Among the ruins listed, the most interesting are the ruins of three walls ("fortresses") of Saksauman, about 600 m long. The first and second walls reach a height of 10 m, the third - 5 m. The lower (first) wall consists of andesite and diorite blocks weighing from 100 to 200 tons. The largest of them measures 9 x 5 mx 4 m. The blocks of the second and third walls are slightly smaller than the blocks of the first tier.
But both those and others are so precisely fitted to each other that it is impossible to put even a knife blade between them. In addition, all blocks are polyhedra of a rather complex shape. They were cut down in a quarry located 20 km from Saxawaman. During these 20 km there areseveral gorges, steep ascents and descents!
Cuzco
In Cusco, there are the remains of the Cyclopean walls, built of huge stone blocks, also filigree fit to each other. One of these buildings is the Inca Palace.
Ollantaytambo
In Ollantaytambo, giant andesite and pink porphyry building blocks are found at the base of the Temple of the Sun, preserved fragments of the back wall and gate of the Temple of 10 Nis, the “sacred area” (scattered) and the first row of terraces. They are also found in various hard-to-reach places of the river valley. Urubamba. Locals call them "weary stones" (Spanish piedras cansadas).
The site "Living Ethics in Germany" provides a truly fantastic hypothesis that the ancient builders of South American megalithic structures softened rock matter to a jelly-like state with the help of their psychic energy. Then they cut it into huge blocks of arbitrary shape, transported them through the air to the place of construction using telekinesis, and there they laid them in the walls, adjusting one to the other using the same method of softening the rock blocks to a plastic substance, giving them the desired shape on the spot. Only in this way can one explain the strange shape that the giant buildings of Ollantaytambo, the Inca palace in Cuzco, the walls of Saxahuaman, the ruins of Tiahuanaco, the ahu pedestals on Easter Island and other similar buildings have.
Read my work "Siddhi Forces and the Causes of the Superhuman Abilities of Human Forerunners"
Giant monolithic sculptures
South America and about Easter
In addition to ruins, an important component of the megalithic culture of South America are giant monolithic sculptures in Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, on about. Easter, and also the "Olmec heads" in Mexico. The height of such sculptures reaches 7-10 m, and the weight is 20 tons or more. The height of the heads ranges from 2 to 3 m and weighs up to 40 tons.
Moai and ahu - megalithic structures of Easter Island
A particularly large number of sculptures - moai - are located on the island. Easter. There are 887 of them. The largest of them stand on the slope.Rano Raraku volcano. They are buried up to their necks in sediments that have accumulated on the island over its long history. Some moai used to stand on stone pedestals - ahu. The total number of ahu exceeds 300. Their size ranges from several tens of meters to 200 m.
The largest moai "El Gigante" has a height of 21.6 m. It is located in the Rano Raraku quarry and weighs about 150 tons (according to other sources, 270 tons). The largest moai "Paro", standing on a pedestal, is located on the ahu "Te Pito Kura". Its height reaches 10 m, and its weight is about 80 tons. The height of the moai scattered along the slope of the Rano Raraku volcano is also about 10 m.
Sculptures of heads of people and animals on the Markaguasi plateau
On a par with ruins and giant sculptures, you can put huge sculptures of heads of people with features of Europeans and blacks, as well as images of monkeys, turtles, cows, horses, elephants, lions and camels on the Markaguasi plateau in Peru located at an altitude of about 4 km. At least two facts testify to the ancient age of these images. First, the animals "engraved" on the plateau have never lived at such a height. Secondly, most of them disappeared from the American continent long before the Europeans appeared there - from 10-12 to 150-200 thousand years ago.
Stone balls of granite and obsidian Central America and Mexico
The next evidence of existence highly developed civilizations in pre-Columbian America are stone balls from granite and obsidian in Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala and the USA (state of New Mexico). Among them there are real giants up to 3 m in diameter.The carried out determination of the absolute age of the Mexican obsidian balls showed that they were formedin the tertiary period "Even before the appearance of man" (no later than 2 million years ago). Trying to find an explanation for this, the American scientist R. Smith hypothesized that they arose naturally from volcanic ash.
Megalithic structures Middle East
Baalbek in Lebanon
The ruins of megalithic structures and other ancient archaeological sites are known far beyond the borders of the American continent. The most magnificent of these are the ruins of Baalbek in Lebanon. The weight of each of the three stone blocks in Trilithon, which is at the base of the Temple of Jupiter built by the ancient Romans, is 750 tons. The surfaces of the blocks are perfectly processed, and their dimensions are simply amazing: 19.1 x 4.3 x 5.6 m. Moreover, these monoliths are ... at an eight-meter height! They rest on slightly smaller blocks.
