194. Baba. From Dubois de Montpereux.
195. Four-cornered Grave. From Sjöborg.
Even more important for our present purpose, however, than an examination of these Caucasian regions would be an exploration of the Steppes to the northward of the route just indicated. If there is any foundation for the theory that the dolmens are of Turanian origin, it is here that we should expect to find the germs of the system. It is one of the best-established facts of ethnology that the original seat of the Aryans was somewhere in Upper and Central Asia, whence they migrated eastward into India, southward into Persia, and westward into Europe. In like manner, the original seat of the Turanians is assumed to be somewhat farther north, and thence at an earlier period it is believed that they spread themselves at some very early prehistoric time over the whole face of the Old World. When we turn to the Steppes, whence this great family of mankind are supposed to have migrated, we find it covered with tumuli. As Haxthausen[522] expresses it, the Kurgans, as they are there called, are counted "non par des milliers, c'est centaines de milliers qu'il faudrait dire;" and Pallas equally gives an account of their astonishing numbers.[523] These tumuli resemble exactly our barrows, such as are seen on Salisbury plain, except that they are generally of very much larger dimensions, and they have one peculiarity not known elsewhere. On the top of each is an upright stone, rudely carved, but always unmistakably representing a human figure, and understood to be intended for a representation of the person buried beneath. Pallas, Haxthausen, and Dubois, all give representations of these figures, but in some instances at least they are repetitions of the same original. They are perfectly described by the monk Ruberquis, who visited these countries in 1253. "The Comanians," he says, "build a great tomb over their dead, and erect an image of the dead party thereon, with his face towards the east, holding a drinking-cup in his hand before his navel. They also erect on the monuments of rich men pyramids, that is to say, little pointed houses or pinnacles. In some places I saw mighty towers, made of brick, and in other places pyramids made of stones, though no stones are found thereabouts. I saw one newly buried in whose behalf they hanged up sixteen horse-hides, and they set beside his grave Cosmos (Kumiss) to drink and flesh to eat, and yet they say he was baptized. And I beheld other kinds of sepulchres, also towards the east, namely, large floors or pavements made of stone, some round and some square; and then four long stones, pitched upright above the said pavement, towards the four regions of the world."[524] The general correctness of this account is so fully confirmed by more modern travellers that there seems no reason for doubting it; but, as no one has described these "pavements," we dare not rely too much on their manifest similarity to the Scandinavian square and round graves, with four angle-stones, like the preceding one ([woodcut No. 195]).
It may not be satisfactory to be obliged to go back to a traveller of the thirteenth century, however much he may be confirmed by subsequent writers, for an account of monuments which we would like to see measured and drawn with modern accuracy. It is, on the other hand, however, a gain to find a trustworthy witness who lived among a people who buried their dead in tumuli and sacrificed horses in their honour, and provided them with meat and drink for their journey to the Shades; who, in fact, in the thirteenth century were enacting those things as living men which we find only in a fossil state in more Western lands.
