Rude Stone Monuments in All Countries/Chapter 11

by James Ferguson

 

CHAPTER XI.

MEDITERRANEAN ISLANDS.

Before leaving the Mediterranean Sea and the countries bordering upon it, it seems desirable to say a few words regarding certain "non-historic" monuments which exist in its islands. Strictly speaking, they hardly come within the limits assigned to this book, for they are not truly megalithic in the sense in which the term has been used in the previous pages; for though stones 15 feet and 20 feet high are used in the Maltese monuments, they are shaped and, it may be said, hewn with metal tools, and they are used constructively with smaller stones, so as to form walls and roofs, and cannot therefore be considered as Rude Stone Monuments. Still they have so much affinity with these, and are so mixed up in all works treating of the subject with Druidical remains and prehistoric mysteries, that it certainly seems expedient to explain as far as possible their forms and uses.

The monuments are of three classes. The first, found in Malta, are there called giants' towers—"Torre dei giganti"—a name having no meaning, but which, as also involving no hypothesis, it may be convenient to adhere to. The second class, called Nurhags, are peculiar to Sardinia. The third, or Talyots, are found only in the Balearic islands. There may be some connection between the two last groups, but even then with certain local peculiarities sufficient to distinguish them. The Maltese monuments however stand alone, and have certainly no connection with the other two, and, as it will appear in the sequel, none of the three have any very clear affinity with any known monuments on the continent of either Europe or Africa.

 

Malta.

The best known monuments of the Maltese groups are situated near the centre of the Isle of Gozo, in the commune of Barbato. When Houel wrote in 1787,^[1] only the outside wall with the apse of one of the inner chambers and the entrance of another were known. He mistook the right-hand apse of the second pair of chambers for part of a circle, and so represented it with a dolmen in the centre, led to this apparently by the existence of a real circle which then was found at a distance of 350 yards from the main group. This circle was 140 feet in diameter, composed of stones ranged close together and alternately broad and tall, as shown in the next woodcut, which represents the rear of the principal monument. The entrance was marked by two very tall stones, apparently 20 feet high. The interior was apparently rugged, but there is nothing in the plates to show from what cause. When Houel made his plan,^[2] it had all the appearance of being what was styled a regular "Druidical circle," and might have been used as such to support any Druidical theory. It is now however evident that it really was only the commencement of the envelope of a pair of chambers, such as we find in all the monuments of this class on these islands. If the plan is correct, it was the most regular of any, which, besides its having every appearance of never having been completed, would lead us to suppose that it was the last of the series. This monument has now entirely disappeared, as has also another of even more megalithic appearance which stood within a few yards of the principal group, but of which unfortunately we have neither plan nor details. It is shown with tolerable distinctness in a view in Mr. Frere's possession, and in the plates which are engraved from drawings by a native artist, which Admiral Smyth brought home in 1827,^[3] and which are engraved in volume xxii. of the 'Archæologia.' Unfortunately the text that accompanies these plates is of the most unsatisfactory character. This he partially explains by saying that he had left his measurements with Colonel Otto Beyer, who had just caused the principal pair of chambers to be excavated.

The second pair of chambers was excavated by Sir Henry Bouverie when he was governor, some time before or about 1836, when a careful plan and drawings of the whole were published by Count de la Marmora.^[4] It has been re-engraved by Gailhabaud and others, and is well known to archæologists.

The monuments thus brought to light consisted of two pairs of elliptical chambers very similar in dimensions and plan to those at Mnaidra (woodcut No. 179). The greatest depth internally from the entrance to the apse of the principal pair is 90 feet; the greatest width across both 130 feet. The right-hand pair as you enter is comparatively plain. The outer chamber of the left-hand pair still retained, when excavated, fittings that looked like an altar in the right-hand apse, which was separated from the rest by what may be called the choir-screen or altar-rail; and this was ornamented with spirals and geometric figures neatly and sharply cut. In the inner chamber was a stone, near the entrance, on which was a bas-relief of a serpent, but no other representation of any thing living was found elsewhere.

