What period do megalithic structures belong to? The most mysterious megaliths of the world

The so-called megalithic structures (Greek for “large stones”) began to appear as early as the late Neolithic period, and became quite common in the Bronze Age. Megaliths include dolmens, menhirs, cromlechs, alignemans, covered passages, etc. All these structures are built from very large stone slabs or blocks. Their geography is very extensive - they are found in the Caucasus, in the Crimea, in the north and west of Europe (England, France, the Netherlands, Denmark), in the Balkans, in India, Iran, North Africa, Korea and many other corners.
Megaliths served as cult places for ancestors: dolmens and menhirs for venerating ancestors, cromlechs for worshiping the sun and fire, etc. For the hardest work of moving and installing giant stones, primitive communal people required the combined efforts of significant groups. Most of all, dolmens have survived to this day.

1. Stonehenge (UK)

130 km southwest of London is a unique megalith - Stonehenge, listed in 1986 by UNESCO. world heritage, and domestically under the care of English Heritage.
According to scientists, this structure is about 5000 years old. Its appearance is widely known - a circle of stones, around which there are 56 burial holes. In the center of the megalith is a stone altar weighing about 6 tons. In total, Stonehenge counted 82 stone blocks weighing 5 tons each, 30 - 25 tons each, and 5 arches of three stones (triliths) - 50 tons each. The arches are precisely oriented to the cardinal points. To create Stonehenge, stones from different places were used, some of which were located 210 km from the megalith.

2. Puma Punku and Kalasasaya (Tiwanaku)

Near the Bolivian village of Tiwanaku, located 20 km from Lake Titicaca at an altitude of 4000 m above sea level, there are the famous megaliths Puma Punku and Calasasaya. In the distant past, they were cyclopean structures, outer walls big temple The suns of Kalasasaya had a length of 130x1500 m. Next to it was the Akapana pyramid with dimensions of 200x220 m. Made of giant stone blocks of andesite, sandstone or diorite, weighing up to 120 tons, the walls in some places were more than 3 meters thick.
The ruins of Puma Punku, lying just 300 meters from Tiwanaku, are striking in their grandiose scope - huge slabs weighing up to 500 tons are scattered over several hectares. They are hewn from diorite and andesite, mined in the mountains 17 km away.
In addition to their enormous size and weight, Kalasasaya and Puma Punku stones surprise with filigree processing using a technology unknown to us. There are suggestions that the ancient builders worked with these rocks, as with plasticine, perhaps even melted and poured into molds.
In the local ancient quarries, there are no signs of crushing or drilling, only even niches remain, as if someone had cut the blocks with a giant knife from the “plasticine” rock. The blocks often have very complex shapes, with a variety of cutouts with ideal geometry. They are so tightly fitted that even a thin blade cannot be inserted between them.

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3. Sacsayhuaman

IN South America there are other megalithic structures - the remains of cyclopean walls, the lower tier of the most ancient terraces and buildings in Machu Picchu, Sacsayhuaman, Ollantaytambo, Cusco, Tambomachay (Peru) are composed of them. The age of some of them is determined at 14,000-17,000 years. Similar ruins are found in dozens of regions of Peru, Bolivia, Mexico and Colombia near the villages of Vinay Wayna, Taraco, Llaktapat, Copacapana, Lokvepayya and others. But those are much less studied.
Particularly interesting are the ruins of 3 walls about 600 m long in the "fortress" of Sacsayhuaman. The height of two walls is 10 m, and the third - 5 m. The first (lower) wall is made of diorite and andesite blocks weighing 100-200 tons, the largest dimensions are 4x5x9 m. The second and third walls are built from several smaller blocks. At the same time, all blocks fit perfectly to each other, the gaps between them are simply not visible. Polyhedral blocks have a rather complex shape. They were mined in a quarry located 20 kilometers from Sacsayhuaman, and at this distance there is a very uneven terrain (steep descents, ascents, gorges).

