lebanon
The ruins of megalithic structures and other ancient archaeological sites are known far beyond the American continent. The most majestic of them are the ruins of Baalbek in Lebanon. The weight of each of the three stone blocks in Trilithon, located at the base of the temple of Jupiter built by the ancient Romans, is 750 tons. The surfaces of the blocks are perfectly processed, and their dimensions are simply amazing: 19.1 x 4.3 x 5.6 m. Moreover, these monoliths are ... at an eight-meter height! They rest on slightly smaller blocks.

Half a kilometer south of the temple of Jupiter from the ground at an angle of 30 deg. sticks out the world's largest processed stone - South or Mother - weighing about 1200 tons and measuring 21.5 x 4.8 x 4.2 m
The author of the books "Gods of the New Millennium" and "The Way of the Phoenix" Alan Alford asked specialists in heavy cranes whether such a hulk could be lifted. They answered in the affirmative, but at the same time they added that it would be possible to move with the block only if you put the crane on a caterpillar track and do good road. So, the builders of the foundation of Baalbek had a similar technique?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MEGALITHIC MONUMENTS IN BRITTANY

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

DOLMENS

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

cairn

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

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

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

Karin on the island of Gavrinis

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

covered alley

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

Dolmen with gallery

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

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

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

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

Step 1	Step 2
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Step 5	Step 6

Outcome

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

MENGIRS

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

- menhir in Kerloas (Finistere) - 12 m.

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

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

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

Carnac (Department of Morbihan)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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	Step 3
	Step 4

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

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

KROMLEHI

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

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

To be honest, I did not hesitate for a second when choosing a topic. It is so interesting, multifaceted, not a single generation of scientists, archaeologists, researchers thought about it. It is interesting to me that so far no tools have been found that could be used to cut huge blocks of stone with such incredible accuracy, nor what they were delivered to the installation site and according to what laws they installed. Their meaning is also not clearly known: some are inclined to occultism, for example, H. P. Blavatsky, others believe that thanks to them, electromagnetic waves and energy were transmitted, there are even energy cards, but more on that later. You are reading this work and do not understand what it is about.

What are megaliths

Megaliths (from the Greek ????? - large, ????? - stone) - structures made of huge stone blocks, characteristic mainly of the final Neolithic and Eneolithic (IV-III millennium BC. . in Europe, or later in Asia and Africa). The term was proposed in 1849 by the English researcher A. Herbert in the book Cyclops Christianus, and in 1867 it was officially adopted at a congress in Paris. The term is not exhaustive, therefore, a vague group of buildings falls under the definition of megaliths and megalithic structures. In particular, large-sized hewn stones, including those not used for the construction of burials and monuments, are called so.

Categories of megaliths

All megaliths can be divided into two categories: The first includes the most ancient architectural structures of prehistoric (pre-literate) societies (temples of the island of Malta, menhirs, cromlechs, dolmens). For them, either not processed at all, or with minimal processing, stones were used. The cultures that left these monuments are called megalithic. Often megaliths include structures made of rather small stones (mazes), and individual stones with petroglyphs (sledoviki). Some structures of more advanced societies (the tombs of the Japanese emperors and the dolmens of the Korean nobility) also carry a similar architectural aesthetic.

The second category is represented by buildings of more developed architecture, largely consisting of very large stones, which are usually given a geometrically regular shape. They are characteristic of early states, but were also built in later times. In the Mediterranean, for example, these are the pyramids of Egypt, the buildings of the Mycenaean culture, the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. In South America there are some structures in Tiwanaku, Sacsayhuaman, Ollantaytambo.

1) Menhirs (from the Celtic word menhir) - one of the types of megalithic monuments in the form of separate vertically placed stones, sometimes forming parallel rows several kilometers long; found in Brittany (France), England and Scandinavia; on the territory of the USSR - in the Caucasus and Siberia.

2) Dolmens (from the Breton words tol - table, and men - stone) - structures of the Neolithic, Bronze and Early Iron Age * in the form of huge stones placed on edge and covered from above with a massive slab; found in Europe, in India and other countries; in the USSR - in the Caucasus and Crimea; they had not only funerary, but also religious and magical significance.