The external appearance of the monument may be gathered from the woodcut No. 178, The lower part of the wall is composed alternately—as in the circle just alluded to—of large stones laid on their sides and smaller ones standing perpendicularly between them. Above this the courses of stones are of regular masonry, and probably there was some kind of cornice or string-course before the beginning of the roof, but of this no trace now remains in any of these monuments.

The second group, known as Hagiar Khem, is situated near Krendi, on the south side of the island of Malta, and is the most extensive one known. The principal monument contains, besides the usual pair of chambers, four or five lateral chambers; and a short way to the north is a second monument, containing at least one pair; and to the south a third group, but so ruined it is difficult to make out the plan. Only the tops of the walls and the tall stones which still rise above the walls were known to exist of the monument, till in 1839 Sir Henry Bouverie authorized the expenditure of some public money to excavate it. An account of these excavations, with a plan and drawings, was published in Malta at the time by Lieutenant Foulis. The plan was repeated, in less detail however, in the 'Archæologia,'^[5] and afterwards in the Norwich volume of the International Prehistoric Congress, by Mr. Furze, from a survey recently made by the Royal Engineers.

The third group, known as that at Mnaidra, is situated not far from the last, between it and the sea; and as it never has been published, a plan of it is given here^[6] from a survey made by Corporal Mortimer, of the Royal Engineers. Like the Gozo monument, it consists of two pairs of oval chambers in juxtaposition. The right-hand pair, in this instance, is larger and simpler in design than that on the left, but it is so nearly identical, both in plan and dimensions, with the right-hand pair at Gozo that they are probably of the same age and served the same purpose. They are also, as nearly as may be, of the same dimensions: both would be enclosed, with their side walls, by a circle 75 feet in diameter. The left-hand cone at Mnaidra would be nearly of the same diameter; but at Gozo the corresponding

enclosure would require to be, and in fact was, 100 feet in diameter, and the inner room, measuring 80 feet by 50 feet, including the apse, was the largest and finest apartment of the class in the islands.

The section through the lower chambers (woodcut No. 180) will suffice to explain the general appearance of these buildings internally, as they now stand. A is the entrance into a small square apartment in which the altar or table stands, shown more completely in the next woodcut (No. 181), from a photograph, which also renders much mere clear the peculiar style of ornamenting

with innumerable "pit markings," peculiar to these Maltese monuments. D is the entrance into the other chamber, which but for the interference of that last described, would have been of the usual elliptical form. My impression is that the left-hand apse was removed at some time subsequent to the erection of the monument, to admit of its insertion. On each side of the doorway are seats, C and E, which are always found in similar situations. Beyond, at F, is one of those mysterious openings which are so frequent; it is also seen with another in woodcut No. 182. Between this apartment and the upper apartment H are two tiers of shelves or loculi, which are also found at Gozo, and for which it is difficult to suggest a meaning if they were not used as columbaria for sepulchral purposes.

A difficult question here arises as to which of these two pairs of apartments is the older—the upper, with the simpler style and the smaller stones, or the apartments with the larger stones and more ornate arrangements. On the whole, I am inclined to think the simpler the older: among other reasons because the floor of the right-hand pair at Mnaidra is 10 feet above the level of the left-hand apartments. As the edifices are all placed on heights, it seems improbable that the first comer would have chosen a site commanded by a knoll 10 feet above him, and touching his half-buried building. But, besides this local indication, it seems probable that the style was progressive, and that this right-hand chamber at Mnaidra may be the oldest, and the great one at Gozo the last completed of all which we know.