Half a kilometer south of the Temple of Jupiter from the earth at an angle of 30 hail. the largest processed stone in the world - South or Mother - is sticking out, weighing about 1200 tons and measuring 21.5 x 4.8 x 4.2 m
Alan Alford, author of the books "Gods of the New Millennium" and "The Path of the Phoenix," asked experts on heavy-duty cranes if it was possible to lift such a whopper. They answered in the affirmative, but at the same time added that it would be possible to move with the block only if you put crane on the caterpillar track and make good road... Does it mean that the builders of the Baalbek foundation had a similar technique?
Scientists argue no less about the purpose of the megaliths than about who built them. But on this issue nowadays there is still a unanimous opinion. Megaliths, as the researchers suggest, had three main functions.
Solitary megaliths, menhirs, characteristic of the earliest period of this era, are believed by some archaeologists to serve as a kind of symbols that stood out against the background of the agricultural landscape, and, possibly, were border signs in the face of a growing shortage of land suitable for arable land and pastures.
The most common European megaliths - dolmens, or stone boxes, were tombs for wealthy leaders or entire communities. Some of the earliest were simple tombs, consisting of vertically placed slabs, covered with a horizontal slab. Access to such a grave was limited by a very narrow passage, which was blocked by a stone or earthen embankment. Even though the passage was often very low and narrow, it provided access to the grave for rituals. More complex structures consisted of entire paths of stones. Under the long embankment was a corridor with side stone chambers. Where there was not enough stone, the chambers were built of wood.
Many of these collective stone tombs have been in use for decades, even centuries, and a large cemetery like Bouton in Western France has been in use for more than 2 thousand years and contains the remains of hundreds of those buried.
The most complex stone structures, alleys and cromlechs, according to scientists, were a kind of astronomical observatory. These megalithic structures were built collectively - by whole clans and tribes, because their construction required a huge expenditure of muscular strength.
The workforce required to create even the smallest cromlechs and galleries was incomparable to the capabilities of a single community. The digging of ditches, the transportation and installation of huge stones involved cooperation between the communities. Estimates of the man-hours required for the construction of these monuments show an interesting progression: the most ancient megaliths in Wessex, judging by the calculations of the researchers, required about 50 - 70 thousand man-hours, while for later and larger structures it was necessary already about half a million man-hours. And for the construction of Stonehenge at the third stage, it took already 2 million! The immensity of such buildings and the colossal costs of their construction testify to the enormous importance of religion and ritual centers in the life of ancient Europeans. Although we know little about the religious beliefs of the builders of the megaliths, there is no doubt that the celestial bodies played an important role in them: the sun, the moon, the stars. Observations of astronomical and seasonal natural phenomena were the main functions of ancient observatories - ritual centers.
Cromlech Newgrange in Ireland is oriented so that sunlight hits the central chamber inside the stone circle precisely on the winter solstice in the middle of winter. On the day of the summer solstice, Stonehenge was oriented. With the help of these structures, it is possible to record other astronomical phenomena, in particular, the location of the stars in the sky.
A megalithic tomb under a long mound in West Kenneth. England
Hundreds of various carved drawings, which cover many megaliths, also give ideas about the lifestyle and worldview of the builders of megaliths. The earliest examples are simple axes and intersections, but over time, more complex elements appear on them: spirals are symbols of the Sun, wavy lines are symbols of the water element. Entire galleries of such "engravings" have been opened in Scandinavia. There are images of human figures, hunting scenes, and fantastic creatures. They testify to how complex the religious ideas of the ancestors of Europeans were.
The old agricultural symbols of the Neolithic era, especially the female deity associated with abundance and the Earth, gradually gave way to male mythology, more consistent with the new order: wealth, expressed in the number of cattle and metal, values captured in war. The old myth of the Mother Goddess gave way to new ones. Circles, wheels, spirals and similar elements reflect the endless movement associated with fire, the Sun and their opposite - water, the source of life. These elements became the main objects of veneration in Central and Western Europe.
Around the middle of the VI millennium BC. NS. the construction of stone circles and galleries in Spain, Portugal, Northwest France and the British Isles ceases. The old cults are being replaced by new ones associated with the era of war and enrichment. Earth and water become objects of worship. Gifts are dedicated to them - treasures buried in the ground or flooded in swamps and lakes. Collective tombs - dolmens are being replaced by other forms of burial structures. In Europe, a new era of warriors and heroes begins, the era of mounds, under which ordinary members of the community and noble leaders were buried.
Megaliths of the River Valley of Wars
This small river flows in Ireland, in the seaside region north of Dublin. Several burial mounds were discovered in its valley, as well as detached boulders belonging to the so-called slaughterhouse culture. Apparently, in ancient times, this valley was considered a sacred place. The center of the entire megalithic complex here is undoubtedly Newgrange.
