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In many countries of the world and even on the seabed there are mysterious structures made of huge stone blocks and slabs. They were called megaliths (from the Greek words “megas” - large and “lithos” - stone). It is still not known exactly who and for what purpose carried out such titanic work in very ancient times in various places on the planet, because the weight of some blocks reaches tens or even hundreds of tons.
The most amazing stones in the world
Megaliths are divided into dolmens, menhirs and trilithons. Dolmens are the most common type of megaliths; these are peculiar stone “houses”; in Brittany (province of France) alone there are at least 4,500 of them. Menhirs are vertically mounted elongated stone blocks. If a third is placed on top of two vertically mounted blocks, then such a structure is called a trilith. If the trilithons are installed in a ring ensemble, as in the case of the famous Stonehenge, then such a structure is called a cromlech.
Until now, no one can say for sure for what purpose these impressive structures were built. There are a lot of hypotheses on this matter, but none of them can comprehensively answer all the questions posed by these silent, majestic stones.
For a long time, megaliths were associated with an ancient funeral ritual, but archaeologists did not find any burials near most of these stone structures, and those that were found were most likely made at a later time.
The most widespread hypothesis, supported by many scientists, connects the construction of megaliths with the most ancient astronomical observations. In fact, some megaliths can be used as sights, allowing one to record the rising and setting points of the Sun and Moon on the solstices and equinoxes.
However, opponents of this hypothesis have quite fair questions and criticisms. Firstly, there are a lot of megaliths that are difficult to associate with any astronomical observations. Secondly, why did the ancients at that distant time need such a labor-intensive method of understanding the movement of the heavenly bodies? After all, even if they set the timing of agricultural work in this way, it is well known that the start of sowing depends much more on the condition of the soil and weather than on a specific date, and can shift in one direction or another. Thirdly, opponents of the astronomical hypothesis rightly point out that with such an abundance of megaliths, as, for example, in Karnak, you can always pick up a dozen stones allegedly installed for astronomical purposes, but what were thousands of others intended for then?
The scale of work carried out by the ancient builders is also impressive. Let's not dwell on Stonehenge, a lot has already been written about it, let's remember the megaliths of Karnak. Perhaps this is the largest megalithic ensemble in the whole world. Scientists believe that at first it numbered up to 10 thousand menhirs! Now only about 3 thousand vertically installed stone blocks have survived, in some cases reaching a height of several meters.
It is believed that this ensemble originally stretched for 8 km from Saint-Barbe to the Crash River; now it has survived for only 3 kilometers. There are three groups of megaliths. To the north of the village of Karnak there is a cromlech in the form of a semicircle and eleven ranks, in which there are 1169 menhirs with a height of 60 cm to 4 m. The length of the row is 1170 m.
No less impressive are the other two groups, which, most likely, once, together with the first, formed a single ensemble, back at the end of the 18th century. it was more or less preserved in its original form. The largest menhir of the entire ensemble was 20 meters high! Unfortunately, now it has been toppled and split, however, even in this form, the megalith inspires involuntary respect for the creators of such a miracle. By the way, even with the help of modern technology it is very difficult to cope with even a small megalith if it needs to be restored to its original form or moved to another place.
Are dwarfs “to blame” for everything?
Megalithic structures have been discovered even at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, and the oldest megaliths date back to the 8th millennium BC. Who was the author of such labor-intensive and mysterious stone structures?
Many legends in which megaliths are mentioned in one way or another often feature mysterious, powerful dwarfs who can effortlessly perform work that is beyond the capabilities of ordinary people. So, in Polynesia such dwarfs are called menehunes. According to local legends, they were ugly-looking creatures, only vaguely reminiscent of people, only 90 cm tall.
Although the menehunes had a look that made your blood run cold, the dwarves were generally kind to people and sometimes even helped them. Menehunes could not stand sunlight, so they appeared only after sunset, in the dark. Polynesians believe that these dwarfs are the authors of megalithic structures. It is curious that menehunes appeared in Oceania, arriving on the large three-tiered island of Kuaihelani.