The excavations at Mnaidra as well as those at Hagiar Khem have sufficed to settle the question of how these buildings were roofed. The above woodcut, from a photograph, shows the springing of the roof of the north end of the outer left-hand chamber, but, like photographs in general, does so unintelligently. Colonel Collinson, however, informs me that they bracket outwards, at the rate of 1 foot in 10, and he calculates that they would meet at a height of 30 feet so nearly that they could be closed by a single stone. He, however, overlooks the fact that all these horizontally-constructed domes, whether in Greece, or Italy, or Sardinia, are curvilinear, their section being that of a Gothic pointed arch, and consequently, if corbelling forward at the rate of 1 in 10 near the springing, they would certainly meet in this chamber at 15 or 20 feet from their base. When we recollect that before the Trojan war the Pelasgic architects of Greece roofed chambers 50 and 60 feet in diameter (vide ante, page 33), we should not be surprised at the Maltese architects grappling with apses of 20 feet span. This has generally been admitted as easy, but several authors have been puzzled to think how the flat spaces joining the two apses could have been so roofed. A careful examination of the plans of the Maltese building seems to make this easy. Looking, for instance, at the plan of Mnaidra, a retaining wall will be observed on the extreme right, which is a segment of a circle 75 feet in diameter, and continuing it all round, it encloses both chambers. If a similar circle is drawn round the left-hand chambers, it equally encloses them, and the circles osculate, or have one party wall at a point where there is the group of cells. This granted, it is easy to see that the external form of the roof was a stepped cone, covering the inner roofs, and so avoiding the ridges and hollows which would have rendered independent roofing impracticable. The external appearance of the building would thus have been that of two equal cones joined together, and rising probably to a height of 50 feet above their springing. To erect such a cone on an enclosing wall only 8 or 10 feet thick may appear at first sight a little difficult for such rude builders as the Maltese were when they erected these domes, but when we recollect that the cone was divided into two by a cross party wall, which may have been carried the whole height, all difficulty vanishes.

When we apply these principles to the ruins at Hagiar Khem, their history becomes plain at once. Originally the monument seems to have consisted of a single pair of chambers of the usual form, A and B of the accompanying plan; but extension becoming necessary, the central apse of the inner apartment was removed and converted into a doorway, and the left-hand lateral apse was also removed so as to make an entrance into four other ovoid apartments, which were arranged radially so as to be covered by a cone 90 feet in diameter. Here again the difficulty, if any, of constructing a cone of these dimensions is got over by the numerous points of support from perpendicular walls which honeycomb the building. The external appearance of this building would be that of one great cone 90 feet in diameter covering the cells, and anastomosing with one 60 feet, or one-third less, in diameter covering the entrance chambers.

Restored in this manner, the external appearance of these monuments would have been very similar to that of the Kubber Roumeia near Algiers and the Madracen near Blidah. The former was 200 feet in diameter, with a cone rising in steps to the height of 130 feet, which was lower in proportion than suggested above, but its interior was nearly solid, and admitted therefore of any angle that might appear most beautiful. The Madracen looks even lower, but no correct section of it has been published. The Kubber Roumeia has now been ascertained to have been the tomb of the Mauritanian kings down to the time of Juba II., or about the Christian era.^[7] Judging from its style, the Madracen may be a century earlier. Be this as it may, it hardly seems to me doubtful but that these tombs are late Roman translations of a type to which the Maltese examples belonged; but the intermediate links in the long chain which connects them have yet to be recovered.

Internally, these Maltese monuments are rude, and exhibit very little attempt at decoration. The inner apartments, being dark, are quite plain, but the outer, admitting a certain quantity of light by the door, have a proportionate amount of ornament. At Gozo, in the outer apartment, there are, as mentioned above, scrolls and spirals of a style very much more refined than is found in Ireland or in rude monuments generally, but more resembling that of those found at Mycenæ and other parts of Greece. At Hagiar Khem and Mnaidra the favourite ornament are pit markings. Whether these have any affinity with those which Sir J. Simpson so copiously illustrated,^[8] is by no means clear. In Malta they are spread evenly over the stone, and are such a decoration as might be used at the present day (woodcut No. 181). An altar was found in one of the outer chambers at Hagiar Khem, and in both the Maltese monuments, stone tables from 4 to 5 feet high (one is shown in the woodcut No. 181), the use of which is not clearly made out. They are too tall for altars, and, unless in the Balearic Islands, nothing like them is known elsewhere.