The Irish, who discovered Newgrange at the very end of the 17th century, have long considered it the tomb of the Celtic kings.
Only later it was proved that this burial belongs to the 4th millennium BC. e., that is, it is older Egyptian pyramids... On the list of World Heritage Sites, Newgrange is described as the largest and most important of the megalithic structures in Europe at that time.
Indeed, this huge dolmen structure, 60-80 m long and 11 m high, is made up of 200 thousand tons of stones, and is covered with earth and white quartz pebbles on top. An 18-meter corridor made of stone slabs leads from the entrance to the depths of the dolmen. It hides the path to the actual burial chamber with a ritual bowl and three niches decorated with stone carvings. Above the entrance, oriented to the southeast, there is an opening - a window through which the sun's rays can penetrate into the inner chamber, but only once a year - on the day of the winter solstice, and even then only for 17 minutes. What is the reason for this? Why are only five people buried in Newgrange? How were ancient people able to deliver such huge stone blocks here? There are no answers to these questions yet.
An ancient observatory?
Perhaps the most famous megalithic monument in Europe is the giant cromlech Stonehenge (translated from Celtic, its name means "hanging stones"), near the city of Salisbury in southern England. Stonehenge has become a favorite subject of study not only for archaeologists, but also for astronomers. It is estimated that the construction of Stonehenge took a total of a third of a million hours. It turned out that the ring of giant boulders served as an astronomical observatory. Two thousand years before Euclid and Pythagoras, the builders of Stonehenge used the mathematical laws they discovered in practice.
This structure has survived to this day in the form of a horseshoe of five pairs of vertical sandstone stones, covered from above with the same boulders (trilites). This horseshoe was surrounded by a ring of 30 stone monoliths weighing 25 tons and a height of 4.5 m. Inside it was a stone altar.
Stonehenge stones clearly indicate the rising and setting of the Sun at different times of the year. Obviously, this cult was closely associated with observations of the cyclical changes in nature, the movement of the Sun, Moon and stars. Stonehenge served many functions. It was a monument that embodied the energetic power of the Earth. It was an astronomical observatory. And finally, it was a temple built for people who prayed here and celebrated religious holidays.
The megalith in Avebury, adjacent to Stonehenge, is also a giant cromlech. Modern researchers believe that the outer circle consisted of about 100 boulders and was surrounded by a very wide moat. Together with the two inner circles and the road leading to the monument, the total number of stones reached 274. The stones were uncut and not decorated with patterns. They are believed to have been established around 2600 BC. e., although cult rites were carried out here before. Mysteries stone rings Avebury is also not fully unraveled. It is possible that the ancient people in this place worshiped the Sun and the Moon.
Fast forward to the Maltese archipelago. One of the favorite vacation spots of tourists has long been considered a place historical significance... Here are located some of the oldest mysterious megalithic structures of mankind - the megalithic temples of Malta and Gozo.
Amazing age of buildings
The true history of the local ancient inhabitants is currently unknown. It is impossible to say who exactly they were, for what purpose they made this trip to the islands, but the buildings of these skilled craftsmen stand to this day.
Scientists believe that the civilization of the Maltese builders dates back about 7000 years. For the most part, it was a Neolithic culture - all buildings are made in stone. But it is not worth talking about the complete isolation of the inhabitants, it is believed that they had developed trade relations with the European part, in particular with Italy.
For a long time it was believed that the megalithic structures of Malta have a later origin, but after the radiocarbon analysis, everything fell into place. Now the palm in the construction of the largest stone structures goes from Egypt and Mesopotamia to Malta. A truly mesmerizing and significant discovery for understanding human history. The very period of the creation of the megalithic temples of Malta and Gozo (about the middle of the 4th - the end of the 3rd millennium BC) was called "the era of temple builders."
The Megaliths of Malta: Highlights
In total, 23 megalithic sanctuaries have been discovered here. All of them are made from local limestone. In the course of further agricultural activities local residents many temples were dismantled for the needs of the Maltese peasants, so some of the temples are presented in the form of ruins, but the size of these ruins will amaze even the most sophisticated viewer.
Only four temples have survived to this day in relative safety - Jgantiya, Hagar Kvim, Mnajdra, Tarshien.
Ggantija in the heart of the island of Gozo
Ggantija
Ggantija ("Giant's Tower") - the oldest of the megaliths, is located in the center of the island of Gozo. Ggantija is a complex of two temples. The remains of the larger temple are surprising - the ruined facade now reaches six meters in height, which speaks of its greater grandeur in ancient times. It is also worth remembering that the construction of such objects was carried out without modern construction equipment, in the conditions of the Stone Age. The temple is partially filled with the Cyclopean style of masonry - the stones are held by their own weight. There are also places for hanging the sacrificed animals, sockets for washing the feet. The entrance to the sanctuary is fenced off with large stones. Inside the sanctuary itself, an altar has been preserved, in which there are niches for ancient deities and holes for the bloodletting of the victim. The fence of the Jgantija temple surrounds both temples. Some of the stones that form it weigh about 50 tons, which further raises doubts about the human origin of this structure.