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

3) Cromlechs (from the Breton words crom circle and lech - stone) are structures of the Neolithic and mainly of the Bronze Age in the form of round fences made of huge stone blocks and pillars (up to 6-7 meters in height); found in Europe, Asia and America; most of them in Western France (Brittany) and England; they certainly had a religious and magical significance.

Until recently, cromlechs survived in the southern Russian steppes, encircling many mounds of the Yamskaya culture of the 3rd millennium BC. This is a belt of large stone blocks or slabs placed on edge, up to 20 meters in diameter. According to Academician A.A. Formozov, slabs of such a cromlech near the village of Verbovka in the Dnieper region, dragged 60 kilometers from Chigirin, were covered with various geometric patterns. Once upon a time, a wooden tent rested on this stone ornamental frieze, and the earthen and turf base of the whole structure was hidden in the depths.

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

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

"The modern archaeologist, although he will talk endlessly about dolmens and their builders, in reality knows nothing about them or their origin. Nevertheless, these strange and often colossal monuments of unhewn stones, usually consisting of four or seven giant blocks placed side by side, scattered in groups or rows throughout Asia, Europe, America and Africa. Stones of enormous size are placed horizontally and variously on two, three or four blocks, and in Poitou on six or seven. The people call them "thrones devil", druidic stones and tombs of giants. The Carnac stones in Morbigan, Brittany (France), stretching almost a mile and numbering up to 11,000 stones distributed in rows, are twin brothers of the stones in Stonehenge (England). The conical menhir at Loch Mariaker at Morbihan it measures 20 yards in length and about two yards across.The menhir at Champ Dolen (near St. Malo) rises thirty feet above the ground and goes fifteen feet below the ground. Similar dolmens and prehistoric monuments are found at almost every latitude. They are found in the Mediterranean reservoir; in Denmark among local mounds from twenty to thirty-five feet high; in Scotland, in Sweden, where they are called Ganggriten (or graves with corridors); in Germany, where they are known as giant graves (Günen-greben); in Spain, where the Antigera dolmen is located near Malaga; in Africa; in Palestine and Algeria; in Sardinia, together with the Nuraghi and the Sepoltura dei Giganta or Giants' tombs; in Malabar, in India, where they are called the tombs of the Daityas and Rakshasas, demonic people from Lanka... in Peru and Bolivia, where they are called Chul-pa or burial places, and so on. There is no country in which they would be absent."

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

It has been established that most of the surviving dolmen-type megalithic structures both in Europe and on other continents are related to the funeral cult: during excavations in the dolmens themselves or near them, human bones or urns with ashes are found. But even H.P. Blavatsky drew attention to the fact that not all megalithic (or, in her terminology, cyclopean) structures were intended for tombs. According to her, "It is certain that the two famous mounds, one in the Mississippi Valley and the other in Ohio, respectively known as the 'Alligator's Mound' and the other as the 'Great Serpent's Mound', were never intended for graves. Here is the following description from one scientific work: "The first of these animals (the alligator) is drawn with considerable art, and it has no less than 260 feet in length ... The inside is a pile of stones, over which a form of thin hard clay was sculpted. The Great Serpent is depicted with its mouth open as it swallows an egg which is 100 feet in diameter at its widest part, the body of the animal is curved in grandiose coils and the tail is curled into a spiral. The entire length of the animal is 1100 feet. It is a masterful creation, one of a kind... and there is nothing on the Old Continent that represents any analogy to this", however, with the exception of his symbol of the Serpent (Time Cycle) swallowing an egg (Cosmos).

H.P. Blavatsky is certainly right: in ancient times, megalithic structures were erected not only as tombs of ancestors, but also had a higher purpose, for example, religious and religious-magic, as occult centers, a kind of "radio station" (for international communications initiates, to perform cosmic mysteries, etc.). We must not forget that in ancient times, not only in the Paleolithic, but also in the Neolithic era, man was closer to nature than now, was in a living, indissoluble connection with it, then the mineral kingdom was closer to the human world, between man and stones. there was contact and even a kind of mutual understanding.

