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Chapter 9 THE DOLMENS OF ASIA

Word Count: 1893    |    Released on: 01/12/2017

ies in Bulgaria, where no less than sixty dolmens have been found north of Adrianople. The second consists of a few dolmens which still remain in the Crimea, and the third lies in the

le another in the valley of Pehada has sides consisting of single blocks, placed so as to slant

Persia, and in Central and South India they exist in large numbers. Corridor-tombs occur in Japan, but th

with holed sto

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and an enclosure of menhirs between Tyre and Sidon. According to Perrot and Chipiez some of the Moabite monuments are very similar in type to the Giants' Tombs of Sardinia. Others are simple dolmens. In a good example at Ala Safat (Fig. 22) the floor of the tomb is formed by a single flat slab of stone. The great cover-slab rests on two long blocks, on

Ghuzaleh a menhir about 3 feet in height is set in the centre of what when complete must have been a rectangle. In other cases the enclosure was elliptical or circular in form. In an example at Minieh the menhir stands in the centre of a double (in part triple) circ

has been suggested that the series of holes and furrows was intended for the pouring a libation of some kind. In a monument of this type at Amman the cover-slab slopes considerably; the upper part of its surface is a network of small channels converging on a hole 11 inches deep about the centre

e than 160 dolmen-tombs are visible from a single spot. They are built on circular terraces of earth and stones about 3 feet high. The Arabs call them Graves of the Children of Israel. Most of them lie east and west, and are broader at the west. In the eastern slab there is often a hole ab

esent analogies with those of many parts of the megalithic area, and we therefore await anxio

n, half are of this pierced type. They are known to the natives as "dwarfs' houses." One only had a pair of uprights outside the pierced stone, thus forming a sort of portico to the dolmen. Near Chittore in North Arcot there is said to be a square mile of ground covered with these monuments. In them were found human remains in sarcophagi, and fragments of black pottery. Several of the Indian dolmens are said to have contained objects of iron. Occasionally the dolmen is surrounded by a double circle of stones or covered with a cairn. The Deccan, in addition to its numerous dolmens, possesses also megalithic monuments of another type. They consist each of two rows, each of t

5, 7, 9, or 11, and in front of these two structures of dolmen form. These are raised in honour of some important member of the tribe who has

secondly, a corridor broadening out at one side near the end; thirdly, a true chamber with a corridor of access; and fourthly, a type in which the corridor is preceded by an antechamber. All four types occur in rough unworked stone, roofed with huge slabs, but a few examples of the third type are made of well-cut and dressed blocks. The

b-chamber or the sarcophagus which sometimes replaces it lies in the circular part of the mound. The total axial length of the basis of the whole mound is in a typical case-that of Nara (Yamato)-674 feet, the diameter of the round end being 420 feet.

f them can be definitely assigned to their owners, and others are attributed by tradition. Thus a rather small mound at the foot of Mount Unebi (Ya

ge stone blocks which have been placed on the mound of the Emperor Komei, who die

eem to have brought the idea of megalithic building with them, as their earlier tombs are simple mounds. As no dolmen has yet been found in Japan we cannot at pre

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