It may, however, appear strange that if these dolmens occur in such numbers at one site, they should be regarded as altars;[52] but we must not forget the story of Balaam and Balak. Visiting in succession three mountain-tops, whence the enchanter was bid to curse Israel, he addresses Balak in each case in the words, “Build me here seven altars.” And on each of these mountains we found groups of dolmen still standing.
A curious circumstance in connection with dolmens is that they usually occur near springs and streams. The groups in Moab were all so placed, just as Kit’s Cotty-house stands near the Medway, or Stonehenge above the Avon, or like the dolmen near a sacred spring in Finisterre. Menhirs also, as we have seen, are similarly connected with water and with rain.
There is, perhaps, a simple reason for this circumstance. Stonehenge was near a British village, and the rude tribes which built the dolmens no doubt, like all early migrants, settled round the natural waters of the country. But it is also not impossible that water was required in connection with rites at the dolmen altars.
Another very interesting observation was the occurrence of cup-hollows—artificial pittings, in some cases connected by well-marked artificial ducts or channels—in the table stones of the dolmens. These cup-hollows were, in some cases, quite as well formed as any that I have seen in England. I found one very unmistakable example on the Holy Rock on Mount Gerizim, where, it is said, by the Samaritans, to mark the site of the laver in the court of the Tabernacle.
I am not aware that any accepted theory has been formed about these hollows;[53] but they are often found on high tops and on or near dolmens. We must not forget that wild tribes of Asia and of Europe have always attached great virtue to the healing power of dew, especially the dews of spring-time. Perhaps dew may have been collected in these hollows and used for superstitious rites.
Two other classes of rude stone structures in Moab have still to be mentioned. The first of these is the class of great circles with walls made by heaps of stones piled up like cairns. These I have never found elsewhere, though they recall the earthen mounds which form circles in England, sometimes surrounding menhirs or dolmens, and sometimes I believe used as meeting-places or courts of justice. A splendid specimen occurs on a spur at Hadânieh above a great spring on the slopes near Mount Nebo. Inside this circle, as a precaution against thieves, I set up my whole camp and stabled my horses. Hadânieh means “sepulture,” and a small circle outside the great structure here surrounds the grave of an Arab chief. The great circle is 250 feet across, the walls are thirty to forty feet thick and some five feet high, and a smaller wall inside divides the area unequally. There is an enormous cairn on the hill above about three-quarters of a mile away on the east.
Another circle of equal size was found by Lieutenant Mantell on the south slope of Mount Nebo, and east of ’Ammân two more about sixty feet in diameter. Yet another occurs at Kom Yajuz, measuring 200 feet across, and we visited two others of nearly the same size. To one of these the name El Mahder applies, which is radically the same word as Hazor, “the enclosure.” There is nothing to show the age or object of these works, which must have entailed considerable labour, as they are so much larger than the circles of stones which the Arabs now build up round the graves of their chiefs.
The last class of monuments consists of great disc stones, which resemble mill-stones, but are much too large to be used for such a purpose. One of these, in the Jordan Valley, lies flat, like a mighty cheese, by a thorn tree, and measures eleven feet across. It is called “the dish of Abu Zeid,” an Arab legendary hero, who is said to have heaped it with rice and with a whole camel as a feast to his allies. It weighs probably some twenty tons. Another example stands on end in a ruined village, and is 9½ feet in diameter. A third, on a prominent hill, surrounded by dolmens, also stands up like a wheel, and is six feet across, without any hole in the centre.
The origin of these monuments is also very uncertain, but we must not forget that one of the towns of Moab mentioned on the Moabite Stone and in the Bible was called Beth Diblathaim, which means “the house of the two discs” (or “cakes”). Mill-stones are common enough in Syrian ruins, as are the pillars of olive-presses, but no explorer who is familiar with these is likely to confound them with the great menhirs and disc stones which have been here described.
Such were the monuments which we discovered and described east of Jordan, and I have only to add a few words on the important questions of their age and distribution.