H. P. Blavatsky, in the second volume of her "Secret Doctrine", refers to the extensive work of De Mirville: "Memoires adressees aux Academies", in which historical evidence is collected that in antiquity, in the days of miracles, both pagan and biblical stones they moved, spoke, uttered prophecies and even sang... In "Achaika" we see how Pausanias admits that at the beginning of his work he considered the Greeks very stupid for their "veneration of stones". But when he reached Arcadia, he adds: "I have changed my mind." Therefore, without any worship of stones or stone idols and statues, which is one and the same thing - a crime in which the Catholics of the Roman Church unreasonably reproach the pagans - one can be allowed to believe in what so many great philosophers and saints believed, without deserving the nickname "idiot" from modern Pavzani.

The reader is invited to apply to the Academie des Inscriptions if he wishes to study the various properties of flints and stones, from the point of view of magical and psychic powers. In the poem about the Stones attributed to Orpheus, these stones are subdivided into ophites and siderites, into "Serpent Stone" and "Star Stone".

"Ophit is rough, hard, heavy, black and has the gift of words: when he is thrown, he makes a sound like the cry of a child. It was through this stone that Helenius predicted the death of Troy, his homeland."

Sanchuniathon and Philo of Biblus, speaking of these "betyles", call them "animate stones." Photius repeats what Damascius, Asclepiades, Isidore, and the physician Eusebius had asserted before him. In particular, Eusebius never parted with his ophite, which he wore on his chest and received from him prophecies, transmitted to him "in a low voice, reminiscent of a light whistle." Of course, this is the same as the "quiet voice" heard by Ilya after the earthquake at the entrance to the cave.

Arnobius, a holy man who “from a pagan became one of the lights of the Church,” as Christians tell their readers, admits that when he met one of these stones, he could never help asking him a question, “to which he sometimes received answer in a clear and distinct voice." Where, then, is the difference between a Christian and a pagan Ophite, we ask?

The famous stone at Westminster was called Liafail, "the talking stone," and he raised his voice only to name the king who was to be chosen. Cambry, in his Celtic Monuments, says that he saw it while it was still inscribed:

Ni fallat fatum, Scoti quocumque locatum Invenient lapidem, regnasse tenentur ibidem. Swinging or "logan" stones have various names: such as the clacha-brath of the Celts, "stone of fate or judgment"; a prophesying stone or "testing stone", and a stone oracle; the moving or animated stone of the Phoenicians; grumbling stone of the Irish. The Bretons have their "rocking stones" in Huelgoat "e. They are found in the Old and New Worlds; in the British Isles, in France, Italy, Russia, Germany, etc., as well as in North America. (See " Letters from North America" ​​by Hodson, vol. II, p. 440). Pliny mentions several of these in Asia. ("Natural History," vol. I, p. 96). "stones placed on the top of the Mound, and they are so sensitive that thought can set them in motion" (Ackerman, "Art. index", p. 34), no doubt referring to the ancient priests who moved such stones by will 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 "flee away when a hand touched them" (See Abbot Bertrand's "Dictionary of Religions").

H. P. Blavatsky draws attention to the ruins of Stonehenge, where, according to her, there are real forests of rocks - huge monoliths, some of them weigh about 500,000 kilograms. There is an assumption that these "hanging" stones in the Salisbury Valley represent the remains of a Druidic temple. They are distributed in such a symmetrical order that they represent a planisphere. They are set on such a remarkable point of balance that they seem to barely touch the ground, and although they can be set in motion by the slightest touch of a finger, yet they do not succumb to the efforts of twenty people should they try to move them.

H.P. Blavatsky considers most of these monoliths to be relics of the last Atlanteans and disputes the opinion of geologists who claim their natural origin: as if the rocks were weathered, i.e. under atmospheric influences they lose layer after layer of their substance and take this form; such are the "mountain peaks" in the West of England. All scientists believe that all these "swinging stones owe their origin to natural causes, wind, rain, etc., causing the destruction of rocky layers" and emphatically reject H. P. Blavatsky's statement, especially because, according to their observation, "This process of changing the rocks is going on around us to this day." Therefore, this issue needs to be thoroughly studied.

Geologists recognize that often these giant boulders are completely alien to the places where they are now located and belong to rocks, which are found only far beyond the seas and are completely unknown in their current location.

