Rough Stone Monuments and Their Builders

RANEAN

describe a number of simple dolmens which exist near Ladò in the Sudan. Tripoli remains as yet comparatively unexplored. The traveller Barth speaks of stone circles near Mourzouk and near the town of Tripoli. The great trilithons (senams) with holes pierced in their uprights and 'altar tables' at their base, which Barth, followed by Cooper in his Hill of the Graces, described as megalithic monumen

e hill and to form a level platform for the dolmen. Thus on the lower side there are three courses of carefully laid stones rising to about five feet, while on the upper side there is only one course. The diameter of the circles varies from 22 to 33 feet. In the centre of the circle lies the dolmen with its single long cover-slab. This usually rests on two entire side-slabs, the ends being filled up either with entire slabs or with masonry of small stones. In rare ca

me cases formed by very large slabs set on edge, but more often by two or three courses of rough oblong blocks. Many of the graves are badly damaged. One of the finest had an outer circle about 27 feet in diameter, and an inner circle 14 feet in diameter. Between these two a third circle, much more irregular and of small stones, could just be distinguished. But in most cases it was impossible to make out clearly more than the one outer circle and the dolmen within it. The dolm

d. With this were two whole vases, fragments of others, and pieces of cedar wood. At the feet of the skeleton were two human heads, and as the graves would not have accommodated more than one whole body M. Féraud suggests that these belong t

rs of the three still perfect circles are 23?, 26?, and 34? feet respectively. At a point roughly south-east there is a break in the circumference, filled by a rectangular niche (Fig. 19) consisting of three large slabs, and varying in width from 2 ft. 6 in. to 6 feet. There is a possibility that the niches were originally roo

circle at the

cIver and

rom 25 to 33 feet in diameter. The cover-slabs of the dolmens usually rest on single uprights, and never on built walls. Several of the graves excavated contained more than one body, one yi

ence for a very late date proves nothing, as it is not stated to have been found in a tomb. There is no evidence to show how far back the graves go. It may be that, as MacIver and Wilkin suggest, the parts of the cemeteries excavated chance to be the latest. At Bou Merzoug the excavators work

ridor-tomb in which three dolmen-like chambers lie on either side of a central passage, and a seventh at the end opposite

ally in the district of Kabylia, whil

of megalithic monuments. Lampedusa, on the other hand, consists of limestone, which lies about in great blocks on its surface. On the slopes of the south coast there are several remains of megalithic construction, but they are too

gs and of tombs have been found. On the plateau of the Mursia are the remains of rectangular huts made of rough blocks of stone. These huts seemed to have

f the Sese Gran

umenti Ant

nd having a corbelled roof. In one of the sesi a skeleton was found buried in the contracted position. The finest of the tombs, known as the Sese Grande, elliptical in form (Fig. 20), has a major diameter of more than 60 feet, and ri

rbidding aspect. This is perhaps the reason why the first great inroads of neolithic man into the Mediterranean left it quite untouched, although it lay directly in the path of tribes immigrating into Europe from Africa. The earliest neolithic remains of Italy, Crete, and the ?gean seem to have no parallel in Malta, and the first inha

megalithic sanctuar

bert Mayr

of the other and of the lit

orizontal blocks which carry the walls in places up to a height of nearly 14 feet. This combination of vertical and horizontal masonry is typical of all the Maltese temples. To the left of the entrance is a rectangular niche in the wall containing one of the remarkable trilithons (a) which form so striking a feature of Mnaidra and Hagiar Kim. It consists of a horizontal slab of stone nearly 10 feet in length, supported at its ends by two vertical slabs about 5 feet high. To the right of the entrance is a window-like opening (b, behind the seated figure in Pl. III) in one of the slabs of the wall, preceded by two steps and giving access to an irregular triangular space (F). In the north-west angle of this triangle is fixed a trilithon

dra, Malta. Ap

I To fac

e similar to that which gives access to Room F. All the stones in this doorway are ornamented with pit-marks. The rectangular room H has niches in its walls to the north, south, and west. Each niche is formed by a pair of uprights with a block laid across the top. The west niche is occupied by a horizontal table

by the area H, which we have already described. It has a rectangular niche t

d slabs of which the inner walls are formed. They are placed alternately with their broad faces and their narrow edges outwards. The roughness of thi

e narrows as the walls rise, until the aperture is small enough to be roofed by great slabs laid across. The corbelling of the apse is just perceptible in Pl. III. Whether the roofing of the Mnaidra temple was ever comp

higher level than the rest of the building, have been added. Here, too, as at Mnaidra, we find niches containing trilithon tables. In the first elliptical area, in which the apsidal ends are divided from the central space by means of walls of vertical slabs, a remarkable group of objects was found. In front of a well-cut vertical block stood what must be an altar, cut in one piece of stone. It is square in section

