Dolmens.
So far as is at present known, there are not any tumuli of importance or any battle-fields marked with great stones in the north of Germany; but the dolmens there are both numerous and interesting, and belong to all the classes found in Scandinavia, and, so far as can be ascertained, are nearly identical in form. Nothing, however, would surprise me less than if it should turn out that both barrows and Bauta stones were common there, especially in the island of Rügen and along the shores of the Baltic as far east as Livonia. The Germans have not yet turned their attention to this class of their antiquities. They have been too busy sublimating their national heroes into gods to think of stones that tell no tales. Whenever they do set to work upon them, they will, no doubt, do it with that thoroughness which is characteristic of all they attempt. But as the investigation will probably have to pass through the solar myth stage of philosophy, it may yet be a long time before their history reaches the regions of practical common sense.
No detailed maps having been published, it is extremely difficult to feel sure of the distribution of these monuments in any part of the northern dolmen region; but the following, which is abstracted from Bonstetten's 'Essai sur les Dolmens,' may convey some general information on the subject, especially when combined with the map (p. 275), which is taken, with very slight modifications, from that which accompanied his work.
According to Bonstetten there are no dolmens in Poland, nor in Posen. They first appear on the Pregel, near Königsberg; but are very rare in Prussia, only two others being known, one at Marienwerder, the other at Konitz. In Silesia there is one at Klein-Raden, near Oppeln; another is found in the district of Liegnitz, and they are very numerous in the Uckermark, Altmark, in Anhalt, and Prussian Saxony, as well as in Pomerania and the island of Rügen. They are still more numerous in Mecklenburg, which is described as peculiarly rich in monuments of this class. Hanover possesses numerous dolmens, except in the south-eastern districts, such as Göttingen, Oberharz, and Hildesheim. To make up for this, however, in the northern districts, Lüneburg, Osnabrück, and Stade, at least two hundred are found. The grand-duchy of Oldenburg contains some of the largest dolmens in Germany; one of these, near Wildesheim, is 23 feet long; another, near Engelmanns-Becke, is surrounded by an enclosure of stones measuring 37 feet by 23, each stone being 10 feet in height, while the cap stone of a third is 20 feet by 10. In Brunswick there were several near Helmstädt, but they are now destroyed. In Saxony some rare examples are found as far south as the Erzgebirge, and two were recently destroyed in the environs of Dresden. Keeping along the northern line, we find them in the three northern provinces of Holland, Gröningen, Ober-Yssel, and especially in Drenthe, where they exist in great numbers, but none to the southward of these provinces, and nowhere do they seem to touch the Rhine or its bordering lands; but a few are found in the grand-duchy of Luxembourg as in a sort of oasis, halfway between the southern or French dolmen region and that of northern Germany.
From the North German districts they extend through Holstein and Schleswig into Jutland and the Danish isles, but are most numerous on the eastern or Baltic side of the Cimbrian peninsula, and they are also very frequent in the south of Sweden and the adjacent islands. Dolmens properly so called are not known in Norway, but, as above mentioned, cairns and monuments of that class, are not wanting there.
The value of this distribution will be more easily appreciated when we have ascertained the limits of the French field, but meanwhile it may be convenient to remark that, unless the dolmens can be traced very much further eastward, there is a tremendous gulf before we reach the nearest outlyers of the eastern dolmen field. There is a smaller, but very distinct, gap in the country occupied by the Belgæ, between it and the French field, and another, but practically very much smaller one, between it and the British isles. This is a gap because the intervening space is occupied by the sea; but as it is evident from the distribution of all the northern dolmens in the proximity to the shores and in the islands that the people who erected them were a sea-faring people, and as we know that they possessed vessels capable of navigating these seas, it is practically no gap at all. We know historically how many Jutes, Angles, Frisians, and people of similar origin, under the generic name of Saxons, flocked to our shores in the early centuries of the Christian era, and afterwards what an important part the Danes and Northmen played in our history, and what numbers of them landed and settled in Great Britain, either as colonists or conquerors, at different epochs, down to at least the eleventh century. If, therefore, we admit the dolmens to be historic, or, in other words, that the erection of megalithic monuments was practised during the first ten centuries after the Christian era, we have no difficulty in understanding where our examples came from, or to whom they are due. If, on the other hand, we assume that they are prehistoric, we are entirely at sea regarding them or their connection with those on the continent. The only continental people we know of who settled in Britain before the Roman times were the Belgæ, and they are the only people between the Pillars of Hercules and the Gulf of Riga who, having a sea-board, have also no dolmens or megalithic remains of any sort. All the others have them more or less, but the Northern nations did not, so far as we know, colonise this country before the Christian era.