"William Tooke, talking about the huge blocks of granite scattered in Southern Russia and Siberia, says that where they are now there are no rocks or mountains, and that they must have been brought "from afar with the help of fabulous efforts." Charton speaks of a sample of such a rock from Ireland, which was subjected to analysis by a famous English geologist, who determined its alien origin, perhaps even African.

This is a strange coincidence, for Irish tradition attributes the origin of its round stones to a sorcerer who brought them from Africa. De Mirville sees in this sorcerer "the accursed Hamit". We see in him only an Atlantean, or perhaps even one of the early Lemurians who survived before the birth of the British Isles.

"Dr. John Watson, speaking of moving rocks or "swinging stones" placed on the slope of Golkar ("Wizard"), says: "The amazing movement of these blocks, set in balance, made the Celts equate them with the gods." In scientific Flinders Petrie's work "Stonehenge" says that: "Stonhenge is built of stone located in the district of red sandstone or sarsen stone, locally called" gray rams ". But some of the stones, especially those said to be of astronomical significance, were brought from afar, probably from Northern Ireland."

In conclusion, it is worth mentioning the considerations on this issue of one scientist in an article published in 1850 in the Archaeological Review: "Each stone is a block, the weight of which would put the most powerful machines to the test. In a word, there are blocks scattered throughout the globe, boulders at the sight of which the imagination is confused and the designation of which by the word materials seems devoid of meaning, they should be called by names corresponding to these bulks.In addition, these huge, swaying stones, sometimes called Pouters, placed with one end of their on the point of such a perfect balance, that the slightest touch is enough to set them in motion... reveal the most positive knowledge of statics Mutual opposition, surface and plane, convex and concave in turn, all this connects them with cyclopean structures, which can be said with sufficient reason, echoing De la Vega's words that "apparently, the demons worked more on them than the people."

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

The rocking stone is recognized by science. But why is he swinging? One would have to be blind not to see that the movement was another way for divination and that for this reason they were called "stones of truth". (De Mirville, ibid., p. 291).

Richardson and Barth are said to have been astounded to find in the Sahara desert the same triliths and uplifted stones that they had found in Asia, the Caucasus, Circassia, Etruria, and throughout Northern Europe. Rivett-Karnak of Allahabad, the famous archaeologist, expresses the same astonishment when he read the descriptions given by Sir J. Simpson of the bowl-shaped signs on the stones and rocks of England, Scotland, and others. Western countries, "showing an extraordinary resemblance to the signs on the boulders that surrounded. the burial mounds near Nagpur - the City of Serpents. An outstanding scientist saw in this "another and very unusual addition to the whole mass of evidence that a branch of nomadic tribes, which in an ancient era passed through Europe, also penetrated into India." "We say, Lemuria, Atlantis and its Giants and the earliest races of the Fifth Root Race, all had a hand in the construction of these betils, litas and in general "magic stones". The bowl-shaped signs noted by Sir J. Simpson, and "depressions carved into the surface" of rocks and monuments found by Rivette-Carnack, "of various sizes from six inches to an inch and a half in diameter and from one to an inch and a half deep, usually placed along perpendicular lines, revealing numerous changes in the number and size and distribution of bowls" - are simply recorded records of the most ancient races. Whoever carefully examines the drawings made from the same signs in the "Archaeological Notes on Ancient Inscriptions on the Rocks in Kumaon, India", etc., will find in them the most primitive style of marks or records. Something similar was adopted by the American inventors of the Morse telegraph code, which reminds us of the Ogham letter, a combination of long and short lines, as Rivette-Carnac describes it, "carved into sandstone." Sweden, Norway, and Scandinavia are full of such recorded records, for the Runic letters resemble signs, bowls, and long and short lines. In the Tome of Johann Magnus, one can see the image of a demigod, the giant Starkhaterus (Starkad, a student of Hrosaharsgrani, a magician), who holds under each hand a huge stone with runic inscriptions on it. This Starkad, according to Scandinavian legends, went to Ireland and performed miraculous feats in the North and South, East and West. (See "Azgard and the Gods", pp. 218-221).