After what has been said above, it is hardly worth while to enter into the argument whether these buildings are temples or tombs. Their situation alone, in this instance, is sufficient to prove that they do not belong to the former class. Men do not drop three or four temples irregularly, as at Gozo, within a stone's throw of one another, on a bare piece of ground, far away from any centres of population. The same is the case at Hagiar Khem, where certainly three, probably four, sets of chambers exist; and Mnaidra may almost be considered a part of the same group or cemetery.

Malta, it is said, was colonised by the Phœnicians, at least was so in Diodorus' time,^[9] though how much earlier they occupied it, we are not told, nor to what extent they superseded the original inhabitants. We also learn incidentally that they possessed temples dedicated to Melkart and Astarte. This is very probable, and if so, their remains will be found near their harbours, and where they established themselves; and Colonel Collinson informs me that remains of columnar buildings have been found both at Marsa Sirocco and near the dockyard creek at Valetta. These, most probably, are the remains of the temples in question, though possibly rebuilt in Roman times. The little images found in the apartments at Hagiar Khem may be representations of the Cabeiri, though I doubt it; but little headless deformities, 20 inches high, some of stone and some of clay, are not the divinities that would be worshipped in such temples, though they might be offerings at a tomb.

If these buildings were tombs, they were the burying-places of a people who burnt their dead and carefully preserved their ashes, and who paid the utmost respect to their buried dead long after their decease. The inner apartments have shelves and cupboards in stone, and numerous little arrangements which it seems impossible to understand except on the supposition that they were places for the deposit of these sacred remains. Some of the recesses have doors cut out of a single slab 2 and 3 feet square at the opening, some are so small that a man could hardly squeeze himself through, and some are holes into which only an arm could be thrust,^[10] but from the rebate outside of all, the intention seems to have been for them all to be closed.

Although from all these arrangements it may broadly be asserted that they are not temples in the ordinary sense of the term; the outer apartments may be considered as halls in which religious ceremonies were performed in honour of the dead, and, so far, as places of worship; but essentially they were sepulchres, and their uses sepulchral.

We know so little of the ancient history of Malta that it is extremely difficult even to guess who the people were who erected and used these sepulchres. Most people would at once answer, the Phœnicians; but, in order to establish their claim, one of two things is necessary—either we must have some direct testimony that they erected these monuments, or we must be able to show that they erected similar tombs either near their own homes or elsewhere. Neither kind of proof is forthcoming. No such tombs are found near Tyre or Sidon, or near Carthage, and classical authorities are absolutely silent on the subject. The monuments most like them are the tombs at Mycenæ, but the differences are so great that I would hesitate to lay much stress on any slight similarities that exist. The Greek monuments were always intended to be buried in tumuli. Those at Malta have so strongly marked and so ornamental a podium outside that it is evident they never were so covered up. It may be difficult to prove it, but I fancy if we are ever to find their originals, it is to Africa we must look for them. They are too unlike anything else in Europe.

It seems even more difficult to define their age than to ascertain their origin. Looking at the nature of the stone, their state of preservation, and other circumstances, I cannot believe they are very old. If they were in Greece, or in Europe, or anywhere where they could be compared with other monuments, some useful inferences might be drawn; but they are so unique that this mode is unavailable. We have nothing we can confidently compare them with, and we are so entirely ignorant of the ancient history of Malta that we cannot tell in the least at what age she reached that stage of civilization which the workmanship of these monuments represents. We are probably safe, however, in assuming that they are pre-Roman, and as safe in believing that they are not earlier than the monuments of Mycenæ and Thyrns; in short, that they belong to some period between the Trojan and the Punic wars, but are most probably much nearer to the former than to the latter epoch in the world's history.

 

Sardinia.

It is a curious illustration of the fragmentary nature of society in the ancient world that Sardinia should possess a class of monuments absolutely peculiar to itself. It is not this time ten or a dozen monuments, like those of Malta, but they are numbered by thousands, and so like one another that it is impossible to mistake them, and, what is still more singular, as difficult to trace any progress or change among them. The Talyots of the Balearic Islands may resemble them, but, excepting these, the Nurhags of Sardinia stand quite alone. Nothing the least like them is found in Italy, or in Sicily, or, indeed, anywhere else, so far as is at present known.