, in which stands a rough stone pillar 6? feet high. In front of this pillar is a vertical slab nearly 3 feet high, nar

The plan is similar to that of Mnaidra, though here the two halves seem to have been built at one and the same time. Several of the blocks show a design of spirals in relief, while on othe

r Cult has suggested that in Malta we have a cult similar to that seen in the Mycen?an world. This latter was an aneiconic worship developed out of the cult of the dead; in it the deity or hero was represented by a baetyl, i.e. a tree or pillar sometimes standing free, sometimes placed in a 'dolmen-like' cell or shrine, in which latter case the pillar often served to support the roof of the shrine. In Malta Sir Ar

which cover them are too large for altar-tables, and that the niches in which they stand are too narrow and inaccessible to have been the scene of sacrificial rites. Neither of these arguments has much force, nor is it easy to see how the cells are derived from dolmens. The fact is that the word 'dolmen-like,' which has become current coin in arch?ological phraseology, is a question-begging epithet. The Maltese cell

may still be right in supposing the worship to have originated in a cult of the dead. But he was almost certainly w

seated on a rather low stool with her feet tucked under her. There is no sign of clothing, except on one figure which shows a long shirt and a plain bodice with very

belong to the neolithic and bronze ages. Various reasons have been given for the abnormal appearance of these figures. In the first place it has been suggested that they represent women of a steatopygous type, like the modern Bushwomen, and that this race was in early days w

s of the figures from the various countries we have enumerated,

r Corradino, overlooking the Grand Harbour of Valletta, there are no less than three groups, all of which have been lately excavated. In all three we see signs of the t

elief by discovering two, one near Musta and the other near Siggewi. It is hardly credible that these are the only two d

ity below. In the village of Casal Paula, which lies about a mile from the head of the Grand Harbour of Valletta, is a wonderful comp

c structure above ground. Thus the walls curve slightly inwards towards the top as do those of the apses of Mnaidra and Hagiar Kim, and the ceiling is cut to represent a roof of great blocks laid across from wall to wall with a space left open in the centre where the width would be too great for the length of the stones. The treatment of the doors and windows recalls at once that of the temples above ground. The mason was not content, when he needed a door, to cut a rectangular opening in the rock; he must represent in high relief the m

the centre of this a shallow circular pit. It has been suggested that this pit was made to hold the base of the cult-object, whether it was a baetyl or an idol. This, however, is a mere conjecture. In the passage just outside the door of this room are two small circular

int. The patterns consist of graceful combinations of curved lines and spirals. Many other rooms, including

ult even to stand upright in them, and their entrances are me

n a short distance of their roofs with a mass of reddish soil, which proved to contain the remains of thousands of human skeletons. In other words, Halsaflieni was used as a burial place, though this may not have been its original purpose. The bones lay fo

y Professor Tagliaferro as the long-horned buffalo, an animal which once existed on the northern coasts of Africa. Ornaments of all kinds were common, and include beads, pendants, and conical buttons of stone and shell. The most remarkable of all are a large number of model celts made of jadeite and other hard stones. These are

e lying on a rather low couch. In the better preserved of the two she lies on her right side, her head on a small uncomfortable-looking pillow. The upper part of her body is nake

afford very valuable anthropological evidence. They have been carefully measured by Dr. Zammit, and they pr

ntral chamber, with its careful work and laborious imitation of an open-air 'temple,' is against this interpretation. It has therefore been suggested that the hypogeum was meant for a burial place, and that the central chamber was the chapel or sanctuary in which the funeral rites were performed, aft

f them as belonging to the neolithic age. But the neolithic age of Malta need not be parallel in date with that of Crete for example. It is extremely probable that

OF CO