If the Menehunes needed to be on land, their flying island would descend into the water and float to the shore. After completing the intended work, the dwarfs on their island again rose into the clouds.
The Adyghe people call the famous Caucasian dolmens houses of dwarfs, and Ossetian legends mention dwarfs who were called the Bitsenta people. The bicenta dwarf, despite his height, had remarkable strength and was capable of knocking down a huge tree with one glance. There are also references to dwarfs among the aborigines of Australia: as is known, megaliths are also found in large numbers on this continent.
In Western Europe, where there is no shortage of megaliths, there are also widespread legends about powerful dwarfs who, like the Polynesian menehunes, cannot stand daylight and are distinguished by remarkable physical strength.
Although many scientists still maintain a certain skepticism towards legends, the widespread dissemination in the folklore of peoples of information about the existence of a small powerful people must be based on some real facts. Maybe a race of dwarfs actually once existed on Earth, or were aliens from outer space mistaken for them (remember the flying island of the Menehunes)?
The mystery remains a mystery for now
Megaliths may have been created for purposes that are still unclear to us. This conclusion was reached by scientists who studied the unusual energy effects that are observed in the locations of megaliths. Thus, in some stones the instruments were able to register weak electromagnetic radiation and ultrasounds. In 1989, researchers even detected inexplicable radio signals under one of the stones.
According to scientists, such mysterious effects can be explained by the fact that megaliths were often installed in places where there are faults in the earth's crust. How did the ancients find these places? Maybe with the help of dowsers? Why were megaliths installed in energetically active places in the earth’s crust? Scientists do not yet have clear answers to these questions.
In 1992, Kyiv researchers R. S. Furduy and Yu. M. Shvaidak proposed a hypothesis that megaliths could be complex technical devices, namely generators of acoustic or electronic vibrations. Quite an unexpected assumption, isn't it?
This hypothesis was not born out of nowhere. The fact is that English scientists had already established that many megaliths emit ultrasonic pulses. As scientists at Oxford University have suggested, ultrasonic vibrations arise due to weak electrical currents induced by solar radiation. Each individual stone emits a small amount of energy, but as a whole, a megalithic stone complex can create a powerful burst of energy at times.
It is curious that for most megaliths, their creators selected rocks containing large amounts of quartz. This mineral is capable of generating a weak electric current under the influence of compression... As is known, stones either shrink or expand due to temperature changes...
They tried to unravel the mystery of the megaliths based on the fact that their creators were primitive people of the Stone Age, but this approach turned out to be unproductive. Why not assume the opposite: the creators of megaliths had a very developed intellect, allowing them to use the natural properties of natural materials to solve technical problems still unknown to us. In fact - a minimum of costs, and what a disguise! These stones have stood for thousands of years, fulfilling their tasks, and only now people have some still vague doubts about their true purpose.
No metal could have withstood so much time, it would have been stolen by our enterprising ancestors or eaten away by corrosion, but the megaliths still stand... Perhaps someday we will reveal their secret, but for now it is better not to touch these stones. Who knows, maybe these structures are neutralizers of some formidable natural forces?
At the end of the Neolithic era, the first megalithic buildings appeared. Megaliths are structures of a religious nature made from roughly processed or unprocessed large blocks of stone. There are three main types of megaliths: menhirs, dolmens and cromlechs.
Menhirs are oblong stones, single or forming long alleys. The height of such stones is from 1 to 20 m or more. The Alley of Menhirs in Carnac (Brittany, France) has 2813 stones arranged in 13 rows. They are most common in Western Europe and are apparently associated with the cult of the dead. In some cases, such stones have a clearly marked head and folded arms. (The image of a staff, a mace, a human foot is often found - especially in the Bronze Age (3rd - 2nd millennium BC). - Although the gender characteristics are not indicated, some indirect evidence indicates that these are “stone women.” In France, such considerations are considered to be the personification of the Neolithic “goddess of the dead”).
