The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1929-08-02

menhir, or "long stones set on end !:
the dolmen, or houselike structures,
with stone slabs or beulders for walls
and roof and the tumulus, or mound.
Arguments are groups of menhirs ar
ranged in line or in several parallel
lines. Cromlechs are groups of men
HRS standing in circle or an arc
of circle, more rarely a square,
usually terminating an alignment or
surrounding a tumulus. The dimen-
~sions are sometimes Incredible
The Great Menhir near Locmaria
quer, now thrown down and broken
probably by an earthquake), was
nearly 30 feet high and weighed some
375 tons.
Some of the dolmens have a height
of IS to 20 feet, with roof slabs 20
by 80 feet in area and several feet
thick. Barring Gould indeed mentions
one near Nevez tF1nistere) whose
capstone measures 40 feet in length
and % feet in breadth and 6 feet thick"
The alignments of Carnac, in 10 to
Is parallel rows, stretch across the
country for nearly five miles. The
tumulus of Mont st. Michel looks like
a natural knoll, dwarfing the modern
chapel which crowns it. 1t is hard to
realize that it was heaped by human
hands.
All menhirs, cromlechs, and align
ments were from their beginning open
to the sky. Dolmens and similar con-
structions were all originally covered
by tumuli, since removed, in many
cases, in the course of farming or
building operations.
The tumuli were indeed simply
tombs, of which the dolmens and "cov-
cred alleys" were the cryptS In some
the great quantity of skeletal remains,
earth-buried or incinerated, would in
dictate collective sculpture. In other
cases, the greater or central dolmen
has been found surrounded by smaller
dolmens or stone cefferS containing
the bones of animals and human be-
ings. the latter probably slaves or
.servitors. all slain TO accompany their
a definite belief in a future life With
these have been found stone imple-
ments (celts or hatchets), arrow
points, end tools of various kinds.
fragments of pottery, pendants and
beads of turquoise and other semi
precious stones, and amulets of baked
clay.
Isolated menhirs have yielded little
or nothing indicative of use as monu-
ments for individual tombs. They
seem to have been generally COM
memorative, indicators of roads and
territorial boundaries, and symbolic
of an immortal god"
Scheme of orientation.
The alignments, on the other hand,
appear to have been designed as open
air temples, each group with its
cromlech, placed always at the west
ern end of the lines) having been
erected on single comprehensive
plan and at one time. They are the
remains of huge religious monuments,
the alleys between the parallel files
of stones being the aisles in which the
devotees gathered and moved. and the
cromlech the holy cf holies in which
the priests performed their rites.
They have curious general char
acteristic in that the tallest menhirs
are always placed nearest the crom-
lech, the lines diminishing in height
from west to east.
Most interesting of all, however, is
an apparently definite scheme of
Orientation, which tends to prove that,
in addition TO their ritual use, or per-
haps as part of it, these impressive
files of monoliths served a peculiar
purpose. NM. Henri de Cleuziou and
F. Gaillard have pointed out that in
each group of alignments will be found
single very large menhir-the '.giant"
of the group-so placed in one of the
outer files that if one stands at a
given point in the eromlecll he will
see the sun rise over the giant at a
specific date in the astronomical year.
The orientation, be it understood,
is not exact at the present date Cal
culations made independently by two
astronomers reach the same result
that it was correct at period about
1000 years before the beginning of
the Christian era. This curious testi-
mony to the age of the monuments
agrees with conclusions reached on
other grounds by NJ. lie Rouzic, plac-
ing only the earliest OF the megalithic
structures prior to 200 B. c.; the
greatest development of dolmen build
ing and the erection of the align
ments and cromlechs between 1000
B. c. and 400 b. c., and the latest
work, expressed by small galleries and
stone Golfers, in the First century be-
fore the Christian Era.