Hagar Kvim - the largest temple complex
Hagar Qim
Hagar Kvim is the next temple on our list of Malta megaliths. Concurrently the largest and best preserved temple complex... Here you can see everything the same as in Ggantia - a wall, a sanctuary, an altar.
Tarshien - three in one
Tarsjen is a complex of three temples, the pinnacle of the development of Maltese architecture. At the entrance of the third temple in the foreseeable past there was a statue of the ancient goddess of the local population. According to scientists, its size reached 2.7 m in height. Only its lower part has survived, the original of which is kept in the museum of the capital of Malta. A copy of it was installed on the spot.
Mnajdra - heading for the Sun
Mnajdra
It is worth noting the attachment of the Maltese builders to the choice of the location and location of the building. There is something similar to Chinese "feng shui" here. Just like many ancient architects, the Maltese, in addition to their location in the landscape, also tied to the sky. So the Mnajdra temple is involved in such astronomical phenomena as the winter and summer solstices and equinoxes.
Hypogeum - underground temples
As for the culture of the inhabitants of Malta itself, there is big influence religion. Temples for the gods were built with high quality and for centuries, and special structures for greater safety were generally erected underground.
Khal-Saflieni Hypogeum
So one of these structures is the hypogeum (an underground structure carved into the rock) Khal-Saflieni, near the Tarshien temple. In its structure, this hypogeum with mirror accuracy is similar to its external counterparts. There is also a hall and an altar. But according to the functional position, there was still not a temple, but a burial place. For many centuries this place was a burial place for local inhabitants. Due to this, the Khal-Saflieni system is full of different corridors and grottoes in three tiers with a total area of 480 sq. m. It is believed that about 6-7 thousand people found a place of rest here. the ancient world.
Secrets of Maltese buildings
In general, one gets the impression that the Maltese archipelago was a kind of large religious center of the ancient world, a place of pilgrimage for Mediterranean residents. Temples, in addition to the spiritual role, assumed the functions of administrative, medical, financial institutions, further strengthening their central influence in society.
The end of the civilization of ancient Malta is shrouded in deep mystery. Researchers give a very definite date - 2300 BC. The reasons are unknown, traces of epidemics, military conflicts, natural disaster have not been found. People simply disappeared without giving any hints about their future fate. But whatever happens to them, the megaliths of Malta will remain a great monument of the world heritage of human civilization.
Video about the megaliths of Malta:
Who built the megaliths
Let's first define where the builders who were engaged in the construction of megaliths could have come from? Were they from a civilization of earthlings or from a civilization of some other planet?
There are several hundred megalithic structures on Earth (and these are only preserved to this day), the volume of work on the construction of such a number of megaliths is enormous. To create a clearer picture of the amount of work spent on the construction of the megaliths, let's make some rough calculations for one of the pyramids of Cheops (Egypt).
The Cheops pyramid consists of approximately 2 million blocks with an average weight of 2.5 tons each. This weight will have a cubic block with a side of 1 meter. We get a block surface of 6 square meters. We multiply the surface of one block by the number of blocks, and we get 12 million square meters of surface. The area is huge! The highway area is 12 meters wide and 1000 kilometers long!
If the pyramid was built of stone, how long will it take to cut the edges of the blocks? And if the blocks were made of geopolymer concrete, then how much energy and time would it take to grind 5 million tons of stone to produce cement? If we assume that the builders of the megaliths came from another planet, then we will get a "construction team" with a staff comparable to the population of not the smallest country. In addition, alien "guest workers" had to visit Earth for thousands of years. The question is why? Other civilizations do not need megaliths on our planet!
The earthly civilization built megaliths and used them.
Now let's answer the question, what level of development did the ancient civilization have?
As mentioned above, the builders of megaliths left obvious evidence of the high technical level of development of their civilization - traces of machine processing of stone blocks. Let's think about what, for example, the trace from a tubular drill with a cutting edge of less than 2 mm testifies? It would seem a trifle, but thanks to this trifle, one can understand at what level of development was the civilization that built the megaliths.
Before making a carbide tubular drill, civilization had to go a long way of development, build a complex social organism, accumulate a huge amount of knowledge in almost all areas of science and technology. For the accumulation and transfer of scientific knowledge from generation to generation, an education system from primary school to higher education institutions ...