4. Ahu and moai - megaliths of Easter Island

Lost in the Pacific Ocean, Easter Island is home to 887 famous moai sculptures. The largest idols are located on the slope of the Rano Raraku volcano. They have already gone up to their necks into the earth for many millennia. Some originally stood on ahu - stone pedestals, of which there are about 300 on the island. The dimensions of the pedestals range from tens of meters to 200 m. The height of the largest moai "El Giante" (that is, "giant") is 21.6 m, and the weight 150 to 270 tons. It is located in the Rano Raraku quarry. The largest moai that stood on a pedestal - "Paro" weighs 80 tons and is 10 m high. Other moai scattered along the slope of the volcano also have a height of about 10 m.

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5. Baalbek (Lebanon)

The Middle East also boasts of its megaliths, for example, in Lebanon are the ruins of Baalbek. There are three stone blocks, each of which weighs 750 tons, and the Romans at one time used them as the basis for the temple of Jupiter. The dimensions of the blocks are amazing - 4.3x5.6x19.1 m, while their surfaces are perfectly processed. These giant blocks are up to 8 meters high, resting on slightly smaller blocks.
500 m south of the Temple of Jupiter, the South Stone sticks out of the ground, weighing approximately 1050 tons and is considered the largest processed stone in Baalbek (4.2x4.8x21.5 m). Modern engineers estimate that only a mighty crawler crane could lift such a colossus and transport it along a good road. What technique did the builders of Baalbek use?

6. Temple Mount in Jerusalem

When archaeological work was carried out under the Temple Mount in Jerusalem at the end of the last century, the remains of megalithic structures were found during them. Of these, the southern part of the fragment of the foundation of the western supporting wall of the temple of Solomon built before our era is composed. The rows of masonry of this wall were hidden by the earth for several millennia, and since 1996 they have become visible in the tunnel of the Western Wall, about 500 meters long, which stretches from Via Dolorosa to Wilson's arch. At the level of the ancient street, 4 huge stone blocks were exposed here, the lengths of three of which are 8.5, 13.5 and 14 meters, and the weight is 355, 570 and 600 tons. Just like in Baalbek, these huge blocks are laid on smaller stones. All of them were moved here from a quarry located west of Jerusalem.

7. Megaliths of Ethiopia

The basalt stelae that either lie on the ground or stand in the city of Aksum in Ethiopia, not far from the shores of the Red Sea, are also a mystery. The largest obelisk has a rectangular shape, 33.5 meters high, and it weighs about 500 tons. Other stones are noticeably smaller - from 20 to 24 meters. Their surfaces are carefully processed and dotted with ornaments. The stones are in disarray, and many are broken. The locals have a legend about the cyclops who built them, who could melt stones. Allegedly, they poured the molten mass into molds, and after the blanks cooled, they cut them and polished them.
Excavations in Aksum showed that before the stelae stood on pedestals, one of which was a three-tiered platform made of large basalt slabs and found itself under the Bete Georgis hill. The stone for the blocks was mined in quarries located a few kilometers from this place.

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8. Underwater megaliths of Yonaguni

Pyramids and megalithic structures of unknown antiquity exist in a variety of places:

at the bottom of the Bahama bank near the islands of Andros and Bimini;
on Ponape Island and 92 artificial islands Nan Madol, as well as in shallow water near them - in the Pacific archipelago of the Caroline Islands;
at the bottom of Rock Lake in Wisconsin (USA);
at the bottom of the sea near the Japanese island of Yonaguni, etc.

The latter deserve special attention, because multi-meter blocks with regular outlines were found there, resting at a depth of 6 meters near the coast of Yonaguni Island from the Okinawa archipelago. In 1985, they were discovered by Japanese scuba diver K. Aratake. He told M. Kimura, a marine seismologist from the University of Okinawa, about his find. The scientist conducted a detailed study of them for 10 years, after which he concluded that this was nothing more than a sunken prehistoric city. In 1997, underwater video filming by the film crew of G. Hancock was carried out here, and at the same time professor of geology R. Schoch from the University of Boston was working. They were able to confirm that stone blocks off the coast of Yonaguni Island are of artificial origin.