Dolmens are megalithic structures consisting of several vertical stone blocks covered with a stone slab. In many cases, dolmens were used for burials. The earliest dolmens date back to 4 thousand BC, and are the earliest megaliths.
| Stonehenge |
(The relatively uniform nature of these ancient structures, approximately the same time of their appearance in Europe, some symbols and decorative elements associated with them, including solar signs, a huge number of megaliths and their unusually wide distribution indicate the existence of some homogeneous beliefs that existed among different peoples of Europe, Asia and Africa.)
The possibility of a connection between megalithic structures and the cult of the sun is indicated by the fact that complexes such as Stonehenge are oriented with their main axis to the point of sunrise on the day of the summer solstice.
Dolmens and cromlechs are the earliest types of structures built using vertical supports with a horizontal covering. In these buildings, the techniques of architectural composition were most clearly manifested (in comparison with the previous period); geometric shapes, identifying the center, rhythm, symmetry (STONEHENGE).
At the end of the Neolithic, in 4 thousand BC, such burial structures as mounds also appeared - hemispherical earthen mounds above the burial.
Dolmens, menhirs, cromlechs...
Anyone who is interested in archeology or simply everything ancient and mysterious has definitely come across these strange terms. These are the names of a wide variety of ancient stone structures scattered throughout the world and shrouded in an aura of mystery. A menhir is usually a free-standing stone with traces of processing, sometimes oriented in some way or marking a certain direction. A cromlech is a circle of standing stones, in varying degrees of preservation and with different orientations. The term henge has the same meaning. A dolmen is something like a stone house. All of them are united by the name “megaliths,” which simply translates as “big stones.” This class also includes long stone rows, including those in the form of labyrinths, trilithons - structures of three stones forming something like the letter “P”, and the so-called sacrificial stones - irregularly shaped boulders with cup-shaped recesses.
Such archaeological sites are very widespread, literally everywhere: from the British Isles and our Solovki - to Africa and Australia, from French Brittany - to Korea. Modern science dates their origins, in most cases, to the 4th–6th millennia BC. e. This is the so-called Neolithic era, the end of the Stone Age - the beginning of the Bronze Age. The purpose of the structures is to perform religious rituals or create an astronomical observatory or a calendar in stone. Or all of this together. They were erected mainly by primitive communal tribes engaged in hunting, fishing and primitive agriculture - for worshiping the dead, making sacrifices and adjusting the calendar. This is the point of view of official science today.
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In them we tried to figure out what these ancient structures are, how they are structured and work, and what they are intended for. Perhaps someone will consider these articles not so important for spiritual seekers, diverting attention from the main goal, as they say, “the master’s business.” It seems to me that, to the best of our ability, together we are trying to restore history, lost knowledge and traditions, for the sake of, let’s say, a more holistic perception of reality, putting together puzzles into a single picture. How well this is working is still difficult to say.
In this article I would like to propose considering other megaliths, which, along with pyramids and dolmens, can also be part of a great architectural plan. And at some point, perhaps, they will help save humanity or transition to some new stage of civilization. We will talk about menhirs and cromlechs. Of course, there is a lot of information on the Internet, but it turned out to be difficult to put together. Taking into account the experience from the above articles about dolmens, in order to reduce the amount of “water” in the article, so as not to completely confuse you and myself, I will try to present it concisely, broken down into several parts.
