Dolmens are very numerous in France; much more numerous, indeed, than is generally thought. It used to be the common idea that they existed only in Brittany, and those curious in such matters wondered at the supposed Druidical altars which were so plentifully distributed in this ancient province of France. But Brittany is far from possessing the exclusive privilege of these megalithic constructions. They are found in fifty-eight of the French departments, belonging, for the most part, to the regions of the south and south-west. The department of Finisterre contains 500 of them; Lot, 500; Morbihan, 250; Ardèche, 155; Aveyron, 125; Dordogne, 100; &c. [26]
Fig. 138.—Passage-Tomb at Plouharnel (Morbihan).
The authors who have written on the question we are now considering, especially Sir J. Lubbock in his work on 'Pre-historic Times,' and Nilsson, the Swedish archæologist, have given a much too complicated aspect to their descriptions of the tombs of pre-historic ages, owing to their having multiplied the distinctions in this kind of monument. We should only perplex our readers by following these authors into all their divisions. We must, however, give some few details about them.
Fig. 139.—Passage-Tomb; the so-called Table de César, at Locmariaker (Morbihan).
Sir J. Lubbock gives the name of passage grave, to that which the northern archæologists call Ganggraben (tomb with passages); of these we have given four representations (figs. 136, 137, 138, 139), all selected from specimens in France. This name is applied to a passage leading to a more spacious chamber, round which the bodies are ranged. The gallery, formed of enormous slabs of stone placed in succession one after the other, almost always points towards the same point of the compass; in the Scandinavian states, it generally has its opening facing the south or east, never the north.
The same author gives the name of chambered tumuli (fig. 140) to tombs which are composed either of a single chamber or of a collection of large chambers, the roofs and walls of which are constructed with stones of immense size, which are again covered up by considerable masses of earth. This kind of tomb is found most frequently in the countries of the north.