9. Zorats Karer

In Armenian, Zorats-Karer means "stone army", but this one, located at an altitude of 1770 m on a mountain plateau in the Sinyuk region of Armenia, 3 km from the city of Sisian ancient megalith there is another name "Karahunj" - "singing stones". This complex contains many huge upright stones, some of which have round holes at the top. This building with an unspecified age (from 4000 to 7700 years) was declared a historical and cultural reserve in 2009.
The place is a field strewn with stones. In the structure, 223 andesitic (basalt) slabs weighing up to 8.5 m and 1.5-2.8 m long were numbered. Some stones form a not very even row stretching from the southeast to the northwest. In the central part of the row there is an oval of stones, and on its opposite sides corridors-passages are visible. Near the mound there is a stone box - a tomb.
Most of all, the through holes made in the upper part of 80 stones with a diameter of 40-50 mm represent the riddle. They are made quite roughly, some of them are curved at an angle - the result of conical drilling from opposite sides. The stone inside the holes is better preserved than on the surface of the monolith. Now there are 37 stones with 47 holes left standing.

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10. American Stonehenge

This is the name of the archaeological site, consisting of several stone structures and large boulders scattered over 120 square meters. m in the city of Salem (New Hampshire, USA). There are different versions of its origin: it could be built by settlers from Europe in pre-Columbian times, by local farmers in the 18th-19th centuries, or by the owner of the site, W. Goodwin, in the 30s of the last century. The carried out radiocarbon analysis of local deposits showed dates from 2000 to 173 BC. e., which corresponds to one of the archaic Indian cultures or the early Woodland period.
In 1982, the director of a local restaurant, D. Stuart-Smith, began excavating a megalith found in a quarry north of the monument. A team of researchers and archaeologists found a quarry and hundreds of stone fragments, which were mistaken for waste from the production of primitive stone tools.

The origins of architecture date back to the Late Neolithic. It was then that stone was already used for the construction monumental buildings. But the purpose of most of the monuments of that period that have come down to us is not known.

Megaliths(from Greek - big stone) - structures made of huge boulders, characteristic of the late Neolithic. All megaliths can be divided into two categories. The first includes the oldest architectural structures prehistoric (pre-literate) societies: menhirs, cromlechs, dolmens, temples of the island of Malta). For them, either not processed at all, or with minimal processing, stones were used. The cultures that left these monuments are called megalithic. The megalithic culture also includes labyrinths (structures made of small stones), and individual stones with petroglyphs (trackers). Also, buildings of more advanced societies (the tombs of Japanese emperors and the dolmens of the Korean nobility) are considered megalithic architecture.

The second category are structures of more developed architecture. These are mainly structures made of very large stones, which are given a geometrically regular shape. Such megalithic architecture is characteristic of early states, but was also built in later times. These are the monuments of the Mediterranean - the Egyptian pyramids, the buildings of the Mycenaean civilization, the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. In South America - some structures in Tiwanaku, Ollantaytambo, Sacsayhuaman. Tiwanaku, Sacsayhuamane, Ollantaytambo.

Menhir– it is usually a free-standing stone with traces of processing, sometimes oriented in some way or marking a certain direction.

Cromlech - it's a circle standing stones, of varying degrees of preservation and with different orientations. The term "henge" has the same meaning. This term is usually used in relation to structures of this type in the UK. However, similar structures existed in the prehistoric era also in Germany (Goloring, Gosek circle) and in other countries.

Dolmen is something like a stone house.

All of them are united by the name " megaliths”, which translates simply as “big stones”. For the most part, according to some scientists, they served for burials or were associated with a funeral cult. There are other opinions as well. Apparently, megaliths are communal structures with a socializing function. Their construction was a most difficult task for primitive technology and required the unification of large masses of people.