Megaliths(from the Greek μέγας - large, λίθος - stone) - prehistoric structures made of large blocks. In the limiting case, this is one module (menhir). The term is not strictly scientific, therefore a rather vague group of buildings falls under the definition of megaliths and megalithic structures. As a rule, they belong to the “pre-literate” era. Megaliths are distributed throughout the world, mainly in coastal areas. In Europe, they mainly date from the Chalcolithic and Bronze Ages (3-2 thousand BC), with the exception of England, where megaliths date back to the Neolithic era. Megalithic monuments are especially numerous and varied in Brittany. Also, a large number of megaliths are found on the Mediterranean coast of Spain, in Portugal, part of France, on the west coast of England, in Ireland, Denmark, and on the southern coast of Sweden. At the beginning of the 20th century, it was widely believed that all megaliths belonged to one global megalithic culture, but modern research and dating methods refute this assumption.
Types of megalithic structures.
- menhir - a single vertical stone,
- dolmen - a structure made of a huge stone placed on several other stones,
- cromlech - a group of menhirs forming a circle or semicircle,
- taula - a stone structure in the shape of the letter “T”,
- trilith - a structure made of a block of stone mounted on two vertical stones,
- seid - including a structure made of stone,
- cairn - a stone mound with one or more rooms,
- indoor gallery,
- boat-shaped grave, etc.
In many European countries, in the middle of fields and meadows, on high hills, near ancient temples, in forests, often right in the middle of roads and on lawns near houses where people live, huge long stones rise - menhirs (menhir is translated as “long stone”) "). Sometimes they stand alone, sometimes they line up in rings and semicircles, or form long rows and entire alleys. Some point straight up, others are tilted and appear to be falling. But this “fall” has been going on for five, or even six thousand years: that is exactly how long it is assumed today that the most ancient of them have existed. The Bretons call them pelvans, which means “pillar stones,” and the English call them standing stones. Science considers them the first authentically man-made structures that have survived to this day.
Menhir (also known as peilwan) - from Low Breton (France) maen - stone and hir - long - processed or wild rock, installed by man, whose vertical dimensions are noticeably larger than the horizontal ones. In the English-speaking tradition, the term “standing stones” is more often used. In Scandinavia, such monuments are called “bautasteine”.
Menhir- This is a free-standing stone that was considered sacred. A working menhir, that is, a stone that provides a connection with other megaliths, was usually located either in special zones (at the intersection of force fields, on faults) or above the sacred graves of ancestors. This is usually a tall stone, often in the form of a stele, or simply a free-standing huge boulder, strongly elongated upward. And in Egypt, for example, they specially carved it so that it was much larger in height than in width, and made it flat. All ancient menhirs are placed in the right places. Sometimes entire complexes are formed from menhirs - circles, semicircles, spirals and other shapes from menhirs. They are called cromlechs (but more on them later).
Menhirs are found among a variety of peoples, from the northern latitudes to the high latitudes of the southern hemisphere, and are found in different parts of the planet. There are especially many of them in Europe, Russia and the Caucasus.
The best studied and well known are the standing stones of Brittany and the British Isles. But there are many more of them on our planet. Today, menhirs ranging in height from one to 17 meters and weighing up to several hundred tons can be seen in Greece and Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica and the Balearic Islands, in the south of France, in Switzerland, Austria and the Czech Republic, in Spain and Portugal, in Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Germany and southern Scandinavia. They are found along the entire Mediterranean coast from Libya to Morocco and further south, all the way to Senegal and Gambia. There are them in Syria, in Palestine.
It is believed that the tallest menhir was the Fairy Stone, which stood near the village of Lokmariaker in French Brittany. It rose 17 meters above the ground and went more than three meters into the ground, and weighed about 350 tons! The Fairy Stone was supposedly erected 4,000 years ago, but was unfortunately destroyed around 1727. It now lies destroyed at the entrance to the village of the same name.) The most grandiose ensemble of menhirs is located there, in Brittany, in Carnac - grandiose stone alleys of more than 3,000 uncut stones (it is believed that there used to be about 10,000 of them!) stretch for several kilometers. They are about 6000 years old. From the air you can see that some large and small megaliths form huge circles and triangles.