As all the Northern antiquaries have made up their minds that these dolmens generally belong to the mythic period of the Stone age, and that only a few of them extend down to the semi-historic age of bronze, it is in vain to expect that they would gather any traditions or record any names that might connect them with persons known in history. We are, therefore, wholly without assistance from history or tradition to guide us either in classifying them or in any attempt to ascertain their age, while the indications which enable us to connect them with our own, or with one another, are few and far between.
106. Dolmen at Herrestrup.
Among the few that give any sure indications of their age, one of the most interesting is at Herrestrup, in Zeeland, which has recently been disinterred from the tumulus that once covered it.[353] On it are engraved some half-dozen representations of ships, such as the Vikings were in the habit of drawing, and which are found in great quantities on the west coast of Göttenburg.[354] According to the best authorities, these representations range from about A.D. 500 to 900,[355] and some may perhaps be more modern. Those in this dolmen do not appear to be either among the most ancient or the most modern, and if we fix on the eighth century as their date, we shall not be very far wrong. That they are also coeval with the monument seems perfectly certain. We cannot fancy any Viking engraving these on a deserted dolmen, say even 100 years old, and then covering it up with a tumulus, as this one was till recently. Had it never been covered up, any hypothesis might be proposed, but the mound settles that point. Besides the ships, however, there are an almost equal number of small circles with crosses in them, on the cap stone. Whether these are intended to represent chariot-wheels, or some other object, is not clear, but if we turn back to woodcut No. 41, representing the side-stone of the dolmen at Aspatria, we find the identical object represented there, and in such a manner that, making allowance for the difference of style in the century that has elapsed between the execution of the two engravings, they must be assumed to be identical. No engravings—so far as I know—have been published of the objects found in this Danish dolmen, but in the English one, as already mentioned, the objects found belonged to the most modern Iron age; such things, in fact, as will perfectly agree with the date of the eighth century. Among them, as will be recollected, was the snaffle-bit, so like, though certainly more modern than, Stukeley's bit found in Silbury Hill. We have thus three tumuli which from their engravings or their contents confirm one another to a most satisfactory extent, and render the dates above assigned to them, to say the least of it, very probable. If the date thus obtained for the Aspatria monument is accepted, it is further interesting as giving that of those mysterious concentric circles, with a line passing through them from the centre, which have been found in such numbers on the rocks in the north of England and in Scotland.[356] These are, so far as I know, the only examples of these circles which were buried, and were consequently associated with other objects which assist in fixing their age.
107. Dolmen at Halskov. From a drawing by Madsen.
As before hinted, many of the monuments engraved by Madsen[357] are so extremely like those in the field of Northern Moytura that it is almost impossible to believe that they were erected by a different race of people, or at any great distance of time. The one, for instance, at Halskov is so like the dolmen and circle represented in woodcut No. 61 that the one might almost pass for the other, were it not that the photograph is taken from the wrong side, to bring out the resemblance, as it is seen on the spot, while in others the resemblance is as great, or even greater. It is very unsatisfactory, however, picking these points of similarity from books, some of the engravings in which are from imperfect drawings. In others, artistic effect has been more aimed at than truth, and some are taken from photographs, which, though they give a truthful, generally give an unintelligent representation of the object. It is only by personal familiarity that all the facts can be verified and pitfalls avoided. But it is always useful to turn attention to any forms that may seem novel, and explain peculiarities in others which but for such means of comparison would remain unnoticed. Here, for instance, is one from Sjöborg, which resembles the Countless Stones at Aylesford, as drawn by Dr. Stukeley ([woodcut No. 27]). It is found at a place called Oroust, in Böhuslan,[358] and stands on a low mound encircled by twenty large stones at its base. The chamber is low, and semicircular in form, and in front of it stands what the Germans call a sentinel stone. No date is given to this monument by Sjöborg, for he was so far indoctrinated in modern theories that he believed all dolmens to be prehistoric, though all the circles and Bauta stones marking battle-fields were to him as essentially historic as any monuments in his country. From its appearance, the dolmen at Oroust may be of the same age as the Countless Stones at Aylesford, and if other monuments in the two countries could be compared with anything like precision, their forms and traditions might mutually throw great light on their real histories.