For the manufacture of a carbide tubular drill, it is necessary to have a developed technique for processing such materials and the energy level, at least for our civilization to provide energy for this technique, that is, to use much more energy than the muscle strength of humans or animals ... and so on.
Such technical devices have not survived to our time or are carefully hidden, but interesting images have remained. On one of the vessels of the Maya Indians, a curious image of representatives of ancient civilization with circular saws (photo 64), and in the temple of Seti I in Abydos there is an image of a helicopter, a tank and aircraft(photo 65). In Edfu (Egypt) there is a temple, which is famous for "the texts of the builders of Edfu", a significant part of which is devoted to the description of "the times when the gods ruled Egypt." Some of the images on the walls of the temple resemble objects for various technical purposes: from electric batteries to "flying saucers" and nuclear bombs (photo 66). In the temple of Dendera, also located in Egypt, there are many images of devices, interpreted as electrical photo 67, photo 68, photo 69, photo 70.
Thus, we came to the unambiguous conclusion that in ancient times there was a highly developed civilization on Earth, the level of development of which in some aspects significantly exceeded the level of development of the current civilization.
It remains to answer the last question, which people created this highly developed civilization on Earth?
To answer this question, it is necessary to look into the depths of the centuries through the eyes of people who lived in those distant times, to compare the legends and traditions of various peoples about this or that event, and then we will get a fuller and more correct view of historical reality than the view imposed by modern "Scientists".
If ancient legends and legends of peoples, seemingly unrelated to each other, tell about some historical events in the smallest detail, and if these details coincide, then the event preserved over the centuries is part of the true History.
There is an ancient Egyptian legend according to which Ancient Egypt created nine White Gods (See article by Czeslaw Vanger "White Pharaohs"), four of them came from the north, and five from the west from the land that plunged into the depths of the Great Waters. The most important of them the Egyptians called Ra, he came with his Brothers-Gods from the northern land. The Slavic-Aryan Vedas also tell about how White people appeared in Ancient Egypt and about their relationship with the local population:
“... People with dark skin will honor the descendants of the Heavenly Clan as Gods and will learn many sciences from them. People from the Great Race will build new Cities and Temples, and teach people with dark skin to grow cereals and vegetables. Four Clans from the Heavenly Clan, replacing each other, will teach the Ancient Wisdom of the new Priests and build the Trirans-Tombs in the form of Man-Made Mountains, tetrahedral ... "
Alexander Khodilov in his article "Why Libraries Burned" gives a very interesting information about the origin of the civilization of China:
“... According to the Chinese (and not my) legend, the Chinese civilization began with the fact that a White God named Huang Di flew to them from the north on a celestial chariot, who taught them everything: from cultivating rice fields and building dams on rivers to hieroglyphic letters. It turns out that the hieroglyphs were passed down by a representative of a highly developed civilization lying north of Ancient China. And now a little explanation. Juan is an old Aryan name that is still quite widespread in Spanish-speaking countries. Di - tribes of the white race who lived north of ancient China. The Di tribes - Dinlins - were well known to the inhabitants of Ancient China. The difficulty of pronouncing the word “dinlin” for the Chinese has led to its shortened version of “di”.
In the old Chinese chronicles, there are a lot of references to the Di tribes. Back in the III millennium BC. NS. The Di tribes in the Chinese annals were noted as the indigenous inhabitants of the country. For three thousand years, one part of the Dinlins was exterminated, as was often the case in those extremely cruel times, the other fled, and the third mingled with the Chinese. By the way, the last style of Kaishu writing, which has survived to this day without any major changes, was finally formed during the Three Kingdoms period (220-280 AD) almost at the same time when the Di tribes were deleted from the “book of life”. Three thousand years of war did their job, the very memory of the Dinlins was destroyed ... "
The presence of the white race in China is confirmed and archaeological finds- mummies of people of the white race, Tocharians (Photo 71 is a reconstruction of one of the famous Tocharian mummies (Photo 72), known as the "beauty Lulan").
The estimated age of the mummies is 3,500 years. The first mummy of a white man in the Takla Makan desert in China was discovered by accident in 1977, after the sand melted, the corpse of a woman was revealed, whose body was badly damaged, presumably during the hostilities. Excavation around her corpse later revealed 16 mummies, so perfectly preserved by the desert that traces of tears were found on the face of the mummified baby. The bodies found were dressed in Celtic woolen fabrics, leather shoes and jewelry. In one grave, excavators found a saddle cover and a pair of trousers with drawings of people. A face with blue eyes was painted on one leg.
The civilization that the Tocharians built consists of large cities, temples, centers of study and art - they were also the builders of the Great Silk Road - the route for trade between the West and China. The Silk Road was originally thought to have been built by the Chinese, but the discovery of the remains of the region's first inhabitants now shows that these are the remnants of a great lost White civilization.
