In some cases burial at the foot of such a stone may possibly mark a human sacrifice, as, for instance, at Place Farm, in Wiltshire, where a skeleton was found by a menhir in the centre of a circle; but no sepulchral remains are found by or under the majority of these monuments. In all countries where they occur they are remarkable for a rounded or pointed top, which resembles that of later obelisks. In India the lingam stones are worshipped, and peasants rub against them. In some rural districts maidens lean against them, expecting to see a future husband. Marriages were often celebrated by such stones. The Greystone, by the Tweed, witnessed marriages, where bride and bridegroom joined hands through a hole in the stone. Oaths were sworn at these stones in France to a late date; and the oath of Woden was sworn by men who joined hands through the stone. In Sardinia great stones with holes occur at the tombs called Giants’ Graves, and also form the entrance to a circle called cuisses de femme. I have never found such holed stones in Syria, but a pair occur in Cyprus, which I think, from their size, not likely to have belonged, as some suppose, to an oil-press.
These standing-stones were often anointed with oil, with blood, or with milk. Libations of milk were poured through a stone in the Western Isles. Alexander anointed with oil the pillar on the grave of Achilles, as Jacob anointed the stone of Bethel, or as the Arabs smeared their ansâb with blood. The lingam stones in India are still anointed with ghee, and stone circles are splashed with blood. In Aberdeenshire water was believed to spring from a hollow in the top of a sacred stone; in Brittany the menhirs were believed to go to the river to drink. Such monuments are also wishing-stones, such as Dhu esh Sher’a, a black stone at Petra, or the Hajr el Mena (“stone of desire”), which we found in Moab. To some prayers for rain have been offered. Breton menhirs, and others in India and in Somersetshire, are said to represent wedding-parties turned to stone; others in the Khassia Hills are adored as ancestors by tribes which burn the dead. The stones of Allât, ’Azzi, and Hobal at Taif—still shown—were once adored as deities by Arabs, as were those of Asaf, and Naila, and Khalisah near Mecca.
Such instances out of many which have been collected show that the idea of a “Holy Stone” is no theorist’s dream. Those who see in these monuments only gravestones or boundary-marks have not fully studied the facts of the case.
One curious feature of such stones I have not seen noticed. In Gilead I found a fallen menhir with a hollow artificially made in the side, as though to put something into the stone. At Kit’s Cotty-house I found similar holes in the side stones. At Stonehenge I found them in some instances even larger. No doubt many other cases are known.[48] The holes are not water-worn, but have been rubbed as though by fingers or arms thrust constantly into the stone. They are not lewis holes, and they were made after the stones were erected. Probably they were enlarged, like the hole in the pillar at the Church of St. Sophia in Constantinople, by countless visitors putting their fingers into the same hole.
The great alignments of Brittany and of Dartmoor are well known, though the reason for their erection is doubtful. In Moab I found one place where such a collection of standing-stones exists. It is called El Mareighât, “the smeared things,” and stands on the plateau north of the great valley of Callirrhoe. There is a rude circle of menhirs at the site, with a trilithon or dolmen on one side. It surrounds a knoll on which is a group of menhirs, the tallest being six feet high. To the east is a large menhir, which has been hewn to a rounded head and grooved horizontally, and between this and the circle is an alignment consisting of several rows of shorter menhirs, running north and south. The hills close by are covered with fine specimens of dolmens, many of which I measured.
It is impossible to regard this monument as sepulchral. The stones stand, like many in India and elsewhere, on the bare rock. The circle resembles many found in other lands; and the wild tribes of Western India still sacrifice a cock at such circles, smearing the stones with its blood; while the Khonds adore the sun in similar circles, the tallest menhir being on the east. In Mecca, the Kaabah was once surrounded by seven such stones, which also were smeared with blood. I believe the Mareighât circle to be an ancient temple, and the dolmen which faces the central group on the west to be probably an altar facing the sun rising behind the stones, while the alignments appear to consist of memorial stones erected by visitors to the shrine—just as the Moslem pilgrim still erects his stone mesh-hed or “memorial” in the neighbourhood of any shrine.