108. Dolmen at Oroust. From Sjöborg.
It is not only, however, from the analogies with similar monuments in this country, or from their bearing on their history, that the Scandinavian dolmens are interesting to us. They have forms and peculiarities of their own which are well worth studying. If materials existed for mastering these differences, their aggregate would make up a sum which would enable us to separate the Scandinavian group from the British, as we can our own from the French, and the French from that of Northern Germany. A great deal more must, however, be published, and in a more accurate form, before this can be done; but, whenever it is possible, it promises to afford most satisfactory results to ethnographical science. The problem is similar to that which was known to exist in reference to pointed Gothic architecture. That is now admitted to be a Celtic-French invention, but it was adopted by the Spaniards and Italians on the one hand, and by the Germans and ourselves on the other; although always with a difference. No antiquary would now for an instant hesitate in discriminating between an Italian and a German or between a Spanish and an English example, though the difference is so small that it can hardly be expressed in words, and must be carefully represented in order to be perceived. In like manner, the rude-stone style of art seems to have been invented by some pre-Celtic people, but to have been adopted by Celts, by Scandinavian, by British, and Iberian races—perhaps not always pure in their own countries, but always with considerable differences, which, when perceived and classified, will enable us to distinguish between the works of the several races as clearly as we can between the mediæval styles that superseded them.
109. Diagram from Sjöborg, pl. i. fig. A.
Among these peculiarities, the most easily recognised are the square or oblong enclosures which surround tumuli, and, sometimes, one, at others two, or even three free-standing dolmens. In order to make the point clear, I have quoted a diagram from Sjöborg, though it is almost the only instance in this work in which a woodcut does not represent a really existing object. I have no doubt, however, that it is correct, as old Olaus Wormius represents one of two similar ones which in his day existed near Roeskilde. Both had enclosures 50 paces square, enclosing one tumulus with a circle of stones round its base, another halfway up, and, the text says, an altar-dolmen on the top, though the woodcut does not show it. The other, on the road to Birck, in Zeeland, enclosed three tumuli in juxtaposition, the one in the centre similar to that just described, and with a dolmen on its summit; two smaller mounds are represented in juxtaposition on either side, but with only a circle of stones round their base.[359] Other varieties no doubt exist, but modern antiquaries have not favoured us with any drawings of them. From the diagram and description it will be perceived that in so far as the mound itself is concerned these Danish tumuli are identical with those already quoted as existing in Auvergne ([woodcut No. 8]), but so far as I know, the square enclosure does not exist in France, nor does it in this country. These square enclosures seem, however, to belong to a very modern date, and the stones, consequently, are small, and may therefore have been removed, which could easily be done; but still there seems little doubt that many of them may still remain, and could be found if looked for.
110. Dolmen near Lüneburg. From Bonstetten.
One of the most striking examples I know of, an oblong rectangular enclosure, enclosing a single free-standing dolmen, is that near Lüneburg, figured by Bonstetten[360] ([woodcut No. 110]); he seldom, however, indulges in dimensions, and being perfectly convinced that all are prehistoric, he never speculates as to dates, nor condescends to notice traditions. What we know of it is therefore confined to the representation, which after all may be taken from some other work, as he rarely favours us with references. Two others are represented by von Estorff as existing near Uelzen, in Hanover.[361]
A good example of two dolmens in a rectangular enclosure is that at Valdbygaards, near Soröe, in Zeeland. Here the enclosure is about 70 feet in one direction by 20 feet in the other—outside measurement. In this instance, the enclosing stones are smaller in proportion to the dolmens than is usually the case. On the same plate, Madsen represents a single dolmen in a much squarer enclosure.[362] It, like that at Halskov ([woodcut No. 107]), is represented as standing on a knoll, but whether dolmens stand so or on the flat, like that at Valdbygaards, it is quite certain they never were enclosed in tumuli, but always stood free, as they now do.
