This article describes several characteristic architectural elements typical of European
megalith
A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. There are over 35,000 in Europe alone, located widely from Sweden to the Mediterranean sea.
The ...
ic (
Stone Age
The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 4,000 BC and 2,000 BC, with t ...
) structures.
Forecourt
In
archaeology
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
, a forecourt is the name given to the area in front of certain types of
chamber tomb
A chamber tomb is a tomb for burial used in many different cultures. In the case of individual burials, the chamber is thought to signify a higher status for the interred than a simple grave. Built from rock or sometimes wood, the chambers could ...
. Forecourts were probably the venue for
ritual
A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized, b ...
practices connected with the burial and commemoration of the dead in the past societies that built these types of
tomb
A tomb ( grc-gre, τύμβος ''tumbos'') is a :wikt:repository, repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes. Placing a corpse into a tomb can be ...
s.
In European
megalithic
A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. There are over 35,000 in Europe alone, located widely from Sweden to the Mediterranean sea.
The ...
architecture, forecourts are curved in plan with the entrance to the tomb at the apex of the open semicircle enclosure that the forecourt creates. The sides were built up by either large upright stones or walls of smaller stones laid atop one another.
Some also had paved floors and some had blocking stones erected in front of them to seal the tomb such as at
West Kennet Long Barrow
The West Kennet Long Barrow, also known as South Long Barrow, is a chambered long barrow near the village of Avebury in the south-western English county of Wiltshire. Probably constructed in the thirty-seventh century BC, during Britain's Earl ...
. Their shape, which suggests an attempt to focus attention on the tomb itself may mean that they were used ceremonially as a kind of open air auditorium during ceremonies. Excavation within some forecourts has recovered animal
bone
A bone is a Stiffness, rigid Organ (biology), organ that constitutes part of the skeleton in most vertebrate animals. Bones protect the various other organs of the body, produce red blood cell, red and white blood cells, store minerals, provid ...
,
pottery
Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and por ...
and evidence of burning suggesting that they served as locations for
votive
A votive offering or votive deposit is one or more objects displayed or deposited, without the intention of recovery or use, in a sacred place for religious purposes. Such items are a feature of modern and ancient societies and are generally ...
offerings or feasting dedicated to the
dead
Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain, including brainstem, and brain ...
.
Kerb or peristalith
:''See
curb (road)
A curb (North American English), or kerb (Commonwealth English except Canada; see spelling differences), is the edge where a raised sidewalk or road median/central reservation meets a street or other roadway.
History
Although curbs have ...
for the
road
A road is a linear way for the conveyance of traffic that mostly has an improved surface for use by vehicles (motorized and non-motorized) and pedestrians. Unlike streets, the main function of roads is transportation.
There are many types of ...
side edge.''
In
archaeology
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
, kerb or peristalith is the name for a stone ring built to enclose and sometimes
revet the
cairn
A cairn is a man-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the gd, càrn (plural ).
Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehis ...
or
barrow built over a chamber tomb.
European
dolmen
A dolmen () or portal tomb is a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb, usually consisting of two or more upright megaliths supporting a large flat horizontal capstone or "table". Most date from the early Neolithic (40003000 BCE) and were somet ...
s, especially
hunebed
A dolmen () or portal tomb is a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb, usually consisting of two or more upright megaliths supporting a large flat horizontal capstone or "table". Most date from the early Neolithic (40003000 BCE) and were somet ...
and
dyss burials, often provide examples of the use of kerbs in
megalith
A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. There are over 35,000 in Europe alone, located widely from Sweden to the Mediterranean sea.
The ...
ic architecture but they were also added to other kinds of chamber tomb. Kerbs may be built in a
dry stone wall
Dry stone, sometimes called drystack or, in Scotland, drystane, is a building method by which structures are constructed from stones without any mortar to bind them together. Dry stone structures are stable because of their construction me ...
method employing small blocks or more commonly using larger stones set in the ground. When larger stones are employed, peristalith is the term more properly used. Often, when the earth barrow has been weathered away, the surviving kerb can give the impression of being a
stone circle
A stone circle is a ring of standing stones. Most are found in Northwestern Europe – especially in Britain, Ireland, and Brittany – and typically date from the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, with most being built from 3000 BC. The be ...
although these monuments date from considerably later.
Excavation of barrows without stone rings such as Fussell's Lodge in
Wiltshire
Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...
suggests that, in these examples, timber or turf was used to define a kerb instead.
