The archæologists of Brittany, carried away perhaps by their patriotic enthusiasm, claim that when these monuments were intact they included two thousand menhirs. What is really certain, however, is that a definite plan was evidently followed, the distances between the alignments tallying exactly; the menhirs being set up in straight parallel lines gradually decreasing in size towards the east. Excavations near them have brought to light fragments of charcoal, masses of cinders, chips of silicate of flint, with numerous fragments of pottery, and tools made of quartzite, granite, schist, and diorite, similar to those met with under all the other megaliths of Morbihan. This is yet another proof, if such were needed, that they were all the work of the same race and all probably date from the same period.
The number of megalithic monuments in the world is simply incalculable. M. A. Bertrand estimates the total number in France as 2,582, distributed in 66 departments and 1,200 communes. They are most numerous of all in Brittany; there are 491 in the Côtes-du-Nord, 530 in Ille-et-Vilaine. I am not sure of the number in Morbihan, but I know it is very considerable. The commission appointed at the instigation of Henry Martin decided that there were as many as 6,310 megaliths in France, but then amongst these were included polishing stones and cup-shaped stones, with other similar relics of the remote past. Lastly, a report recently presented to the Chamber of Deputies by M. A. Proust estimates at 419 the number of groups classed by government. In other countries these numbers are greatly exceeded. There are 2,000 megaliths in the Orkney Islands and a great many in the extreme north of Scania, and in Otranto in the southern extremity of Europe, where they resemble the pedras fittas of Sardinia. Pallas, and after him, Haxthausen, tells us that there are thousands of kurganes in the steppes of Central and Southern Russia.[19] These kurganes are cromlechs, tombs surmounted by upright stones, square or conical hypogea, all scattered about without any apparent system, surmounted by roughly sculptured female busts, known amongst the common people as kamena baba, or stone women. Tumuli, too, abound on the shores of the Irtisch and of the Yenisei, mute witnesses to the former presence of a vanished race of which we know neither the ancestors nor the descendants. These monuments are, however, by some attributed to the Tchoudes, a people who came from the Altai Mountains. The Esthonians, the Ogris or Ulgres, the Finns, and perhaps even the Celts, are supposed to be branches of the same ethnological tree. This is however quite a recent idea, and at best but a mere hypothesis.[20]
Algeria presents a vast field for research, and it is easy to find dolmens and cromlechs, such as that shown in [Fig. 64], which are sepulchres with a central dolmen surrounded by a double or triple enceinte of monoliths driven into the ground. These monuments, much as they differ in form and arrangement, are undoubtedly the work of one strong and powerful race that dominated the whole of the north of Africa; and are represented in historic times by the Berbers, and at the present clay by the Kabyles.
Figure 64.
Cromlech near Bône (Algeria).
Although a very great many of them have been destroyed, the French possessions in Algeria are still as rich in monuments of this kind as any of the countries of Europe. On Mount Redgel-Safia six hundred dolmens have been made out, with stone tables resting on walls of dry stones and frequently surrounded by cromlechs. Dr. Weisgerber has recently announced the discovery in the valley of Ain-Massin, on the vest of Mzab,) of a cromlech consisting of a number of concentric circles of large stones set upon an elliptical tumulus, more than fifty-four square yards in area. Quite close is a workshop of flint weapons, probably in use at the time of the erection of the megaliths.[21] In Midjana, the number of megaliths exceeds 10,000, and General Faidherbe counted more than 2,000 in the necropolis of Mazela, and a yet larger number in that of Roknia. “At Bou-Merzoug,” says M. Feraud,[22] “in a radius of three leagues, on the mountain as well as on the plain, the whole country about the springs is covered with monuments of the Celtic form, such as dolmens, demi-dolmens, menhirs, avenues, and tumuli. In a word, there are to be found examples of nearly every type known in Europe. For fear of being taxed with exaggeration, I will not fix the number, but I can certify that I saw and examined more than a thousand in the three days of exploration, on the mountain itself, and on the declivities wherever it was possible to place them. All the monuments are surrounded with a more or less complete enceinte of large stones, sometimes set up in a circle, sometimes in a square. In some cases the living rock forms hart of the enceinte, which has been completed with the help of other blocks frolic elsewhere. It is often difficult to decide where the monument end, and the rock begins. When the escarpment was too abrupt, it was levelled with the aid of a kind of retaining wall, which forms a terrace round the dolmen. The dolmens in the plain seem to have been constructed with even greater care. The enceintes are wider and the slabs of the tables larger.” Megalithic monuments are met with even in the desert. A pyramid built of stones without mortar rises up in the districts inhabited by the Touaregs; and quite near to it are four or five tombs surrounded by standing stones.
In Algeria, we also meet with quadrangular pyramids called djedas, which measure as much as ninety feet on each face, but do not rise more than three feet above the ground. The (lead were buried beneath them in a crouching position. We know nothing either of the origin of these djedas or of the date to which they belong.
The monuments of Tunisia were probably as numerous as those of Algeria. We may note especially the vast area in Enfida, completely covered with dolmens, one hundred of which are still standing, and in excellent preservation, whilst the ruins of others strew the soil, bringing up their original number to at least three thousand. Those described by M. Girard de Rialle[23] are yet more interesting. Near the village of Ellez, on the road from Kef to Kerouan, are some fifteen covered avenues distributed without apparent order, and rising from the midst of Roman ruins. The upright stones vary from about ten to thirteen feet, and are surmounted by huge slabs. The chief dolmen has within it as many as ten chambers.
There are also numerous tumuli in Syria. We have already alluded to that of Sarepta; and there are others near Antioch and in the plain of Beka, between Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon. Major Conder, who as captain conducted the interesting campaign organized by the Palestine Exploration Society in 1881 and 1882, speaks of the exploration of the rude stone monuments as one of the most interesting features of the surveys, and says: “The distribution of the centres where these monuments occur in Syria, is a matter of no little importance … no dolmens, menhirs, or ancient circles have been discovered in Judæa, and only one doubtful circle in Samaria. In Lower Galilee a single dolmen has been found; in Upper Galilee four of moderate dimensions are known. West of Tiberias is a circle, and between Tyre and Sidon an enclosure of menhirs. At Tell el Kady, one of the Jordan sources, a centre of basalt dolmens exists, and at Kefr Wal … there is another large centre. At Amman several fine dolmens and large menhirs are known to exist … it is doubtful, however, if all these examples added together would equal the great fields of rude stone monuments to be found in Moab, for it is calculated that seven hundred examples were found by the surveyors in 1881.[24] There is one group of dolmens at Ali Safat, in Palestine, in which the supports of the table are pierced with an opening. This is a very interesting fact, to which I have already alluded, and to which I shall have to refer again. Another group of some twenty dolmens was discovered by M. de Saulcy on the plateau of El Azemieh, one of which rises in the centre of a belt of roughly sculptured upright stones; and yet a third group is to be seen near Mount Nebo, which Major Conder thus describes: “Here a well-defined dolmen was found northwest of the flat, ruined cairn, which harks the summit of the ride. The cap-stone was very thick, and its top is some five feet from the ground. The side-stones were rudely piled, and none of the blocks were cut or shaped … In subsequent visits it was ascertained that on the south slope of the mountain there is a circle about 250 feet in diameter, with a wall of twelve feet thick, consisting of small stones piled up in a sort of vellum.”[25]