Göbekli Tepe, Turkey Complex on the Armenian Highlands considered the oldest of the largest megalithic structures (approximately X-IX millennium BC). At that time, people were still engaged in hunting and gathering, but someone was able to erect circles from huge steles with images of animals. The shape of the temple resembles concentric circles, of which there are about twenty. According to experts, the complex was deliberately covered with sand in the seventh millennium BC, so for more than nine thousand years the temple was hidden by the Göbekli Tepe hill, which was almost fifteen meters high and about three hundred meters in diameter.

Some megalithic structures were important ceremonial centers associated with the cult of the dead. For example, complex of more than 3,000 stones in Carnac (Brittany), France. Megaliths up to four meters high are arranged in slender alleys, the rows run parallel to each other or diverge like a fan, in some places they form circles. The complex dates back to the 5th-4th millennium BC. There were legends in Brittany that the great Merlin made the ranks of Roman legionnaires petrify.

Megaliths in Carnac (Brittany) France

Other megalithic complexes have been used to determine the timing of astronomical events such as the solstice and equinox. In the Nabta Playa area in the Nubian desert b A megalithic structure was found that served for astronomical purposes. This archaeoastronomical monument is 1000 years older than Stonehenge. The location of the megaliths allows you to determine the day of the summer solstice. Archaeologists believe that people lived here seasonally, when there was water in the lake, so they needed a calendar.

Nabta Observatory, Nubia, Sahara

Stonehenge is a structure of 82 five-ton megaliths, 30 stone blocks, weighing 25 tons each, and 5 huge so-called triliths, stones weighing up to 50 tons. Stacked stone blocks form arches that once served as a flawless indicator of the cardinal directions. Scientists suggest that this monument was built in 3100 BC by those who lived on British Isles tribes to observe the sun and moon. The ancient monolith is not only a solar and lunar calendar, as previously thought, but also an accurate cross-sectional model of the solar system.

Stonehenge, UK, Salisbury.

A mathematical comparison of the parameters of various geometric figures of the cromlech made it possible to establish that they all represent the reflection of the parameters of the various planets of our system, and model the orbits of their rotation around the Sun. But the most amazing thing is that Stonehenge depicts the orbits of 12 planets of the solar system, although today it is believed that there are only 9 of them. Astronomers have long hypothesized that there are two more planets unknown to us beyond the outer orbit of Pluto, and the asteroid belt, which is located between the orbits Mars and Jupiter, these are the remains of the once-existing twelfth planet of the solar system. How could the ancient builders know about this?

There is another interesting version about the appointment of Stonehenge. The excavation of the path, along which ritual processions went in ancient times, confirms the hypothesis that Stonehenge was built along the relief of the ice age, which ended up on the axis of the solstice. The place was special: an amazing natural landscape was located on the very axis of the solstice, as if connecting earth and sky.

Cromlech Brougar or Temple of the Sun , Orkney Islands. Initially it had 60 elements, but now it consists of 27 rocks. Brougar's cromlech or Brodgar's ring has been dated by archaeologists to 2500 - 2000 BC. The area where the Brodgar monument is located is ritual, sacred, communicative. It is literally stuffed with mounds, group and individual burials, even a "cathedral", as well as dwellings and villages of Neolithic people. All these monuments are combined into a single complex protected by UNESCO. Archaeological research is currently underway in the Orkney Islands.

Cromlech Brougar or Temple of the Sun, Orkney

Dolmens. Scientists believe that the approximate age dolmens 3–10 thousand years old. Most famous dolmens are located in Scandinavia, on the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts of Europe and Africa, on Black Sea coast Caucasus, Kuban, India. However, most of them are in the Caucasus - about 2.5 thousand! Here along the coast of the Black Sea (megaliths generally gravitate towards the seas) you can find "classic" tiled dolmens, monolithic dolmens, completely hollowed out in the rock, dolmen structures from a combination of stone slabs and blocks laid in two or more rows. They also talk about the spiritual filling of these amazing structures, their energy charges.