This is history, for the past of prehistoric times bears witness to the same fact in later ages. Dracontia, dedicated to the Moon and the Serpent, were the most ancient "rocks of fate" of the oldest peoples; and their movement or swing was a perfectly clear code for the initiated priests, who alone held the keys to this ancient method of reading. Wormius and Olaus Magnus show that it was by order of the oracle, whose voice spoke through "these huge blocks of stone, raised by the colossal power of the (ancient) giants", that the kings of Scandinavia were elected. So Pliny says:

"In India and Persia, it was from her (Persian Otizoe) that the magicians had to ask for advice when choosing their rulers." (Pliny. - "Natural History", 37, 54). And further Pliny describes a stone block above Harpasa in Asia, and installed in such a way that "a touch with one finger can set it in motion, while it cannot be moved by the whole weight of the body." (Ibid., 2, 38). Why, then, could not the rocking stones of Ireland or Brimgam, Yorkshire, serve for the same methods of divination and prophetic messages? The largest among them are obviously the relics of the Atlanteans; smaller ones, like the rocks of Bringam, with revolving stones on their tops, are copies from older stones. If in the Middle Ages the bishops had not destroyed all the plans of Draconia, on which only they could lay their hand, science would know more about these stones. But nevertheless we know that they were in general use throughout many prehistoric ages, and they all served the same purpose, divination and magical purposes. E. Biot, a member of the Institute of France, published an article in "Antiquites de France" (Volume IX) proving the identity of the location of Chatamperamba ("Field of Death" or ancient burial places in Malabar) with ancient graves in Karnak; that is, that they have "an elevation into the central grave."

Esotericists know that in ancient times, initiates of all peoples, including the Slavic Magi, traveled a lot and visited the occult-religious centers of other, often very distant countries. H. P. Blavatsky writes about such journeys of Egyptian priests - initiates; according to her, there are records that they "traveled in a northerly direction overland, a path that later became Strait of Gibraltar, then turned north and passed through the future settlements of the Phoenicians in Southern Gaul; then still farther north until they reached Karnak (Morbigan), and then they turned again to the West and arrived, continuing to go overland to the northwestern cape of the New Continent, "to that land" which is now the British Isles, which then were not yet separated from the mainland. The ancient inhabitants of Picardy could cross into Great Britain without crossing the canal. The British Isles were connected to Gaul by an isthmus, which has since been covered by waters.

H. P. Blavatsky raises the question: what was the purpose of the long journey of the Egyptian priests? And how far back should the time of such visits be placed? According to her, "archaic records testify that initiates of the second sub-race of the Aryan family moved from one country to another in order to oversee the structures of menhirs and dolmens, colossal Zodiacs made of stones, as well as the places of tombs that were supposed to serve as a container for the ashes of future generations. When did this happen? The fact that they crossed from France to Great Britain by land may give an idea of ​​the time when such a journey could have been made by land."

It was when "the level of the Baltic and North seas was 400 feet taller than at present. The valley of the Somna did not yet exist to the depth to which it has now reached; Sicily was connected with Africa, the Barbary possessions with Spain, Carthage, the pyramids of Egypt, the palaces of Uxamala and Palenque did not yet exist, and the brave navigators of Tire and Sidon, who in later times were destined to make their dangerous journeys along the coast of Africa, have not yet been born. We only know with certainty that European man was a contemporary of the extinct species of the Quaternary epoch.

"The aforementioned journeys of the Egyptian initiates, precisely, had to do with the so-called Druidic remains, like Karnak in Brittany and Stonehenge in Great Britain. And all these gigantic monuments are symbolic records of world history. They are not Druidic, but universal. Also, it was not the Druids who built them, for they were only the heirs of the legends of the Cyclopes, bequeathed to them by generations of powerful builders and "magicians, both good and bad."

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

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

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

"Kxia-tuongs were the ancestors of the kings of the country. Having been defeated by the Thai, descending from Tibet, they went south and ended up in the area between Bandon and Annam. Their descendants became the kings of water and fire. The first lives in Patao Ya, the second - in Patao -Lum.* All Kha consider these kings to be descendants of the ancient Jarai kings and revere them.

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

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

In his work on the megaliths of Laos, M. Kolani did not resolve the issue of the ethnicity of the builders of the megaliths, but this is not essential for us; the main thing is that she rightly considers the megaliths of Laos to be one of the stages of megalithic migration and, based on the finds of iron objects accompanying them, dates them to the first centuries of our era, i.e. a time somewhat predating the Indian influence in Indo-China.