A Nurhag is easily recognized and easily described. It is always a round tower, with sides sloping at an angle of about 10 degrees to the horizon, its dimensions varying from 20 to 60 feet in diameter, and its height being generally equal to the width of the base. Sometimes they are one, frequently two and even three storeys in height, the centre being always occupied by circular chambers, constructed by projecting stones forming a dome with the section of a pointed arch. The chamber generally occupies one-third of the diameter, the thickness of the walls forming the remaining two-thirds. There is invariably a ramp or staircase leading to the platform at the top of the tower. These peculiarities will be understood from the annexed section and plan of one from De la Marmora's work.^[11]

When the Nurhags are of more than one storey in height, they are generally surrounded by others which are attached to them by platforms, often of considerable extent. That at Santa Barbara has, or had, four small Nurhags encased in the four corners of the platform, to which access was obtained by a doorway in the central tower; but frequently there are also separate ramps when the platforms are extensive. The masonry of these monuments is generally neat, though sometimes the stones are unhewn, but nowhere does there appear any attempt at megalithic magnificence. They are, at the same time, absolutely without any architectural ornament which could give us any hint of their affinities; and no inscriptions, no images, no sculptures of any kind, have been found in them. They are in this respect as uncommunicative as our own rude-stone monuments.

Written history is almost equally silent. Only one passage has been disinterred which seems to refer to them. It is a Greek work, generally known as 'De Mirabilibus Auscultationibus,'^[12] and ascribed doubtfully to Aristotle. It is to the following effect:—"It is said that in the island of Sardinia there exist, among other beautiful and numerous edifices, built after the manner of the ancient Greeks, certain domes (Θόλοι) of exquisite proportions. It is further said that they were built by Iolas, son of Iphicles, who, having taken with him the Thespiadæ, went to colonise this island." This certainly looks as if the Nurhags existed when this book was written, though the description is by a person who evidently never saw them. Diodorus so far confirms this that he says: "Iolaus, having founded the colony, fetched Dedalus from Sicily, and built numerous and grand edifices, which subsist to the present day, and are called Dedalean, from the name of their builder;"^[13] and in another paragraph he recurs to the veneration "in which the name of Iolaus is held." This, too, is unsatisfactory, as written by a person who never visited the island, and had not seen the monuments of which he was speaking,

 

It is little to be wondered at if buildings so mysterious and so unlike any known to exist elsewhere should have given rise to speculations almost as wild as those that hang around our own rude-stone monuments, The various theories which have been advanced are enumerated and described by De la Marmora^[14] so fully that it will not be necessary to recapitulate them here, nor to notice any but three, which seem really to have some plausible foundation.

The first of these assumes the Nurhags to have been watehtowers or fortifications.

The second, that they were temples.

The third, that they were tombs.

An image should appear at this position in the text.188. Map of La Giara. From De la Marmora.Looking at the positions in which they are found, the first of these theories is not so devoid of foundation as might at first sight appear. As a rule, they are all placed on heights, and at such distances as to be seen from one another, and consequently be able to communicate by signal at least. Take such an example, for instance, as that of Giara, near Isili (woodcut No. 188). Any engineer officer would be delighted with the manner in which the position is taken up. Every point of vantage in the circumference is occupied, and two points in the interior fortified, so as to act as supports. The designer of the entrenched camp at Linz might rub his eyes in astonishment to find his inventions forestalled by three thousand years, and by towers externally so like his own as hardly to be distinguishable to an unpractised eye. The form of the towers themselves lends considerable plausibility to the defensive theory. Such a Nurhag, for instance, as that of Santa Barbara (woodcuts Nos. 186, 187), surrounded by four lesser ones, connected by a platform, and dominated by the central tower, is a means of defence we might now adopt, provided we may assume the existence of a parapet, which has fallen through age.