Dolmen in the Zhane river valley

maltese temples were built long before the Egyptian pyramids - in the Bronze Age. Their age is over 5000 years. It is curious that all these structures were built without the use of iron tools. The scale of all megaliths is so grandiose that locals believed that they were built by giant giants. It still remains an open question how the ancient people managed to build such tall buildings from huge stones up to 7 meters in size and weighing up to 20 tons without using a binder solution, if we remember that the temples were built even before the invention of the wheel. Scientists have established that the cultures of prehistoric Malta are largely associated with Sicily, therefore, it is possible that Malta was the cult center of the peoples of the Sicilian Neolithic.

There is not a single temple that has survived in its original form to this day. It is believed that only four of all have survived relatively intact - the temples of Ggantiy, Hajar Kvim, Mnajdra and Tarshin. Although they suffered the sad fate of not entirely reliable reconstruction.

Ggantija Temples in Shara(Xaghra - "giant") are located in the center of the island of Gozo and are one of the most important archaeological sites in the world. Today, the Ggantija temples are believed to have been built around 3600 BC.

The structure consists of two separate temples with different entrances, but a common rear wall. Each of the temples has a somewhat concave facade, in front of which is a platform of large stone blocks. Most ancient temple The complex consists of three semicircular rooms arranged in the shape of a trefoil.

Modern scholars believe that such a trinity symbolizes the past, present and future or birth, life and death. According to the popular version temple complex was a sanctuary for the worship of the goddess of fertility. Such a conclusion is helped to make findings discovered during archaeological work. But there is another version, according to which Ggantija is nothing but a tomb. The people of the megalithic era really gave too much effort and time to the observance of traditions. Honoring their ancestors, they erected grandiose tombs, and later, these places were used as sanctuaries where they worshiped the gods.

On the surface of the globe, with the exception of Australia, there are many mysterious and ancient buildings. Modern studies have shown that they were erected in the Neolithic, Eneolithic and Previously it was believed that they all represent one common culture, but today more and more scientists are questioning this theory.

So, by whom and why were such megalithic structures created? Why do they have this or that form and what do they mean? Where can you see these monuments of ancient culture?

Before considering and studying megalithic structures, you need to understand what elements they can consist of. Today it is considered to be the smallest unit of constructions of this type of megalith. This term was officially introduced into scientific terminology in 1867, at the suggestion of the English specialist A. Herbert. The word "megalith" is Greek, translated into Russian means "big stone".

An exact and exhaustive definition of what megaliths are does not yet exist. Today, this concept refers to ancient structures made of stone blocks, slabs or simple blocks of various sizes without the use of any cementing or binding compounds and solutions. The simplest type of megalithic structures, consisting of only one block, are menhirs.

The main features of megalithic structures

In different eras, various peoples erected huge structures from large stones, blocks and slabs. The temple in Baalbek and the Egyptian pyramids are also megaliths, it's just not customary to call them that. Thus, megalithic structures are various structures created by different ancient civilizations and consisting of large stones or slabs.

However, all structures that are considered megaliths have a number of features that unite them:

1. All of them are made of stones, blocks and slabs of gigantic dimensions, the weight of which can range from several tens of kilograms to hundreds of tons.

2. Ancient megalithic structures were built from rocks that were strong and resistant to destruction: limestone, andesites, basalts, diorites and others.

3. During construction, no cement was used - neither in the mortar for fastening, nor for the manufacture of blocks.

4. In most buildings, the surface of the blocks from which they are composed is carefully processed, and the blocks themselves are tightly fitted to each other. The accuracy is such that a knife blade cannot be inserted between two megalithic blocks of volcanic rocks.

5. Quite often, the preserved fragments of megalithic structures were used by later civilizations as a foundation for their own buildings, which is clearly seen in the buildings on Jerusalem.

When were they created?

Most of the megalithic sites located in the UK, Ireland and other countries Western Europe, date back to the V-IV millennium BC. e. The most ancient megalithic structures located on the territory of our country date back to the 4th-2nd millennia BC.

The whole variety of megalithic structures can be conditionally divided into two large groups:

funeral;
non-funeral
profane;
sacred.

If everything is more or less clear with funerary megaliths, then scientists are building hypotheses about the purpose of profane structures, such as various gigantic calculations of walls and roads, combat and residential towers.