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

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

Thus, according to the highly authoritative opinion of N.K. Roerich, the ancient Celts, the builders of the megaliths of Karnak, came to Europe from Tibet (or one of modern France and Belgium, they began to build according to tradition, under the guidance of their spiritual leaders the Druids, the same megalithic structures as in their distant Asian ancestral home.

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

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

A similar interpretation is given by the English astronomer J. Hawkins to the well-known megalithic structure of Great Britain - Stonehenge. He compared his observations with the stories of the descendants of the Celtic priests (Druids) and then processed all the data obtained using a calculating machine. As a result, he came to the conclusion that the strange at first glance, the location of the stones of Stonehenge accurately reflects the position of the rising and setting sun on certain days of the year, and that with the help of this structure, eclipses can even be predicted.

Most of the megalithic structures scattered all over the face of the earth are a reflection of the idea that found its most vivid embodiment in ancient Gaul, in the Druidic megaliths. However, not all megaliths are related in spirit to druidic ones and are related to telluric and cosmic mysteries. For example, in eastern india, in the valley of the Dhansira River covered with dense forests, amazing stone monoliths have survived to this day, which are 16 huge blocks of sandstone arranged in four rows. Images of peacocks, parrots, buffaloes, and various plants are carved on them. Judging by their form (these monoliths are in the form of male and female fertility symbols), they belong to a phallic cult. Fuhrer-Heimendorf calls this group of monoliths "a stone orgy of fertility symbols".

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

Finally, it should be noted that in Southeast Asia, on the Malay Peninsula, there existed in antiquity its own special civilization, the development of which was stimulated by constant ties with India, China and the countries of the Arab East. One of the foundations of this peculiar civilization was "the ancient cult of stones, which is now hardly accessible to direct observation, but was once the most important component of natural, in particular cosmological cults, as can be judged by Skeet's remark: that the firmament is a kind of stone or rock, which they call "batu hampar", i.e. a flat stone, and the appearance of stars is due (as they thought) to the fact that light penetrates through holes made in this stone.

Let us now consider the megaliths of the Caucasus, based on the work of Academician A.A. Formozov: "Monuments of Primitive Art on the Territory of the USSR", Moscow, 1966, p. 128; the fourth chapter of this study (pp. 76-87) is devoted to Caucasian dolmens.

On Black Sea coast Caucasus, significant groups of dolmens have survived to this day near Gelendzhik, Dzhubga, Lazarevsky, Esheri and in some other places. These tombs primitive era are strange stone houses built of five huge hewn slabs. The earliest of them were erected more than four thousand years ago, and the latest date back to the middle of the first millennium BC. It was then (about five hundred years before R. X.) that real dolmens ceased to be erected in the Caucasus, but crypts similar in shape to them, but made not of monoliths, but of small stones, were erected until the 11th-12th centuries. new era.)

Once, before the conquest of the Caucasus by Russia, there were thousands of dolmens there, standing untouched for 3-4 thousand years. But after the annexation of the Caucasus to Russia, their number began to decrease rapidly, because the newcomer Russian population did not spare these alien and "homeless" monuments of antiquity. *

The dolmens of the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus are, indeed, cyclopean structures, although they were erected not by giants, but by the most ordinary people. For example, one of the dolmens on Asheri is made of slabs 3.7 meters long and up to half a meter thick. One roof weighs 22.5 tons. It is not easy to lift such a weight to the level of the walls, and this is by no means the only problem. Often stones were delivered for many kilometers. Far from the mountains in the steppe Kuban region, a dolmen was found, covered with a slab, which ten people threw down with difficulty. Undoubtedly, it would be necessary to try many options for burial structures in order to come to classic design: four slabs placed on edge, bearing a fifth - a flat ceiling ... The whole complexity of this matter can only be comprehended from one's own experience.