In the early 1990s, over a thousand Tocharian corpses were discovered in the region, but by 1998 the Chinese government had banned further archaeological expeditions to the area, likely fearing the exposure of Chinese legends. The excavations of the Tocharians prove the fact, unpleasant for the Chinese, that they were not the discoverers of iron, saddles, they were not the first to domesticate horses, but representatives of the White race ...
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Megaliths ("big stones") are usually called prehistoric structures of huge stone blocks, connected without the use of mortar. But this definition is very imprecise. A significant part of archaeological sites classified as megaliths, in the strict sense, are not structures at all, since they consist of a single monolith or several slabs not connected to each other.
In addition, the stones of megalithic structures are not always large. Finally, some buildings that were already built in historical time are often referred to megaliths, but either with the use of cyclopean boulders (the Temple of Jupiter in Baalbek), or without the use of mortar (Machu Picchu in Peru, 16th century).
What, then, unites megaliths? Perhaps, monumentality and a halo of mystery. Megalith is the creation of a departed, often already nameless people. This is a message from an unimaginably distant "pre-legendary" past. Monument to an unknown builder.
ETERNAL STONES
Alien, surreal, contrary to all known principles of architecture, the appearance of the megaliths feeds the vast " modern mythology"Full of Atlanteans, Hyperboreans and other representatives of highly developed civilizations that have sunk into oblivion. But there are at least two reasons not to take such speculation seriously. Firstly, they still do not give an intelligible explanation for the appearance of megaliths. Secondly, the real secrets of history are more interesting than the imaginary ones.
The simplest megaliths, thus, which cannot yet be considered structures, include the sacred stones of seida and menhirs - oblong, roughly worked blocks vertically stuck into the ground, chipped off from the rock. A little later, they are replaced by orthostats, which are distinguished by a flat shape and the presence of at least one carefully smoothed edge on which magic signs were drawn or carved.
Solitary menhirs and seids, as a rule, served as objects of worship. Sacrifices were made near the 7.6 meter high Radston Monolith, the largest in England, decorated with fossilized dinosaur footprints. On the plains, ice blocks have always attracted attention and, quite possibly, could be considered the home of the spirit or the weapon of the ancestor. Smaller menhirs usually served as tombstones for the leaders. In any case, it was for this purpose that the last of them was installed under the camera at the beginning of the last century in Indonesia. The largest cluster of 3000 orthostats is the Karnak Stones in Brittany - a prehistoric cemetery.
In some cases, menigirs were placed in a group, forming a circle denoting the boundaries of a cult place - a circle cromlech. Often, in the center of the decorative fence, a platform lined with stone was found, on which the bodies of the dead were burned or animals and captives were sacrificed. Ceremonies, meetings, festivals and other social events could also be held here. Cults have changed. Cromlechs are more durable than religions.
The use of megalithic structures as observatories is not excluded. To accurately determine the position of the Moon and the Sun (by the shadow), unshakable landmarks were required. Menhirs placed in a circle fulfilled this role. It should be noted that in the Middle Ages the observatories had a similar structure.
Already in ancient times, people strived for diversity and were not afraid of experiments. Tauls became an epochal step forward, a real breakthrough in stone architecture - big stone, hoisted on a small one. Then came the triliths - three-stone arches - the beauty and pride of Stonehenge. The stability and durability of these structures led the primitive builders to the idea of constructing dolmens - the first stone buildings in the history of mankind.
A lot of mysteries are connected with dolmens, as well as with the rest of the simplest megaliths. For example, they can never be associated with any specific archaeological culture - that is, with an ancient people, whose migrations are tracked by scientists using characteristic ceramics, arrowheads and other finds. The stone does not give out the age of the building, does not tell anything about the creators. As a rule, it is possible to determine the date of the dolmen appearance only with an accuracy of several centuries. And over such a period, the population of the country has changed more than once. The artifacts found in and around the structure do not say anything, since it is known that the megaliths, passing from hand to hand, remained "in operation" for thousands of years.
The fact that similar, almost identical megaliths are scattered over a huge area - from the Caucasus to Portugal and from the Orkney Islands to Senegal - may also be quite puzzling. In this regard, even a version was put forward about a certain “dolmen culture”, whose representatives once inhabited all these territories. But the hypothesis was not confirmed. No traces of such a people have been found. Moreover, it was found that the age of two identical, adjacent dolmens can differ by a couple of thousand years.
In fact, the similarity of dolmens in different countries is explained by the fact that the idea lying on the surface naturally occurred to many people. Any child could make a "house" by placing four flat stones on the edge and placing the fifth on them. Or cover the hole in the stone with a flat block (trough-shaped dolmen). Admiring his creation, the young architect grew up, became a leader and encouraged his fellow tribesmen to build a structure already in full size.