When we come to look a little more closely at this military question, we perceive that we are attempting to apply to a people who certainly had no projectiles that would carry farther than arrows, principles adapted to artillery or musketry tire. The Nurhags are placed at such distances as to afford no support to one another before the invention of gunpowder, and though in themselves not indefensible, they possess the radical defect of having no accommodation for their garrisons. It is impossible that men could live, cook, and sleep in the little circular apartments in their interior, and the platforms added very little to their accommodation. Had the four detached Nurhags at Santa Barbara been connected with walls only, so as to surround the central tower with a court, the case would have been very different; but as in all instances this is filled up, so as to form a platform, it is evident that it was exposure, not shelter, that was sought in their construction.^[15]

Another, and even stronger, argument is derived from their number. De la Marmora asserts that the remains of at least three thousand Nurhags can now be traced in Sardinia,^[16] and there seems no reason to doubt the truth of his calculation, nor his assertion that they were once much more numerous, and that they are dispersed pretty evenly over the whole island. Can any one fancy a state of society in such an island which would require that there should be three thousand castles and yet no fortified cities as places of refuge? They were not erected to protect the island against a foreign enemy, because most of them are inland. They could not be made to serve for the protection of the rich during insurrections or civil wars, nor to enable robbers to plunder in security the peaceful inhabitants of the plain. In short, unless the ancient Sardinians lived in a state of society of which we have no knowledge elsewhere, these Nurhags were certainly not military works.

When we turn to the second hypothesis and try to consider them as temples, we are met by very much the same difficulties as beset the fortification theory. If temples, they are unlike the temples of any other people. Generally it is assumed that they were fire temples, from their name Nur—in the Semitic languages signifying fire—but more from their construction. The little circular chambers in their interiors are admirably suited for preserving the sacred fire, and the external platforms as well adapted for that Sabean worship of the planets which is generally understood to be associated with fire-worship. But assuming this to be the case, why so numerous? We can count on our fingers all the fire-temples that exist, or were ever known to exist, in fire-worshipping Persia; and if a dozen satisfied her spiritual wants, what necessity was there for three thousand, or probably twice that number, in the small and sparsely inhabited island of Sardinia? Had every family, or little village community its own separate temple on the nearest high place? and did each perform its own worship separately from the rest? So far as we know, there is no subordination among them, nothing corresponding to cathedrals, or parish churches or chapels. Some are smaller, or some form more extensive groups than others, but a singularly republican equality reigns throughout, very unlike the hierarchical feeling we find in most religions. In one other respect, too, they are unlike the temples of other nations. None of them are situated in towns or villages, or near the centres of population in the island.

Must we then adopt the third hypothesis, that they were tombs? Here again the same difficulties meet us. If they were tombs, they are unlike those of any other people with whom we are acquainted. Their numbers in this instance is, however, no difficulty. It is in the nature of the case that sepulchres should accumulate, and their number is consequently one of the strongest arguments in favour of this destination. Nor does their situation militate against this view. Nothing is more likely than that a people should like to bury their dead, on high places, where their tombs can be seen from afar. In fact, there does not seem much to be said against this theory, except that no sepulchral remains have been found in them. It is true that De la Marmora found a skeleton buried in one at Iselle,^[17] and apparently so placed that the internment must have taken place before the tower was built, or at all events finished; but the presence of only one corpse in two thousand nurhags tells strongly against the theory, as where one was placed more would have been found had this form of interment been usual, and amidst the hundreds of ruined and half-ruined nurhags some evidence must have been found had any of the usual sepulchral usages prevailed. To my mind the conclusion seems inevitable that, if they were tombs, they were those of a people who, like the Parsees of the present day, exposed their dead to be devoured by the birds of the air. If there is one feature in the nurhags more consistent or more essential than another, it is that of the stairs or ramps that give access to their platforms. It shows, without doubt, that, whether for defence, or worship, or burial, the platform was the feature for which the edifice was erected, and there it must have been that its purposes were fulfilled. But is it possible that such a practice ever prevailed in Sardinia? It is, of course, precipitate to answer that it did. But the custom is old. Anything so exceptional among modern usages is not the invention of yesterday, and it may have been far more prevalent than it now is, and it may in very ancient times have been brought by some Eastern colonists to this Western isle. I dare hardly suggest that it was so; but this is certain, that such towers would answer in every respect perfectly to the "Towers of Silence" of the modern Persians, and the little side chambers in the towers would suit perfectly as receptacles of the denuded bones when the time arrived for collecting them.