111. Double Dolmen at Valdbygaards. From Madsen.
112. Plan of Double Dolmen at Valdbygaards.
113. Triple Dolmen, Höbisch. From Keysler.
For three dolmens in one square enclosure we are obliged to go back to old Keysler, though, in this case, the engraving is so good that there can be very little doubt of its correctness.[363] It is situated near Höbisch, in Mark Brandenburg, consists of an outer enclosure of forty-four stones, and is 118 paces in circuit, and in the middle are twelve stones, of which six bear three large stones, placed transversely upon them. It is very much to be regretted that no better illustration of this curious monument exists, as it probably very closely resembles those in Drenthe, with which, indeed, he compares it; and as these form one of the most remarkable groups of this class of monuments on the continent, it would be most desirable to trace their connection with others farther east.
A similar monument to that at Höbisch is figured by Sjöborg (vol. i. pl. 6), but without the enclosure; and a third, Oroust, in Böhuslan (pl. 3); but in this instance the three long stones are surrounded by a circular enclosure with two sentinel stones outside; and there are several others which show similar peculiarities in a greater or less degree.
The buried dolmens in Scandinavia are, in some respects, even more interesting than those which are, and were always intended to be, exposed, but our knowledge of them is necessarily more limited than of the other class. Sjöborg deserts us almost entirely here, and Madsen illustrates only two, while the modern antiquaries have been more anxious to secure and classify their contents than to illustrate the chambers from which they were obtained. As a rule, they may be older than the free-standing examples, but they do not look old, though, as metal has not generally been found in them, it is assumed they all belong to the Stone age. One example will suffice to display the general features of the older group of this class of monuments. The next two woodcuts present an internal view and plan of one near Uby, in the district of Holbak, in Zeeland. It was opened in 1845, and measured then 13 feet in height, and had a circumference of upwards of 300 feet. The chamber measures 13 feet by 8 feet, and is walled in by nine great stones, which have been split or hewn, so as to obtain a flat surface towards the interior, and the interstices are filled in with smaller stones very neatly fitted. The entrance gallery is 20 feet in length, and is closed, or capable of being so, by two doors. From the disposition of the entrance it certainly does not appear that it was intended to be hid. The whole appearance is that of a dignified approach to the tomb. Had it been meant to be closed, the chamber would, no doubt, have been in the centre of the tumulus, instead of being near one side, as it is. The other monument of the same class, illustrated by Madsen,[364] is near Smidstrup, in the district of Fredericksborg. It is very similar in dimensions and details, but has the peculiarity of having two chambers placed side by side, with two separate entrances, and the chambers affect a curve more perfectly elliptical than is attained in that at Uby.
114. View of Interior of Chamber at Uby. From Madsen.
115. Plan of Chamber at Uby. From Madsen.
These last examples from Madsen's work are further interesting to us as illustrating the difference between dolmens or chambers always intended to be buried in tumuli and those which were always meant to be exposed. In the chambers at Uby and Smidstrup the stones are placed so closely together that very little packing between them was sufficient to keep out the earth, and the passages to them and other arrangements all indicate their original destination. The case, however, is widely different with the dolmens at Halskov and Valdbygaards, or those at Lüneburg or Höbisch, which evidently are now on their mounds as originally designed. With a very little study it seems easy to detect the original intentions in all these monuments; but there is this further difference. None of those intended to be exposed were ever buried, while many which were meant to have been covered up never received their intended envelope.