*) Academician A.A. Formozov writes: “Most of all dolmens were in the Kuban region - in the upper reaches of the Belaya River and along the valleys of Pshekha, Fars, Gubs and Khodzi. In the “heroic glade” near the village of Novosvobodnaya at one time there were 360 ​​dolmens. in rows, they resembled the streets in a small village. No wonder the Adyghe called the dolmens "syrpun" - the houses of dwarfs, and the Kuban Cossacks - "heroic huts". the foundations of dwellings, or even just like that, for fun. Now only the teeth of split slabs stick out of the ground on Bogatyrskaya Polyana. Dolmens were destroyed before archaeologists had time to seriously deal with them. Even where roofs and walls were preserved, everything inside was dug up by treasure hunters, the bones of the buried and the clay vessels were broken and thrown out. Therefore, our information about the dolmens is very incomplete."

However, archaeologists did not find traces of such architectural experiments on the Caucasian coast; they immediately began to build dolmens of the classical type here. According to A.A. Formozov, dolmens, very similar to Caucasian ones, were built in the same era in Syria, Palestine in North Africa, in Spain, France and England, in Denmark and southern regions Scandinavia, Iran, India and Southeast Asia. At the same time, they were built by "different tribes and not always in the same era, but the idea of ​​​​such a construction should undoubtedly have a common origin ... Undoubtedly, the attraction of dolmens to coastal areas, indicating the role of maritime relations in the spread of these peculiar tombs."

Where did the idea of ​​building dolmens come from in the Caucasus? Archaeologists do not give an accurate and reasonable answer to this question, but on the basis of logical conclusions, we believe that this idea came to the Caucasus from ancient Gaul, from the Druids, with whom the builders Caucasian dolmens were in spiritual fellowship.

Caucasian dolmens were undoubtedly erected as burial structures. But it is also undoubted that during the construction of these tombs and burials, special rites were performed, and then periodically repeated sacrifices were made. The researchers drew attention to the fact that usually in front of the dolmens, standing on the side of the mountain, there is a flat area. Near the village of Kamennomostskaya, large pillar-shaped stones - menhirs - were dug around the site. There are similar sites or "courtyards" in other countries - in Spain, England and France. * There is no doubt that some religious and religious-magical ceremonies were performed on these sites. It is also possible that, like the Druidic megaliths, these Caucasian structures were placed at the intersections of telluric currents, where there was a particularly strong electromagnetic voltage. These structures, according to Paul Boucher, were used by the Druids as a kind of wireless telegraph station, thus maintaining regular communication with very distant countries. In this way, contact was established between initiates of various tribes and peoples. It is possible that the initiates of the Caucasus were also included in this chain.

*) A.A. Formozov notes that on the upper slab of the dolmens or on special stones in front of them, cup recesses for sacrifices and libations were carved in some places. The Adyghe tribe of the Shapsugs brought sacrificial food to the dolmens in the 19th century. This rite has been preserved since ancient times, when relatives of the buried came to the cemetery with food.

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

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

Some archaeologists think that the dolmen reproduces the form of the Egyptian tomb - the mastaba. And according to A.A. Formozov, "solidity, indestructibility makes Caucasian tombs related Egyptian pyramids. The similarity is natural. Both of them were supposed to serve as eternal dwellings for people who considered this life only a temporary haven and embodied their faith in another life in monumental stone tombs.

What tribes built the Caucasian dolmens? According to A.A.Formozov, settlements of tribes that buried their dead in dolmens were discovered both on the Black Sea coast and in the Kuban region. Traces of dwellings revealed during excavations are absolutely not similar to burial houses. The dwellings have adobe floors, wattle walls coated with clay, and, in rare cases, a foundation made of small pieces of torn stone. The builders of dolmens - the giants of the Adyghe legends, who mowed quadrangular blocks on their shoulders, actually lived in miserable shacks. Moreover. On the Belaya River and in the vicinity of Adler, in several caves, sites with the same pottery were studied as in the mounds near the station. Novosvobodnaya. People huddled there in caves, like Neanderthals.

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

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

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

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

Now about the size of the Caucasian dolmens. If we look at the table with these data, we will notice that the farther from the sea, the smaller and smaller their dimensions. In Asheri, the height of the front plate is about 2.5 meters, and the length of the side walls is 3-3.5 m. Equally massive stones were used in the ancient cemeteries of Gelendzhik, Dzhubga, Lazarevsky. The walls of the Pshadsky dolmen even reach a length of 4 m. The Kuban "heroic huts" of the Bagovskaya, Novosvobodnaya, Dakhovskaya villages are much smaller: their facade is not higher than a meter, and the total length is on average 1.8 m. In the more eastern regions there are no real dolmens , but here on Kafar and Teberda medieval crypts imitating them in form were found. They are rectangular in plan, with a round inlet, but they are already built from many small stones.