One argument against their being sepulchres has been drawn from the fact that frequently a different class of graves, called giants' tombs, is found in their immediate proximity. The conclusion I would draw from this is in a contrary sense. These giants' tombs are generally long graves of neatly fitted stones, with a tall frontispiece, which is formed of one stone, always carefully hewn and sometimes carved. On each side of the entrance two arms extend so as to form a semicircle in front, and when the circle is completed by detached menhirs, these are generally shaped into cones and carved. The whole, in fact, has a more advanced and more modern appearance than the nurhags, and, as I read the riddle, the inhabitants adopted this form, and that found in the nurhag at Iselle, after they had ceased to use the nurhag itself as a means of disposing of their dead, but were still clinging to the spots made sacred by the ashes of their forefathers.

That the nurhags are old scarcely seems to admit of a doubt, though I know of only one material point of evidence on the subject. It is that the pier of a Roman aqueduct has been founded on the stump of a ruined and consequently desecrated nurhag.^[18] Some time must have elapsed before the primitive and sacred use of the nurhag had been so completely forgotten that it should be so used. But the passages above quoted from the 'Mirabilibus' and Diodorus show that in the first and fifth centuries B.C. nothing was known of their origin by these authors, and no other has ventured to hint at their age. In classical times they seem to have been as mysterious as they are now:—

"In the glimmer of the dawn
They stand the solemn silent witnesses
Of ancient days,—altars—or graves."

 

Balearic Islands.

The third group of monuments indicated above are the Talyots of Minorca and Majorca. Unfortunately our guide, De la Marmora, deserts us here. He went to explore them, but ill health and other adverse circumstances prevented his carrying his intent fully into effect, and we are left consequently very much to the work of Don Juan Ramis,^[19] which is the reverse of satisfactory.

Externally they generally resemble the nurhags in appearance, and apparently have always chambers in their interior, but De la Marmora was unable to determine whether any of them had the internal staircase^[20] leading to the summit which is the invariable and essential characteristic of the nurhag.

If they had not this, they must be considered as more nearly approaching to our chambered cairns than to nurhags; and till this point is settled, and we know more about them, we must refrain from speculations on the subject.

One characteristic feature they have, however,

which it is useful to note. It is a bilithon, if such a term is admissible—an upright flat stone, with one across it forming a sort of table. In appearance it very much resembles those stone tables which are found inside the chambers of the Maltese sepulchres, but these are always larger, and placed, so far as is known, externally. What their use may have been, it is difficult to conjecture, but they were evidently considered important here, as in woodcut No. 190 one is shown surrounded by a sacred enclosure, as if being itself the "Numen" to be honoured. At Malta, as before remarked, they certainly were not altars, because pedestals, which were unmistakably altars, are found in the same apartments, and they are very unlike them. They seem more like the great saucers in the Irish tombs, and may have served the same purposes; but altogether these Balearic outside tables are unlike anything we know of elsewhere.

Rude-stone circles seem to be not uncommon in combination with the talyots and tall altars, and on the whole they seem to bear as much affinity to the monuments of Spain as to those of Sardinia, but again till we know more it is idle to speculate on either their age or uses beyond the conclusion drawn from all similar monuments — that their destination was to honour departed greatness.

 

It would be not only interesting but instructive to pursue the subject further, for the monuments of these islands deserve a more complete investigation than they have yet received; but this is not the place to pursue it. Indeed, it is only indirectly that they have any connection with the subject of this work. They are not megalithic in the sense in which the word is generally used. Nor are they rude, for all the stones are more or less shaped by art, and all are used constructively. In none of them is the stone itself the object and end of the erection. In all it is only a means to an end.