How not to recall the megalithic complex of Akhunovo, mentioned earlier in articles on the site, or the Bakhchisarai menhir in Crimea, considered a very powerful place of power (by the way, the coordinates are still the same 43-44 degrees N. N44.76506 E33.90208) and many others.
A clear geometric plan can be traced in the arrangement of the stone “alleys” of the menhirs; some stone rows, stretching for kilometers from west to east, gradually move closer to each other according to a complex mathematical law described by a parabolic function.
Menhirs are a fertile topic for fantasy, including scientific ones. According to researchers, menhirs were used for a variety of purposes, incl. currently unknown and often already indefinable. Among the well-known purposes of menhirs are cultic (ritual fencing of other structures, symbolism of the center, ritual determination of the boundaries of possessions, elements of rituals of passage, phallic symbolism), memorial, solar-astronomical (sights and systems of sights), boundary and even informational. The idea that menhirs are ancient observatories is very attractive. Indeed, Stonehenge (a mega complex of menhirs and dolmens) became a place of pilgrimage for tourists after it turned out that at the time of the summer solstice the main axis of the entire structure points to the northeast, exactly where the Sun rises on the longest day of the year.
There is nothing on the simplest and most ancient objects, but over time, drawings, ornaments, inscriptions, and bas-reliefs begin to appear on the standing rocks.
And just look at the images on the menhirs of Göbekli Tepe:
Often, subsequent peoples reused menhirs for their own religious and other purposes, making additional drawings, editing, applying their own inscriptions and even changing the general shape, transforming them into idols. On the other hand, menhirs are functionally adjacent to single unprocessed stones, both specially installed and lying in their original places, as well as systems of specially placed stones.
Menhirs were installed either singly or forming complex systems: oval and rectangular “fences”, semi-ovals, lines, incl. many kilometers long, rows of lines, alleys. Despite the fact that the tradition of setting stones vertically is one of the oldest, it is also one of the most sustainable. Humanity still erects stone steles in honor of certain events or intentions. For example, the largest “menhir” - a monolith stands in St. Petersburg and is well known as the Pillar of Alexandria (let’s not get ahead of ourselves and pay much attention to this for now, since this is the topic of a separate subsequent article and separate conclusions). On the other hand, the tradition of being proud of one's tallest towers and broadcasting towers also has its roots in the tradition of menhirs.
Of course, there are many legends associated with menhirs. They say that dwarfs living underground turn into pelwans when sunlight hits them. And since these people are considered the keeper of treasures, legends claim that countless riches are hidden under the standing stones. However, the stones vigilantly guard them, and not a single person has yet managed to get them. According to other legends, menhirs are, on the contrary, petrified giants. And on the day of the summer and winter solstices, on Christmas Eve and Easter, they come to life - they walk, dance, spin around their axis or run to the nearest river to drink water or swim, and then return to their place and turn into stone again.
It is believed that menhirs are tombstones. Perhaps lighthouses. Or sights. There are known groups of menhirs that stand in such a way that from one you can see a second, from a second a third, from a third a fourth, and so on - very similar to a signaling system. True, the pelvans also stand far from the seashore, where it is strange to talk about them as lighthouses, and not all the long stones contain traces of burials.
According to Ivan Matskerle, according to one theory, these religious buildings accumulate the energy of the Earth. “Scientists have found that at sunrise, especially during the solstice, menhirs scream and emit sound, but in an area inaudible to humans. Measurements have shown that ancient menhirs have a powerful magnetic field. This is how the hypothesis arose that menhirs are points of concentration of the Earth’s energy. They, like acupuncture points on the human body, are the intersection points of invisible vein-tunnels, magnetic flows passing along the surface of the Earth.”