In the
British Isles
The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles, ...
, the enclosing nature of kerbs has been suggested to be analogous to later
Neolithic
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...
and
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
stone and
timber circle
In archaeology, timber circles are rings of upright wooden posts, built mainly by ancient peoples in the British Isles and North America. They survive only as gapped rings of post-holes, with no evidence they formed walls, making them distinct fro ...
s and
henge
There are three related types of Neolithic earthwork that are all sometimes loosely called henges. The essential characteristic of all three is that they feature a ring-shaped bank and ditch, with the ditch inside the bank. Because the internal ...
s which also demonstrate an attempt to demarcate a distinct,
round
Round or rounds may refer to:
Mathematics and science
* The contour of a closed curve or surface with no sharp corners, such as an ellipse, circle, rounded rectangle, cant, or sphere
* Rounding, the shortening of a number to reduce the number ...
area for
ritual
A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized, b ...
or
funerary
A funeral is a ceremony connected with the Disposal of human corpses, final disposition of a corpse, such as a burial or cremation, with the attendant observances. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture ...
purposes. Famous sites with kerbs include
Newgrange
Newgrange ( ga, Sí an Bhrú) is a prehistoric monument in County Meath in Ireland, located on a rise overlooking the River Boyne, west of Drogheda. It is an exceptionally grand passage tomb built during the Neolithic Period, around 3200 BC, ...
where many of the stones are etched with
megalithic art
Megalithic art refers to art either painted or carved onto megaliths in prehistoric Europe.
Elizabeth Shee Twohig has coined the term Megalithic art in her study of The Megalithic Art of Western Europe. Her original definition of Megalithic a ...
. An example of the dry stone wall type of kerb can be seen at
Parc le Breos
''Parc le Breos'' was a great medieval deer park in the south of the Gower Peninsula, about west of Swansea, Wales, and about north of the Bristol Channel. The park was an enclosed, oval area of in circumference, covering about and meas ...
in
Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
.
Orthostat
An orthostat is a large stone with a more or less slab-like shape that has been artificially set upright (so a cube-shaped block is not an orthostat).
Menhir
A menhir (from Brittonic languages: ''maen'' or ''men'', "stone" and ''hir'' or ''hîr'', "long"), standing stone, orthostat, or lith is a large human-made upright stone, typically dating from the European middle Bronze Age. They can be foun ...
s and other
standing stone
A menhir (from Brittonic languages: ''maen'' or ''men'', "stone" and ''hir'' or ''hîr'', "long"), standing stone, orthostat, or lith is a large human-made upright rock (geology), stone, typically dating from the European middle Bronze Age. T ...
s are technically orthostats although the term is used by
archaeologist
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
s only to describe individual prehistoric stones that constitute part of larger structures. Common examples include the walls of
chamber tomb
A chamber tomb is a tomb for burial used in many different cultures. In the case of individual burials, the chamber is thought to signify a higher status for the interred than a simple grave. Built from rock or sometimes wood, the chambers could ...
s and other
megalith
A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. There are over 35,000 in Europe alone, located widely from Sweden to the Mediterranean sea.
The ...
ic monuments, and the vertical elements of the trilithons at
Stonehenge
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around high, wide, and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connectin ...
. Especially later, orthostats may be carved with decoration in
relief
Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...
, a common feature of
Hittite architecture and
Assyrian sculpture
Assyrian sculpture is the sculpture of the ancient Assyrian states, especially the Neo-Assyrian Empire of 911 to 612 BC, which was centered around the city of Assur in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) which at its height, ruled over all of Mesopotam ...
among other styles. In the latter case, orthostats are large thin slabs of
gypsum
Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, blackboard or sidewalk chalk, and drywall. ...
neatly and carefully formed, for use as a wall-facing secured by metal fixings and carrying reliefs, which were then painted.
Many orthostats were a focus for
megalithic art
Megalithic art refers to art either painted or carved onto megaliths in prehistoric Europe.
Elizabeth Shee Twohig has coined the term Megalithic art in her study of The Megalithic Art of Western Europe. Her original definition of Megalithic a ...
, as at
Knowth
Knowth (; ga, Cnóbha) is a Neolithic passage grave and an ancient monument of the World Heritage Site of Brú na Bóinne located 8.4 km west of Drogheda in Ireland's valley of the River Boyne. It is the largest passage grave of the Brú ...
in Ireland.