One thing can be said with certainty: the appearance of the first megaliths is associated with the transition of the population to a sedentary lifestyle. Wandering hunters had no desire to turn over the blocks they encountered during migrations. And the groups of people were too small to carry out large-scale work. The very first farmers got the opportunity to engage in capital construction. Only experience was missing. And nothing better than digging two stones into the ground and planting a third on them, they did not think for a long time.
Apparently, the dolmens were crypts. Some of them contain the remains of hundreds of people. Decaying bones formed layer by layer, and new graves were dug right in the resulting mass. Other dolmens are completely empty. Probably, over the past millennia, someone has taken the trouble to clean them out.
| Path in the maze | |
| A special category of megaliths is made up of flat cairns - lines or drawings made of small stones. It includes numerous "stone boats" - Viking burials, made in the form of a ship's outline indicated by boulders, and a unique "stone eagle" - an image of a bird with outstretched wings, created by an unknown tribe of North American Indians. But the most famous flat cairns are "labyrinths" found in Scandinavia, Finland, England, in the north of Russia and even on Novaya Zemlya. Rows of stones form an intricate, coiling path. These are the least noticeable and, at the same time, extremely spectacular megaliths. For the labyrinth is a powerful symbol that weaves together reality. The path to the land of spirits is winding. Who left these stone seals, unsolved signs in the northern, meager land? Like most megaliths, the labyrinths are anonymous. Sometimes they are associated with the tribes of the protossams, but the Sami themselves do not know anything about spirals. In addition, labyrinths are spread far beyond the boundaries of the settlement of the ancestors of this people. A separate opinion on this issue among the Nenets, who consider the flat cairns to be the work of the Sirte - a short, stocky people of blacksmiths who have long gone underground. |
But sooner or later, building simple stone boxes was no longer satisfying. Dolmen is effective enough to glorify a separate clan, but too small to become the pride and cult center of an entire tribal union. People already wanted more. At least just in size.
Individual dolmens began to line up in a long corridor, often with lateral branches. Sometimes two corridors connected by passages were built. Natural slabs were difficult to match in shape, and for the construction of "walls" masonry began to be used, as in composite dolmens, or solid polished blocks, as in tiled dolmens.
But even in this case, the building did not seem majestic enough. Therefore, a colossal cairn - an artificial structure in the form of a pile of stones - was poured over the "serial" dolmens. In order to prevent the pyramid from collapsing, it was “propped up” along its perimeter with a ring of orthostats. If there was more than one belt, it turned out something like a ziggurat. The scale of the Neolithic gigantomania can be judged by the fact that such structures, which had long taken the form of rolling hills, in modern times were exploited as quarries for decades before workers discovered the inner chambers.
The most impressive of the Neolithic monuments are now called “corridor tombs” or “megalithic temples”. But one and the same structure could combine functions or change them over time. In any case, the mounds were poorly suited for rituals. It was too crowded inside. Therefore, the cairns continued to coexist with the cromlechs until people learned to build real temples, under the arches of which not only priests, but also believers could fit.
The era of megaliths, which began in prehistoric times, has no clear boundaries. It was not completed, but only, as construction technologies improved, it gradually came to naught. Even in relatively late eras, when the methods of erecting the arch became known, and buildings were built from hewn stone and brick, the demand for giant blocks did not disappear. They continued to be used, but rather as a decorative element. And even knowing how to fasten stones with mortar, the architects did not always find it necessary to do this. After all, polished stones, fitted to each other, equipped with protrusions and grooves, looked better. Finally, even an untreated lump sometimes ended up in place. The boulder that serves as the basis for the equestrian statue of Peter I in St. Petersburg is a typical megalith.
| Titan towers | |
| Scottish Borchs and Mediterranean Nuragues are relatively late megaliths, dating back to the Bronze Age. They are towers made of small rough stones without the use of mortar. And the fact that many of these structures, fastened only by the weight of the material, are still standing, causes great respect for the builders. The creation of the Borchs is attributed to the Picts, and the Nurags to the Shardens. But both versions are not indisputable. In addition, only the names given to them by foreign chroniclers remained from these peoples themselves. The origins and customs of the Picts and Chardins are unknown. And this makes it even more difficult to unravel the purpose of the numerous (more than 30,000 Nuragi were built in Sardinia alone), but non-functional structures. Brooches resemble fortifications, but were hardly used for defense, because they did not have loopholes and could not accommodate a sufficient number of defenders. They did not make a fire, did not live, did not bury the dead, and did not store supplies. The objects found in the towers belong almost exclusively to the Celts, who settled in Scotland centuries later and tried to come up with some kind of use for the towers. However, they succeeded no more than archaeologists. |
THE SECRETS OF THE BIG STONE
The question remains "how". How, without heavy equipment, did people deliver huge stones, how did they lift them, how did they trim them? It is these riddles that inspire the authors of alternative hypotheses. At the heart of which, however, lies a banal lack of imagination. It is difficult for an untrained person to imagine how barbarians cut a giant block with stone tools and manually set it in place. To imagine how all this is unknown why, in an unknown way, the Atlanteans who have gone to unknown place are doing, anyone can do.