It is known, for example, that in India, rough, upright stones are still considered the abodes of deities. In Greece, a huge rough stone pillar once represented Artemis. At the crossroads there were tetrahedral pillars with the sculpted head of the god Hermes - herms. In ancient Rome, Terminalia was celebrated in honor of the god of borders, Terminal. On this day, boundary stones were rubbed with oils, decorated with garlands of flowers, and sacrificial gifts were brought to them: honey, wine, milk, grain. Anyone who dared to move such a boundary stone was considered forever damned - borders in Rome were sacred. And the stone, representing the god Terminus himself, was located in the Capitoline Temple and guaranteed the inviolability of the borders of the entire empire. Maybe menhirs were the same boundary stones. Only they did not share neighboring properties, but rather something else. Nowadays a very popular hypothesis is that all these stones were placed on faults in the earth’s crust, where the Earth’s energy was concentrated and came to the surface. If you believe the myths, menhirs stand on the border of two worlds - the world where people lived and the world where gods lived. Thus, the Irish sagas say that standing stones marked the entrance to the Sides, the dwellings of the wondrous magical people of the Celts. And in Brittany, the belief remained that thanks to the pelvan one can meet the dead: in ancient times, people erected stone thrones somewhere in a prominent place, lit a fire and waited for the souls of their ancestors to sit on them to warm themselves by the fire. And just like the Termina stone, some menhirs, while they stand, guarantee the existence of entire villages, pushing back the end of times...
And these versions came across:
Menhirs are temples near which sacrifices were made. Menhirs are astronomical clocks from the Stone Age. The stones of Carnac (Brittany) are arranged in such a way that they show the position of the Sun at certain times of the year.
Indian menhirs with images of people in masks of animals and birds are symbols of religious cults.
Indian menhirs with two heads (human and animal) are symbols of the ancient Toltec teachings about the nagual and tonal. Perhaps our ancestors used dolmens - menhirs to practice the art of stalking - “recapitulating personal history” - one of the paths leading to the main goal of the Toltecs - freedom?
And take, for example, the ancient obelisks of the Egyptians:
Or take the ancient Slavic temples:
And if you look closely at the moai of Easter Island, these are also menhirs in their purest form.
In general, there is something to think about in your spare time.
Prepared by: Alexander N (Ukraine)
Brittany can be called the country of megaliths. It was from the words of the Breton language, at the end of the 17th century, that the names of the main types of megalithic buildings were compiled (dolmen: daol - table, men - stone; menhir: men - stone, hir - long; cromlech: cromm - rounded, lec "h - place). Cult stones in the mythology of the north-west // www.perpettum.narod.ru/essari.htm In Brittany, the era of megalithic construction began around 5000 BC and ended around 2500 BC. autochthonous population of Armorica. They came from the shores of the Mediterranean, gradually moving northwest from the southern and western shores of the Iberian Peninsula, densely populating first the coast of Morbihan, between the rivers Vilaine and Ethel, and then other lands of present-day Brittany, rising deep into the peninsula along the rivers and moving along the coast.
Dolmens
Dolmens are usually “boxes” made up of stone slabs, sometimes joined by long or short galleries. They were collective burial chambers, as evidenced by bone remains and votive treasures (ceramics, jewelry, polished stone axes). We are talking about traces of burials, mostly collective, small or colossal, initially covered with stones (cairns) or earth (mounds), and, undoubtedly, equipped with additional structures made of wood. Dolmens could be either free-standing structures or part of more complex structures.
Variations of dolmens are very numerous, and their architecture has changed over time. The most ancient ones were large in size, but the burial chambers in them were reduced; this suggests that they were intended for some of the most important figures of the tribe. Over time, the volume of dolmens decreased, while the size of the burial chambers increased, and they became real collective graves. In the town of Chausse-Tirancourt, in the Paris Basin, during the study of a similar burial, archaeologists discovered about 250 skeletons. Unfortunately, the acidity of the soil often leads to the destruction of bones. In the Bronze Age, burials again became individual. Later, during Roman rule, some dolmens were adapted to satisfy the religious needs of the conquerors, as evidenced by the numerous terracotta figurines of Roman deities found in them.