There is no accurate and reliable information about how ancient people used sacred megalithic structures: menhirs, cromlechs and others.

What are they like?

The most common types of megaliths are:

menhirs - single, vertically installed stele stones up to 20 meters high;
cromlech - the union of several menhirs around the largest, forming a semicircle or circle;
dolmens - the most common type of megaliths in Europe, are one or more large stone slabs laid on other blocks or boulders;
covered gallery - one of the varieties of dolmens interconnected;
trilith - stone structure, consisting of two or more vertical and one, laid on top of them horizontally, stones;
taula - a stone structure in the form of the Russian letter "T";
cairn, also known as "gurii" or "tour" - an underground or ground structure, laid out in the form of a cone of many stones;
stone rows are vertically and parallel blocks of stone;
seid - a stone boulder or block, installed by one or another people in a special place, usually on a hill, for various mystical ceremonies.

Only the most famous types of megalithic structures are listed here. Let's take a closer look at some of them.

Translated from Breton into Russian, it means "stone table".

As a rule, it consists of three stones, one of which lies on two vertically installed ones, in the form of the letter "P". During the construction of such structures, ancient people did not adhere to any single scheme, therefore there are many options for dolmens that carry various functions. The most famous megalithic structures of this type are located on the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts Africa and Europe, in India, Scandinavia, the Caucasus.

Trilith

One of the subspecies of the dolmen, consisting of three stones, scientists consider trilith. As a rule, such a term is applied not to separately located megaliths, but to monuments that are components of more complex structures. For example, in such a famous megalithic complex as Stonehenge, the central part consists of five triliths.

Another type of megalithic buildings is the cairn, or tour. This is a cone-shaped mound of stones, although in Ireland this name means a structure of only five stones. They can be located both on the surface of the earth and under it. In scientific circles, cairn most often means megalithic structures located underground: labyrinths, galleries and burial chambers.

The oldest and simplest type of megalithic structures are menhirs. These are single, vertically massive boulders or stones. Menhirs differ from ordinary, natural stone blocks by their surface with traces of processing and by the fact that their vertical size is always larger than the horizontal one. They can either stand alone or be part of complex megalithic complexes.

In the Caucasus, menhirs were shaped like fish and called vishap. On the territory of modern France, in the Crimea and the Black Sea region, quite a lot of anthropomorphic magalites - stone women - have been preserved.

Post-megalithic menhirs are also runic stones and stone crosses created much later.

Cromlech

Several menhirs, set in the form of a semicircle or circle and covered with stone slabs on top, are called cromlechs. The most famous example is Stonehenge.

However, in addition to round ones, there are cromlechs and rectangular ones, as, for example, in Morbihan or Khakassia. On the island of Malta, the cromlech temple complexes are built in the form of "petals". To create such megalithic structures, not only stone was used, but also wood, which was confirmed by the finds obtained during archaeological work in the English county of Norfolk.

"Flying Stones of Lapland"

The most common megalithic structures in Russia, strange as it may sound, are seids - huge boulders mounted on small stands. Sometimes the main block is decorated with one or more small stones, folded into a "pyramid". This type of megaliths is widespread from the shores of Onega and Ladoga lakes up to the coast of the Barents Sea, that is, throughout the whole part of Russia.

On and in Karelia, there are seids ranging in size from several tens of centimeters to six meters and weighing from tens of kilograms to several tons, depending on the rock from which they were made. In addition to the Russian North, quite a few megaliths of this type are found in the taiga regions of Finland, northern and central Norway, and the mountains of Sweden.

Seids can be single, group and massive, including from a dozen to several hundred megaliths.

On all continents of our planet, with the exception of Antarctica, you can find mysterious structures made of processed blocks of stone. They are called megaliths. Most of the buildings consist of huge, weighing from tens to hundreds and even thousands of tons of stone blocks.

Stone blocks are carefully hewn and polished thousands of years ago. But even the past centuries could not affect the quality of their connection - they are fitted to each other so precisely that it is impossible to stick a knife blade into the joints.