A monument having a considerable affinity to the two last quoted exists, or perhaps rather existed, at Axevalla, in Westergothland. It was opened apparently in 1805, and the representations are taken from drawings then made by a Captain Lindgren, who superintended the excavation by the king's command. It consists of one apartment 21 feet long by 8 feet wide and 9 feet high. The sides and roof are composed of slabs of red granite, which, if the plates are to be depended upon, were hewn or at least shaped in some mechanical fashion. Instead of the bodies being laid on the floor of the chamber as was usually the case, and being found mixed up with débris and utensils of various kinds, each of the nineteen who occupied this chamber had a little cist to itself, so small and irregular-shaped, like those at Rose Hill ([woodcut No. 39]), that the body had to be doubled up, in a most uncomfortable position, to be placed in the cist. This was by no means an uncommon mode of interment in those early ages, but if the skeletons were really found in the attitudes here represented, their interment must date from very recent times indeed. I know there is nothing more common in archæological books than to represent skeletons sitting in most free and easy attitudes in their boxes.[365] But if all the flesh had disappeared as completely as these drawings represent, the integuments must have gone also, and if they were either rotted or reduced to dust, the skeleton must have collapsed and been found in a heap on the floor. It would be interesting to know how long, either in very dry or in moist places, the integuments would last so as to prevent this collapse before they were disturbed. No qualified person has yet given an opinion on such a subject, but the time could hardly extend to many centuries. But does the case really exist? are not all these queer skeletons merely the imaginings of enthusiastic antiquaries?
116. Dolmen at Axevalla. From Sjöborg.
Be this as it may, these elliptical and long rectangular dolmens, with their arrangement of cists and entrances in the centre of the longer side, seem so distinguished from those generally found in other countries as to mark another province. It seems scarcely open to doubt that the oval forms are the older, though what their age may be is not so clear, nor have any descriptions of their contents been published which would enable us to form distinct opinion on the subject. Flint implements have been found in them, but, so far as I can gather, no bronze. According to the Danish system, therefore, they are all before the time of Solomon or the siege of Troy. It may be so, but I doubt it exceedingly. Those who excavated the Axevalla tomb reported that something like an inscription was found on one of the walls ([woodcut No. 116] , fig. A); but whether it was an inscription or a natural formation is by no means clear—at all events, as we have no copy of it, it hardly helps us in arriving at a date.
117. Head-stone of Kivik Grave. From Sjöborg.
In some respects, the Axevalla tomb resembles the grave near Kivik, in the district of Cimbrisham, near the southern extremity of Sweden. This is the most celebrated of Swedish graves. It is mentioned as perfect by Linnæus in 1749, but was shortly afterwards opened, and drawings and illustrations of it have from time to time been published since, and given rise to the usual diversity of opinion. Suhm and Sjöborg seem to agree in connecting it with a battle fought in that neighbourhood by Ragnar Lothbrok, about the year 750, in which the son of the then king was slain.[366] This date appears probable; had it been later, there would almost certainly have been found Runes on some of its stones; if earlier, the representations of the human figure would hardly have been so perfect. One stone found elsewhere ([woodcut No. 117]),[367] which seems to have been its head-stone, has a curious resemblance to the head-stone of the Dol ar Marchant, at Locmariaker, illustrated farther on. The likeness may be accidental, but, as in all these cases, it is difficult to believe that five or six centuries can have elapsed between two monuments which show so little progress; for whether this stone belonged to the Kivik grave or not, it certainly is of the same age and design, some of the figures on it being identical with those found in the tomb, and that can hardly be older than the date above quoted. Another of the stones of this tomb has two of those circles enclosing crosses which are seen on the Herrestrup dolmen and the Aspatria stone, all of which probably belong to the eighth century. The tomb itself is not remarkable for its dimensions, being only 14 feet long by 3 feet wide, and almost 4 feet in height. It is much too large, however, for any single warrior's grave, but we are not told whether it was occupied by a number of small cists like that at Axevalla. The probability, however, is that this was the case, but 120 years ago men were not accurate observers of antiquarian phenomena.
Besides these, there are two other forms of tombs which, so far as is yet known, are quite peculiar to the Scandinavian province. The first of these are the so-called ship graves, from their form. They consist of two segments of a circle joined together at the ends, so as to represent the deck of a vessel, and are of all sizes, from 20 or 30 feet to 200 or 300 feet. They are generally found on the sea-shore, and it seems hardly to be doubted that they mark the graves of Vikings.