Menhirs
A menhir is a stone pillar dug vertically into the ground. Their height varies from 0.80 meters to 20. Free-standing menhirs are usually the tallest. The “record holder” was Men-er-Hroech (Fairy Stone), from Lokmariaker (Morbihan), which was destroyed around 1727. Its largest fragment was 12 m, and in its entirety it reached 20 m in height, with an approximate weight of 350 tons. Currently, all the largest menhirs are located in Brittany:
Menhir in Kerloas (Finistère) - 12 m.
Menhir in Kaelonan (Cote-d'Armor) - 11.20 m.
Menhir in Pergal (Cote-d'Armor) - 10.30 m. Hawkins J. Except Stonehenge. M., 1975. P. 63
There are also menhirs lined up, sometimes in several parallel rows. The most grandiose ensemble of this kind is located in Karnak, and has about 3,000 menhirs. It is certainly the most famous megalithic ensemble in Brittany and one of only two (along with Stonehenge) in the world.
The purpose of menhirs, which are not funerary monuments, remains a mystery. Due to the lack of instructions for use left by the builders for future generations, archaeologists are carefully juggling several hypotheses. These hypotheses, which are not mutually exclusive, vary from case to case and depend on a variety of factors: whether the menhirs are isolated or not; rows of stones are composed of one row or several, more or less parallel; menhirs oriented in a readable way, etc. Some could mark territory, indicate graves, or refer to the cult of waters.
But the hypothesis most often expressed relates to several large rows of stones oriented between east and west. There is an assumption that these are attributes of the solar-lunar cult, coupled with agricultural methods and astronomical observations, and large crowds of people gathered near them, for example, during the winter and summer solstices. “The direction of certain blocks according to privileged directions is amenable to analysis,” emphasizes Michel Le Goffi, a Breton archaeologist, “and when cases are repeated, sometimes according to a clearly traceable system, one can rightfully think that this is not accidental. This is almost certain in many cases, as at Saint-Just and Carnac. But doubts will always exist due to the lack of direct evidence. Archaeological finds among the rows of stones are indeed very vague, some pottery and processed flints were found, but the remains of ritual fires, dating from the same time as the construction of the megaliths, suggest that they were located outside the habitation zone. Cult stones in the mythology of the north-west // www.perpettum.narod.ru/essari.htm
Cromlechs
An example of a cromlech is such a well-known building as Stonehenge.
Cromlechs are ensembles of menhirs standing, most often, in a circle or semicircle and connected by stone slabs lying on top, but there are menhirs assembled in a rectangle. On the small island of Er Lannic, in the Gulf of Morbihan, there is a “double cromlech” (in the shape of two touching circles).
Who were the builders of the megaliths? They cannot be named, but it is possible, with a greater or lesser degree of accuracy, to describe their way of life.
During the regional Neolithic period (4500-2500 BC), there was a radical change in the way people lived. Having mastered the basics of agriculture and livestock breeding, during this period they move to the “productive” stage (agriculture - livestock breeding). This change leads people to a sedentary lifestyle and to the development of technologies such as pottery, weaving, and stone processing.
Why did these peoples erect stones? Experience shows that in every era people found some use for them, depending on the time context and personal imagination. Bronze Age people made graves in dolmens and in rows of menhirs. The Gauls, the Gallo-Roman population and peasants of the Middle Ages, were probably delighted by the opportunity to use such beautiful stones in fortification or building houses. Even Christianity, which sought to eradicate pagan cults, did not do so in the most radical way, which consisted of the destruction of megaliths; instead, numerous stones were “Christianized” by converting them into crosses, as in the menhir of Saint-Uze in Pleumeur-Bodou (Pleumeur-Bodou). ), Côtes d'Armor department. Well, the American GIs in 1945 were going to use the rows of Karnak stones as anti-tank protection against the Germans.