Most of the megaliths are located near the shores of seas and rivers, sometimes they are under water, and often occupy high mountains. The material for the manufacture of megaliths is often not found in the nearest district and was probably delivered hundreds of kilometers from the mining site to the construction site.

All tens of thousands of currently known dolmens can be divided into several types, according to the features of their design:

1. Actually classical dolmens.
2. Underground dolmens - tulumus.
3. Ensembles of dolmens - cairns.
4. Single processed stones - menhirs.
5. Constructions of three stones - triliths.
6. Complexes of many triliths - cromlechs.
7. Cyclopean walls, built from the likeness of bricks - huge stone blocks.

Classic dolmens. They are the most common. There are more than 65 thousand of them scientifically described in the world! By their design, they represent four vertically placed stone slabs that form walls, and a thicker slab covering them - a kind of cover.

Often the "lid" is located with a bevel in one direction and an overhang in the opposite direction. Thus, a "visor" is formed. In the slab, under this visor, at a height of about half a meter from the ground, there is a through hole drilled with excellent quality. The diameter of such a hole is about 50-60 centimeters.

It is extremely rare to find dolmens, the openings of which are either completely absent or closed with a kind of mushroom-shaped plug, carved from the same material as the wall slabs. Even more rare are classical dolmens that do not have walls at all; they are replaced by four pillars carved from stone, on which a multi-ton cover rests.

Geographically, classical dolmens are scattered across all latitudes - from northern Scotland to the islands of Oceania.

A rare type of classic dolmens are tulumus. Even in ancient times, builders placed them either in the bowels of caves, or simply covered them with earth for unknown purposes. Otherwise, in their design, tulumuses are no different from ordinary dolmens.

Cairns. They are huge ensembles of many classical dolmens. Placed side by side, such dolmens form giant covered galleries. In terms of size, the cairns are in no way inferior to the pyramids. But not in terms of height - it rarely exceeds 15-20 meters, but in its area - for example, the Barneiz cairn (located in northern France) covers an area of more than two hectares!

Menhirs. This is another type of dolmen, distinguished by its minimalism. Them appearance represents stone columns, up to 25-30 meters high, whose weight sometimes exceeds 500 tons! Such columns are often installed strictly vertically or at a certain, strictly adjusted angle in desert places.

Sometimes dozens or even thousands of menhirs are installed not far from each other. Thus, they form huge fields of vertically standing cyclopean columns.

Triliths. A curious type of dolmen is a development of the menhir - two vertical stone columns were installed nearby, and a third was placed horizontally on top of them. So the giant gate was obtained.

Cromlechs are complex, ring-shaped complexes of triliths spread over vast areas. Such a design is the well-known Stonehenge. This monument ancient architecture built from dozens of stone blocks, whose weight is about 50 tons, and the length is 8-10 meters! The area of Stonehenge exceeds one and a half hectares!

Particularly worth it. For a very long time it was believed that megaliths can only be on the surface of the land. However, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, reputable archaeological expeditions made a series of sensational discoveries - they found a lot of underwater megaliths!

The first such discovery was made by west coast islands of Cuba (at a depth of more than 600 meters), a little later, megaliths were discovered in Indian Ocean- off the coast of Indonesia and in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Japan and a number of islands in Oceania.

Not far from the last of the megaliths, in fact, there are almost a hundred small islands, with an area of more than 90 hectares. Here, under water Pacific Ocean gigantic buildings were found - the temple of Non-Madol, fortress walls and sea dams.

Their height in some places exceeds 20-30 meters and never falls below 10 meters. Since it is well known from the studies of paleoclimatologists, and there is no doubt about the dynamics of the ocean level, this makes it possible to accurately date the minimum age of these grandiose structures: from 10 to 15 millennia ago!

But, despite all of the above, official historical science is still recognized as an indisputable truth: megaliths were built by primitive tribes in the era of the end of the Stone Age - in the Neolithic. This was, according to the assurances of venerable archaeologists, not earlier than the 7th millennium BC.