It is their locality and their age that import them into our argument if there is anything in the connection between the monuments of France and Algeria, as attempted to be shown above. Whether the African ones came from Europe, or vice versâ, it must have been in consequence of long-continued intercourse between the two countries, and of an influence of the dolmen builders in the Western Mediterranean which could hardly have failed to leave traces in the intermediate islands, unless they had been previously civilized and had fixed and long-established modes of dealing with their own dead.

Assuming that the nurhags and giants' towers extend back to the mythic times of Grecian history, say the war of Troy—and some of them can hardly be more modern—it will hardly be contended now that the dolmens are earlier. If they were so, it must be by centuries or by thousands of years, if we are to assume that the one had any influence on the other, for it must have taken long before a truly rude-stone monument could have grown into a constructive style like that of Sardinia or Malta; and I do not think, after what has been said above, any one would now contend for so remote an antiquity. If neither anterior nor coeval, the conclusion, if we admit any influence at all, seems inevitable that the dolmens must be subsequent. But this is just the point at issue. The nurhags did not grow out of dolmens, nor dolmens out of nurhags. They are separate and distinct creations, so far as we know, belonging to different races, and practically uninfluenced by one another. Here, as elsewhere, each group must be judged by itself, and stand on its own merits. If any direct influence can be shown to exist between any two groups, there is generally very little difficulty in arranging them in a sequence and seeing which is the oldest, but till such connection is established, all such attempts are futile.

In so far as any argument can now be got out of these insular monuments, it seems to take this form. If the dolmen people were earlier than the nurhag-builders, they certainly would have occupied the islands that lay in their path between France or Spain and Africa, and we should find traces of them there. If, on the contrary, the nurhag-builders were the earlier race, and colonised these islands so completely as to fill them before the age of the dolmen-builders, the latter, in passing from north to south, or vice versâ, could only have touched at the islands as emigrants or traders, and not as colonists, and consequently could have neither altered nor influenced to any great extent the more practically civilized people who had already occupied them.

So far as we can see, this is the view that most nearly meets the facts of the case at present known, and in this respect their negative evidence is both interesting and instructive, though, except when viewed in this light, the monuments of the Mediterranean islands have no real place in a work treating on rude-stone monuments.

1. 'Voyage pittoresque en Sicile et Malte,' 4 vols, folio, Paris, 1787.
2. Ibid. pl. ccxli.
3. The three formed part of a set of nine, a duplicate of which has kindly been lent to me by Mr. Frere, of Roydon Hall, Norfolk. Unfortunately there is no artist's name, and no date, upon them.
4. 'Nouvelles Annales de l'Institut archéologique,' i.; Paris, 1836.
5. With a paper by Mr. Vance, 'Archæologia,' vol. xxix. p. 227.
6. For this plan and the photographs of it I am indebted to the kindness of Col. Collinson, R.E., who accompanied them by a very full description and notes on their history and uses, from which much of the following information is derived.
7. Berbrugger, 'Tombeau de la Chrétienne—Mausolée des derniers Rois de Mauritanie;' Alger, 1867.
8. 'Proceedings Soc. Ant. Scot.,' vi., Supplement.
9. Hist., v. 12, 3.
10. One at Mnaidra will be seen at F, in woodcut No. 180, and also in the view, woodcut No. 182.
11. 'Voyage en Sardaigne,' par le Cte. Albert de la Marmora; Paris, 1840. As this is not only the best but really the only reliable work on the subject, all, or nearly all, the information in this chapter is based upon it.
12. Bekker, iii. p. 604, para. 100.
13. Diodorus, iv. 30; v. 15.
14. 'Voyage en Sardaigne.' chap, iv. pp. 117 to 159.
15. The Scotch brochs, which are in their construction the erections most like these, have all courtyards in their centre, in which all the domestic operations of the garrison could be carried on conveniently, and they only needed to creep into the chambers in the wall to sleep.
16. 'Voyage en Sardaigne,' pp. 46 and 116.
17. 'Voyage,' p. 152.
18. De la Marmora, pl. v. p. 149.
19. 'Antigüedades Celticas de la Isla de Menorca, &c.;' Mahon, 1818.
20. 'Voyage,' pp 547 et seqq.