Menhirs.
The Menhirs, or tall stones,[72] form the last of the classes into which we have thought it necessary for the present, at least, to divide the remains of which we are now treating. They occur in all the megalithic districts, but from their very singleness and simplicity, it is almost more difficult to ascertain their purpose than it is that of any more complicated monuments; nor do the analogies from the cognate microlithic styles help us much. The stones mentioned in the early books of the Old Testament, though often pressed into the service, were all too small to bear any resemblance to those we are now concerned with. Neither Greece nor Etruria help us in the matter, and though it is true that the Buddhists in India, from Asoka's time downward, were in the habit of setting up Lâts or Stambas, it seems with them to have been always, or nearly so, for the purpose of bearing inscriptions, which is certainly not a distinguishing characteristic of our Menhirs. It is true that we have in Scotland two stones. The Cat stone near Edinburgh, bearing the name of Vetta, the grandson of Hengist (who probably was slain in battle there),[73] and the Newton stone in Garioch, which is still unread. We have also one in France near Brest,[74] equally illegible, and no doubt others exist. Perhaps these may be considered as early lispings of an infant, which certainly are the preludes of perfect speech, and only to be found where that power of words must afterwards exist. Here the analogy is, to say the least of it, remote.
There also are, especially in Ireland, but also in Wales and in Scotland, a great number of stones with Ogham inscriptions. So far as these have been made out they seem to be mere head-stones of graves, intimating that A, the son of B, lies buried there. A custom, it need hardly be observed, that continues to the present day in every cemetery in the land. The fact seems to be that so soon as the use of stone was suggested and men were sufficiently advanced to be able to engrave Oghams, it was at once perceived that a stone pillar with an inscription upon it was not only a more durable but a more intelligent and intelligible record of a man's life or death than a simple mound of "undistinguishable earth." It in consequence rapidly superseded the barrow, and has continued in use to the present time, and been adopted by both Christians and Mahomedans, by all, in fact, who bury, as contradistinguished from those who burn their dead.
In Scotland the story of the stones is slightly different. A great many of these are no doubt cat stones or battle memorials, but as they have not even Ogham inscriptions, they tell no tale. It is doubtful, indeed, if an Ogham inscription could describe a battle, or anything more complex than a genealogy, and still more so if it did whether we could read it. But without it how can we say what they are? If, for instance, the battle of Largs had not been fought in historic times, how could we tell that the tall stone that now marks the spot was erected in the thirteenth century? Or how, indeed, can we feel sure of the history of any one? By degrees, however, in Scotland they faded into those wonderful sculptured stones which form so marked and so peculiar a feature of Pictland. Whether we shall ever get a key to the hieroglyphics with which these stones are covered is by no means clear, but even if we do they probably will not tell us much. They certainly contain neither names nor dates, but even now their succession can be made out with tolerable distinctness. The probability seems to be that the figures on them are tribal marks or symbols of rank, and, as such, would convey very little information if capable of being read.
It is easy to trace the perfectly plain obelisk being developed into such as the Newton stones, which have only one or two Pagan symbols, but are certainly subsequent to the Christian era. From these we advance to those on the back of which the Christian cross timidly appears, and which certainly date after St. Columba's time (A.D. 563), and from that again to the erection of Sweno's stone, near Forres, in the first years of the eleventh century, where the cross occupies the whole of the rear, and an elaborate bas-relief supersedes the rude symbols in the front.
In Ireland the rude stones do not appear to have gone through the "symbol stage," but early to have ripened into the sculptured cross, for it was not from a timidly engraved cross as in Scotland that they took their origin. The Irish crosses at once boldly adopted the cross-arms, surrounded by a glory, with the other characteristics of that beautiful and original class of Christian monuments.
In France the menhir was early adopted by the Christians; so early that it has generally been assumed that those examples which we see surmounted by a cross were pagan monuments, on which at some subsequent time Christians have added a cross. This, however, certainly does not appear to have been always the case. In such a cross, for instance, as that at Lochcrist, the menhir and the cross are one, and made for one another, and similar examples occur at Cape St. Matthieu, at Daoulas, and in other places in Brittany.[75] In France the menhir, after being adopted by the Christians, does not seem to have passed through the sculptured stage[76] common to crosses in Scotland and Ireland, but to have bloomed at once into the Calvary so frequent in Brittany. Here the cross stands out as a tall tree, and the figures are grouped round its base, but how early this form was adopted we have no means of knowing.
In Denmark the modern history of the Bauta stones, as the grave or battle stones are there called, is somewhat different. They early received a Runic as the Irish received an Ogham inscription, but Denmark was converted at so late an age to Christianity (the eleventh century) that her menhirs never passed through the early Christian stage, but from Pagan monuments sank at once into modern gravestones, with prosaic records of the birth and death of the dead man whose memory they were erected to preserve.