What has been said of erected stones or menhirs equally applies to what are called dolmens in France, or cromlechs in England, namely, stone tables raised on other stones. Such monuments also may have been erected for many purposes—as huts, as tombs, and as altars. Any hasty generalisation will certainly fail to account for every case. Unfortunately, the great authority of the late Mr. Fergusson, and his wide acquaintance with such subjects, have led recent writers to neglect many important facts not mentioned in his works, and to speak of dolmens as ancient tombs with a degree of dogmatism which shows that their own researches have not been very widely extended. After examining seven hundred examples of these monuments in Moab and Gilead, I have come to the conclusion that the sepulchral theory is often quite untenable, though we cannot deny that such rude blocks were often piled up to form huge cists or chambers hidden beneath mounds, and intended to hold either the corpse or the ashes of the dead. Sepulchral chambers—dolmens, if you will—under mounds are widely found; but a trilithon on bare rock, not so covered, is clearly unfitted for a tomb, especially when it is not large enough to cover even the body of a child. Moreover, the stone table is sometimes supported by flat stones on the rock; and observers who have found bones under dolmens have not always proved that they are original interments. Nothing is more indestructible than an earthen mound, and in many cases in Moab it was certain that no mound had ever covered the stones. There was nothing but hard rock to be found, and no cairn had ever existed to fulfil the purpose of a mound.
Again, I say, we must turn to local superstitions in order fully to understand the use of trilithons and dolmens. Wild as are the legends, they preserve what was once the religion of the dolmen-building tribes. In the Talmud we find mention of such a monument as connected with idolatrous worship in the second century A.D., the trilithon being in this case placed in front of a menhir.[49] In 1872 I found such a monument on Gilboa, and another example has since been found in Bashan, while a similar combination is also known in one instance in Sweden. At the temple of Demeter in Arcadia, Pausanias mentions a trilithon called the Petroma, by which the Greeks swore, and under which they kept a certain sacred book, which was yearly read by a priest. At Larnaca, in Cyprus, a dolmen is said to exist in a chapel, and in Spain one is found in the crypt of a Church of St. Miguel in the Asturias, and another in a hermitage.[50] The modern Arabs beyond Jordan use miniature dolmens, generally on the west side of the circles round the graves of their chiefs, as little tables on which to place offerings to the spirits of the dead.
Dolmens are also connected with the old ceremony of “passing through,” which is observed in India as well as in our own islands. St. Willibald, in the eighth century, speaks of Christians squeezing between two pillars in the church on Olivet; and as late as 1881 the Moslems in Jerusalem squeezed between two pillars in the Aksa Mosque. Near Madras, the Hindus used to crawl through the hole in a sacred rock. In Ripon Cathedral, “threading the needle” was a similar rite. Children were also passed through ash and oak trees, and through hoops, or dragged through holes in the ground and under door-sills. At Craig Mady, in Stirlingshire, the newly wedded used to crawl through a dolmen.[51] In the Jordan Valley, near the Jabbok, and again in Bashan, dolmens exist having a hole in the end-stone, and many are surrounded by a circle of stones in both districts, as also were some Celtic dolmens. On the dolmens in Ireland, called “beds of Diarmed and Grain,” youths and girls used to deposit gifts of corn and of flowers. The Cyprus girls, according to Cesnola, in like manner visit the menhirs pierced with holes, and place in them offerings of jewellery, lighting candles before them,—which illustrates a previous remark as to these holes in the stones. There is a curious monument in the Jordan Valley, with a stone hollowed into a sort of arch a yard in diameter, through which it would be easy to crawl. From such notes it is clear that dolmens are intimately connected with ancient superstitious practices. The crawling through was always believed either to cure sickness or to ensure good fortune, and the dolmen has often been used as an altar.
After making measured drawings of about a hundred and fifty dolmens in Moab, I was able to obtain some general results. In some cases the top stone is raised only a foot from the ground, and in others the trilithon is so small that it would not serve as anything but a table or seat. Some examples on the hillsides consisted of a table stone resting on the rock at one end, and on a single side stone at the other. In others the table was supported by horizontal stones. In most cases it was slightly tilted, and in very few were the stones even roughly hewn in shape. Not only could we never find any trace of sepulture, or of a grave beneath, but often the size precluded the idea that the dolmen could have been either a hut or a tomb. In other cases a sort of box was formed which could have held a body, but it was not covered by any mound. The general purpose seemed clearly to be the production of a flat table-like surface.