But the alternative reasoning contains a fundamental error. With cranes and diamond saws, we don't use huge stone monoliths. This is irrational. More user-friendly materials are now available. Megaliths were built by people who simply could not build otherwise.
The stone is really difficult to work with other stone or copper. Therefore, only in the Iron Age began to build from relatively compact hewn "bricks". After all, the smaller the block, the larger its relative surface. So the Egyptians did not at all seek to complicate their work, using one and a half and two ton blocks to erect the pyramids, which, of course, were not easy to transport and lift. On the contrary, they lightened it as much as possible. Indeed, with a decrease in blocks, the costs of their manufacture would increase sharply, while transport costs would decrease slightly.
The same weight would have to be transported. The creators of the megaliths reasoned in the same way.
Evaluating the complexity of a task "by eye" often leads to errors. It seems that the labor of the builders of Stonehenge was enormous, but, obviously, the costs of building the smallest of the Egyptian and Mesoamerican pyramids were incomparably higher. In turn, all the pyramids of Egypt, taken together, took four times less labor than just one canal - a 700-kilometer "backup" of the Nile channel. This was really a large-scale project! The Egyptians built pyramids in their free time. For the soul.
Was it difficult to trim and sand the 20 tonne slab? Yes. But every peasant or hunter in the Stone Age during his life between times, making the necessary tools in the evenings, brought about 40 square meters of stone to almost mirror shine, choosing the hardest of rocks: Chipping and sanding on wet sand is not amenable to diamond only.
It seems difficult to deliver huge stones not only without equipment, but also without horses, even without a wheel. Meanwhile, under Peter I, frigates were ferried along the route of the future Belomorkanal in this way. Peasants and soldiers pulled ships along wooden rails, placing wooden rollers. Moreover, the cargo had to be dragged on many-meter cliffs more than once. In such cases, it was necessary to build a draft, and sometimes use counterweights in the form of cages with stones. But when giving the order, the tsar probably did not think for long, since it was a matter of an operation that was quite ordinary. It seemed to the Spaniards both faster and safer to drag galleons from Caribbean to the Pacific Ocean across the Isthmus of Panama than to ferry them around Cape Horn.
Valuable information was provided by a study of the Maltese megalithic temples, one of which was suddenly abandoned during the construction process. Everything that the workers usually took with them - rock rollers and skids - remained in place. Even drawings have survived, which looked like a miniature model of the building (this is how - according to a model, not on paper - they were built until the 18th century). In addition, in Malta, and later in other megalithic regions, "stone rails" were discovered - parallel grooves left by the repeated rolling of round stones under heavy sleds.
| Hobbit holes |
| The megalithic structures of Skara Bray are unique primarily in that they are residential. Usually, Neolithic people built houses from eternal stone only for the dead. But Scotland at that time was the northern outpost of agriculture. So the surprisingly stunted, fewer pygmies, the people, who decided to settle on this harsh land, had to dig themselves in conscience. The lack of wood also affected. The "Hobbits" could only rely on the logs brought by the waves of the sea. Other interesting feature these megaliths - there is little in their masonry that would deserve the epithet "mega". The stones are mostly small. The houses were obviously built by the efforts of one family, unable to deliver to the site and erect a monolithic dolmen slab on the structure. Hobbits' roofs were made of wood and sod. But in each room there were several megaliths in miniature - stone stools and whatnots. |
But all the same - wasn't the work too great? Did the unknown barbarians really need to complicate their already difficult life by delivering and lifting 50-ton boulders of Stonehenge? And not for the sake of profit, but for beauty, for glory. Realizing that the arches of the cult center can be made of wood as well.
The inhabitants of Neolithic England thought not too much. The Romans believed in the same way, using record, unthinkable 800-ton blocks in Baalbek, although they could well do with the usual ones. The Incas agreed with them, carving whimsical puzzles out of stone in order to assemble the walls of Machu Picchu from them. Megalithic buildings are amazing even now. They struck him then. They were much more striking. With their labor, the builders glorified the deity, and a little - themselves. And considering that they achieved their goals - although their names are forgotten, glory, having survived the birth and end of many civilizations, thunders through the millennia - can we say that the work was too great?
On the contrary, it was a very economical solution.
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