The other form is quite as peculiar, but more difficult to explain. It is marked by a range of stones forming an equilateral triangle, sometimes straight-lined, but as frequently the lines curve inwards so as to restrict the internal space considerably. It is by no means clear what suggested this form, or what it was intended to represent. It is, however, found on battle-fields ([woodcut No. 118]), and solitary examples are frequent in Sjöborg's plates, sometimes with a Bauta stone in the centre. The one hypothesis that seems to account for this form, is that it is the "Cuneatus ordo" of Olaus Magnus, and that it marked a spot where a combined phalanx of horse and foot fought and conquered.[368] The probability is that where single it marks the grave of a particular rank either in the army or in civil life.
All these forms are shown in the next woodcut, from a group found in the peninsula of Hjortehammer, in Bleking, in the south of Sweden, but others are found in the island at Amrom, and in many other places.[369] It has been disputed whether these represent battle-fields or are the ordinary graves of the inhabitants of the district in which they are found. That those found on the shore at Freyrsö ([woodcut No. 101]) mark the graves of those who fell in Blodoxe's battle there in the tenth century seems quite certain, but whether this was always the case may be open to doubt; but certainly a sandy peninsula, like that of Hjortehammer, seems a most unlikely place for peaceful men to bury their dead, especially at a time when not one-tenth part of the land around could have been under cultivation.
118. Graves at Hjortehammer. From Worsaae.
For our present purposes it is of no great consequence which opinion prevails, as these forms have no bearing on those of other countries, especially as their date does not seem to be doubted. Worsaae places them all between the years 700 and 1000,[370] or in the second and latest Iron age, and as no one seems to dispute this, it may be accepted as an established fact. Their peculiarities of form, and the smallness of the stones of which most of them are composed, are such that the date here ascribed to them does not necessarily bring down that of the true megalithic remains to anything like the same age. It takes away, however, all improbability from the assertion that these may be much more modern than was supposed, and this much is certain that there was no break between the great English and Irish circles and the Viking graves; or, in other words, men did not cease to mark their sepulchres with circles and cairns, and then after a lapse of centuries revive the custom, and begin it again on a smaller scale. There may be a descent, but there was no solution of continuity, and any one can consequently form an idea how long a time must have elapsed before the great Wiltshire circles could have degenerated into those of Hjortehammer.
119. Circles at Aschenrade. From Bähr.
There is one other group of monuments it seems worth while to illustrate before leaving this branch of the subject. They are found in the extreme east of the province, on the banks of the Dwina, in Livonia. At a place called Aschenrade, about fifty miles as the crow flies from Riga, is a group shown in the accompanying woodcut.[371] The arrangement is unusual in Europe, but is met with in Algeria, and seems to be only such a combination of the square enclosures of Scandinavia as we would expect to find in a cemetery, as contradistinguished from a battle-field.
In these graves was found enormous wealth of bronze and other metal and personal ornaments, many of which are engraved in Professor Bähr's book. They resemble in many respects the celebrated "find" at Hallstadt, in the Salzkammergut;[372] but mixed with these Livonian treasures were great numbers of coins and implements of iron of very modern form. The coins are classified as follows:—
| German coins, dating from | A.D. 936 to 1040. |
| Anglo-Saxon coins, dating from | " 991 " 1036. |
| Byzantine coins, dating from | " 911 " 1025. |
| Arabic or Kufic coins, dating from | " 906 " 999. |
It is curious that the Eastern coins should be so much earlier than the others, but they are only five in number, and may have been preserved as curiosities. The dates of the others prove, at all events, that some of these tombs are not of earlier date than 1040, and all, probably, are included in the century which preceded that epoch.
Besides these, however, there are tumuli at a place called Segewolde, and circles, sometimes with a stone in the centre, at Bajard, and no doubt other remains of the same class in the district. The purpose, however, of the only book I know on the subject was not to illustrate the forms of tombs, but that of the objects found in them, and to trace the ethnographic relations of the people who possessed them with the other tribes who at various times inhabited that district. The dates of the whole, according to their describer, may safely be included between the eighth and the twelfth century.[373]