So A.A. Formozov comes to the conclusion that "from archaeological sites one can judge the very process of spreading the idea of ​​a dolmen from the coast to the more remote corners of the Caucasus. We see that another process was going on in parallel: people gradually made their task easier: first they reduced the size of the tombs , and then they began to build them from the same material as the huts, abandoning the stones of the monoliths.

By placing massive slabs with precise construction calculations, the creators of dolmens proved to be "skillful architects. Almost everywhere, the side slabs and the roof protrude somewhat above the front wall. It turns out a U-shaped portal. The back wall is usually lower than the front, and the roof lies obliquely. All this allows to single out structural elements in the building - bearing the vault of the support and express a sense of strength, inviolability of the dolmen. It was the desire for strength that required the construction of dolmens from five large slabs, and not from paving stones or torn stone. Solidity, invincibility makes Caucasian tombs related to Egyptian pyramids. " These are the Caucasian megaliths. We can only tell about their sad fate. Here is what A.A. Formozov writes:

"The Caucasian tribes of the Iron Age took care of the ancient cemeteries. A hundred years ago, the Russian Cossacks, who settled in the Kuban region, came across completely intact dolmens. Most of them were plugged with (stone) plugs. Local population still vaguely remembered worship at ancient graves, and in some places continued to perform these rites. The Adyghe people were sure that damage to the dolmens would lead to pestilence and misfortune. The feeling of reverence for distant ancestors and the fear of disturbing their peace for forty centuries was transmitted from grandfathers to fathers, from fathers to children, and even to peoples alien in origin.

This phenomenon is observed wherever there is megalithic monuments. In Brittany, at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, sick people were brought to them in the hope of healing, and girls who dreamed of getting married went to pray. French ethnographers described round dances around menhirs. Church messages of the Middle Ages are known, which forbade pilgrimage to these pagan structures. But in the fight against millennial beliefs, the church was powerless. Then began the "Christianization" of the megaliths. Crosses were installed on them, and churches were erected over some dolmens.

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

Protected by popular worship, the megaliths of Brittany and Transcaucasia have successfully survived to this day. Dolmens are not so lucky. In 1897, the founder of the Ekaterinodar Museum, E.D. Felitsyn, complained: “The highlanders, our predecessors in the Trans-Kuban region, generally treat ancient monuments with great respect, whatever they may be. Unfortunately, the Kuban Cossacks, having inherited their places, do not imitate this laudable feature of the highlanders." (E.D. Felitsyn. - Kuban antiquities. Ekaterinodar, 1879, p. 13). Even before the revolution, hundreds of dolmens were destroyed. Often they were smashed without a purpose, just to "test the strength." Even intelligent engineers contributed to the destruction of monuments, ordering to use their slabs for crushed stone for the Black Sea Highway. Sadly, our tractor drivers also like to try on the dolmens "who will take whom" - the tractor will break a stone house or break. And here are the results. In 1885, there were 360 ​​dolmens on Bogatyrskaya Polyana, and in 1928 - 20, and now there are none at all.

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

Now the fate of the silent witnesses of the past worries not only archaeologists and art historians. Losses from the destruction of monuments became too obvious. Let's take a lesson from the history of dolmens. In our opinion, it is formulated as follows: those who love them, who cherish them, can save the monuments, but by no means those who are perplexed "why all this is necessary." In ancient times, religion protected them, now they are protected by culture. In a period when religion has lost its former role, and there is still no understanding of the value of cultural heritage, archaeological objects and works 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 else, the tribes of the northwestern Caucasus began to build megalithic tombs designed to last for centuries. The oldest and largest dolmens appeared on the shores of the Black Sea. The creators of these tombs were not mythical giants. These were people who lived in caves or settlements of adobe-wattle, "turluch" houses, relatively recently acquainted with metal. Each tomb required hard, many days of work, and yet one generation after another gave up their daily activities for her sake.

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

Dr. A.M. Aseev
Asuncion, November 1972