Port-hole slab
In
megalith
A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. There are over 35,000 in Europe alone, located widely from Sweden to the Mediterranean sea.
The ...
ic
archaeology
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
a port-hole slab is the name of an orthostat with a hole in it sometimes found forming the entrance to a chamber tomb. The hole is usually circular but square examples or those made from two adjoining slabs each with a notch cut in it are known. They are common in the
gallery grave
A gallery grave is a form of megalithic tomb built primarily during the Neolithic Age in Europe in which the main gallery of the tomb is entered without first passing through an antechamber or hallway. There are at least four major types of galler ...
s of the
Seine-Oise-Marne culture.
Portal stones
Portal stones are a pair of Megalithic orthostats, usually flanking the entrance to a
chamber tomb
A chamber tomb is a tomb for burial used in many different cultures. In the case of individual burials, the chamber is thought to signify a higher status for the interred than a simple grave. Built from rock or sometimes wood, the chambers could ...
or opposite the axial stone of an
axial stone circle
An axial stone circle is a megalithic ring of stones of a particular design found in County Cork and County Kerry in southwest Ireland. Archaeologists have found it convenient to consider the axial five-stone circle and axial multiple-stone circ ...
. They are commonly found in
dolmens
A dolmen () or portal tomb is a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb, usually consisting of two or more upright megaliths supporting a large flat horizontal capstone or "table". Most date from the early Neolithic (40003000 BCE) and were somet ...
. Examples may be seen at
Bohonagh
Bohonagh is an axial stone circle located 2.4 km east of Rosscarbery, County Cork, Ireland. The circle is thought to date from the Bronze Age. A boulder burial is sited nearby (grid ref: 308 368).
Features
The stone circle comprised 13 sto ...
and
Knocknakilla
Knocknakilla is the site of a megalithic complex () situated between Macroom and Millstreet, in County Cork, Ireland. It is set in blanket peatland on the north-west upper slopes of Musherabeg mountain and is thought to be 3500 years old.
Envi ...
.
Trilithon
A trilithon (or trilith) is a structure consisting of two large vertical stones supporting a third stone set horizontally across the top. Commonly used in the context of
megalithic
A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. There are over 35,000 in Europe alone, located widely from Sweden to the Mediterranean sea.
The ...
monuments, the most famous trilithons are those at
Stonehenge
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around high, wide, and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connectin ...
and those found in the
Megalithic Temples of Malta
The Megalithic Temples of Malta ( mt, It-Tempji Megalitiċi ta' Malta) are several prehistoric temples, some of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites, built during three distinct periods approximately between 3600 BC and 2500 BC on the island coun ...
.
The word ''trilithon'' is derived from the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
'having three stones' (Tri - ''three'', lithos - ''stone'') and was first used by
William Stukeley
William Stukeley (7 November 1687 – 3 March 1765) was an English antiquarian, physician and Anglican clergyman. A significant influence on the later development of archaeology, he pioneered the scholarly investigation of the prehistoric ...
. The term also describes the groups of three stones in the Hunebed tombs of the
Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
and the three massive stones forming part of the wall of the
Temple of Jupiter at
Baalbek
Baalbek (; ar, بَعْلَبَكّ, Baʿlabakk, Syriac-Aramaic: ܒܥܠܒܟ) is a city located east of the Litani River in Lebanon's Beqaa Valley, about northeast of Beirut. It is the capital of Baalbek-Hermel Governorate. In Greek and Roman ...
, Lebanon.
See also
*
List of megalithic sites
*
List of ancient monoliths
This is a list of ancient monoliths found in all types of Greek and Roman buildings.
It contains monoliths
*quarried, but not moved
*quarried and moved
*quarried, moved and lifted clear off the ground into their position (architraves etc.)
* ...
References
Further reading
*James Phillips, the ''Megalithic Architecture in Europe'' series
*Salvatore Piccolo (2013), ''Ancient Stones: the Prehistoric Dolmens in Sicily'', Thornham/Norfolk (UK), Brazen Head Publishing
External links
BBC Highlands and Northern Isles - In Your Backyard*
ttp://www.britarch.ac.uk The Council for British Archaeologybr>
The Megalith MapThe Megalithic Portal
{{DEFAULTSORT:Megalithic Architectural Elements
Architectural elements
*
Stonehenge