Fig. 135.—A portion of the Dolmen of Gavr'inis.
Were all these dolmens originally covered by earth? This is a question which still remains unsolved. M. Alexandre Bertrand, Director of the Archæological Museum of Saint-Germain, to whom we owe some very remarkable works on the primitive monuments of ancient Gaul, decides it in the affirmative; whilst M. de Bonstetten, a Swiss archæologist of great merit, is of the contrary opinion. The matter, however, is of no very great importance in itself. It is, at all events, an unquestionable fact that certain dolmens which are now uncovered were once buried; for they are noticed to stand in the centre of slightly raised mounds in which the supports are deeply buried. As we before stated, the action of time has destroyed the covering which the pre-historic peoples placed over their sepulchres in order to defend them from the injuries of time and the profanation of man. Thus, all that we now see is the bare stones of the sepulchral chambers—for so long a time supposed to be altars, and ascribed to the religious worship of the Gauls.
Fig. 136.—General Form of a covered Passage-Tomb.
In considering, therefore, the dolmens of Brittany, which have been so many times described by antiquarians and made to figure among the number of our historical monuments, we must renounce the idea of looking upon them as symbols of the religion of our ancestors. They can now only be regarded as sepulchral chambers.
Fig. 137.—Passage-Tomb at Bagneux, near Saumur.