13. Lochcrist Menhir.
In all these instances we can trace back the history of the menhirs from historic Christian times to non-historic regions when these rude stone pillars, with or without still ruder inscriptions, were gradually superseding the earthen tumuli as a record of the dead. It is as yet uncertain whether we can follow back their history with anything like certainty beyond the Christian era. This, however, is just the task to which antiquaries should address themselves. Instead of reasoning as hitherto from the unknown to the known, it would be infinitely more philosophical to reason from the known backwards. By proceeding in this manner every step we make is a positive gain, and eventually may lead us to write with certainty about things that now seem enveloped in mist and obscurity.
Footnotes
[42] It is so curious as almost to justify Piazzi Smyth's wonderful theories on the subject. But there is no reason whatever to suppose that the progress of art in Egypt differed essentially from that elsewhere. The previous examples are lost, and that seems all.
[43] Herodotus, ii. 123; and Sir Gardner Wilkinson's 'Ancient Egyptians,' second series, i. 211; ii. 440 et passim.
[44] Herod, i. 93.
[45] 'Lydische Königsgräber,' Berlin,
1859.[46] I am, of course, aware that the now fashionable craze is to consider Troy a myth. So far, however, as I am capable of understanding it, it appears to me that the ancient solar myth of Messrs. Max Müller and Cox is very like mere modern moonshine.
[47] Paus. ii. ch. 16; 'Dodwell's Pelasgic Remains in Greece and Italy,' pl. 11.
[48] Dodwell, 1. c. p. 13.
[49] More particulars and illustrations of these tombs will be found in the first volume of my 'History of Architecture,' and they need not, therefore, be repeated here.
[50] 1 Kings, vii. 13 et seq.; 2 Chron. iv. 1 et seq.
[51] Hesiod. 'Works and Days,' 1. 150.
[52] 'Crania Britannica,' passim. 'Archæologia,' xxxviii.
[53] 'Vestiges of the Antiquities of Derbyshire,' 1848. 'Ten Years' Diggings,' 1861.
[54] See controversy between Sir George Cornewall Lewis in his 'Astronomy of the Ancients,' p. 467 et seq. and Sir John Lubbock, in 'Prehistoric Times,' p. 59 et seq. with regard to Pytheas and his discoveries.
[55] In the Kubber Roumeia, in the Sahil, or the Madracen, near Blidah.
[56] See Turnour in 'J. A. S. B.' vii. p. 1013.
[57] Cunningham, 'Bilsah Topes,' passim; and 'Tree and Serpent Worship,' by the author, p. 87-148.
[58] Dolmen is derived from the Celtic word Daul, a table—not Dol, a hole—and Men or Maen, a stone.
[59] Crom, in Celtic, is crooked or curved, and therefore wholly inapplicable to the monuments in question; and lech, stone.
[60] The most zealous advocate of this view is the Rev. W. C. Lukis, who, with his father, has done such good service in the Channel Islands. His views are embodied in a few very distinct words in the Norwich volume of the 'Prehistoric Congress,' p. 218, but had previously been put forward in a paper read to the Wiltshire Archæological Society in 1861, and afterwards in the 'Kilkenny Journal,' v. N. S. p. 492 et seq.
[61] 'Iter Curiosum,' pl. xxxii. and xxxiii.
[62] 'Stonehenge and Avebury,' pl. xxxii. xxxiii. and xxxiv.
[63] Madsen, 'Antiquités Préhistoriques,' pl. 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10.
[64] Norwich volume of 'Prehistoric Congress,' p. 355, pl. vi.
[65] Sir H. Colt Hoare, 'Ancient Wiltshire,' ii, 71.
[66] The stones of which it was composed were transported by General Conway to Park Place, near Henley-on-Thames, and re-erected there.
[67] 'Archæologia,' viii. p. 384.
[68] 'Sculptured Stones of Scotland,' ii. Introd. p. 25.
[69] 'Archæologia,' viii. p. 385.
[70] Deum maxime Mercurium colunt. Hujus sunt plurima simulacra. 'Bell. Gal.' vi. 16.
[71] Sir Gardner Wilkinson in 'Journal, Archæological Association,' xvi. p. 112, pl. 6 for Cas Tor, and pl. 7 for Merivale Bridge.
[72] From Maen, as before, stone, and hir—high. Minar is supposed to be the same word. It cannot, at least, be traced to any root in any Eastern language.
[73] 'Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland,' iv. 119 et seq.
[74] 'Freminville, Finistère,' pl. iv. p. 248.
[75] All these, and many others, are to be found illustrated in Taylor and Nodier's 'Voyage Pittoresque dans l'ancienne Bretagne;' but as the plates in that work are not numbered they cannot be referred to.
[76] I know only one instance of sculptured stone in France; it occurs near the Chapelle St. Marguerite in Brittany.