But as shown above, this statement is erroneous. In addition to the facts of the latest finds, there are a number of controversial issues.

The material for the construction of megaliths was a natural mineral, which was formed hundreds of millions of years ago. Until now, there is no sufficiently reliable method for determining the time when the megalith blocks were cut from the rock mass in a quarry.

For this reason, a radiocarbon analysis of the remains of the vital activity of people found next to the megalith in the cultural layers accompanying it is carried out. Often such objects are the traces of ancient fires that were bred inside dolmens.

In the case of menhirs, the age of the nearest Paleolithic site of primitive people is usually taken as the point of their creation. With all the obvious unreliability and proximity of such dating, even it suggests that the megaliths are orders of magnitude older than all the peoples known to us who lived on these lands.

BEHIND THE MYSTERIES OF MEGALITHES.

As a result, a logical question arises - why did people build these gigantic structures in those ancient times? The first step to answering this question is to find out how the megaliths were built.

The most common explanation in the scientific community for the construction of megaliths comes down to an analogy with the construction of pyramids. In the sense that hundreds of people were involved, from blocks, ropes and levers. It was in this way that giant stone blocks were transported and placed one on top of the other.

But if you think about it, you can find a number of contradictions in this explanation. First of all, the fact that the pyramids are relatively few and they were built for decades in lands rich in resources to provide builders. But megaliths are known tens of thousands of copies. And many of them stand in hard-to-reach places, and in the lands surrounding them there have never been rich sources for the life of primitive tribes.

It can be concluded that megaliths were built quite quickly. This is confirmed by many legends among various peoples about the creators of megaliths. In these legends, white, red-bearded gods or goddesses are reported who came to these lands from afar and built megaliths in a matter of days.

After analyzing all the above facts, we can conclude that the megaliths were built by some ancient sailors. They belonged to an ancient culture unknown to us, quite highly developed, possessing a significant amount of knowledge about mechanics, geometry and crystal chemistry.

In search of an answer to the question of the purpose of megaliths, it was believed for a very long time that they were tombs. But in thousands of structures that have been studied in detail, not even a hint of the remains of burials has been revealed. And if they were there, then a much later era. If megaliths were structures for ritual purposes, then why are they so unlike other structures for performing religious rituals? Why are megaliths so simple and utilitarian?

Another common explanation for the purpose of megaliths is that they were ancient observatories. As evidence, the facts were usually cited that most of the megaliths are oriented according to the time and place of the equinox. But this is completely irrational even for primitive thinking. The stone blocks used are too huge.

And, what is most interesting, indeed from ancient times there were stone structures used as observatories (this is a proven fact), but Weight Limit the stones from which they were built do not exceed 250-300 kilograms, and not 50 tons like ordinary megaliths!

From time to time, publications appear in the “yellow press”, the authors of which claim that megaliths were landmarks for some kind of transport (most often alien). But then why are the pointers arranged like this? huge complexes and often in hard-to-reach places where they are not visible at all?

All of these issues remain unresolved to this day. So far, a detailed study of megaliths by methods of natural sciences continues. And it has already produced amazing results.

Exploring the megaliths in detail, the researchers were able to find a number of interesting facts. First of all, it turned out that without exception, all megalithic structures on all continents of the planet were built from the same material - quartz sandstone. Often, its deposits are located hundreds of kilometers from the location of the megalith.

Now science knows that quartz (the main element of which quartz sandstone is composed) is an excellent generator of electric current when it is compressed (this is called the piezoelectric effect) and is able to stabilize the oscillation frequency. After the occurrence of an electromagnetic field and with simultaneous compression, quartz crystals generate simultaneously ultrasound and radio waves.

Nowadays, all these features of quartz are used in electronics. For example, during the study of the well-preserved cromlech Royallight (located in Britain), it was revealed that this cromlech emits powerful ultrasonic pulses shortly before sunrise. They are most intense and complex in structure during the equinox.

All individual stones of the Royallight megalith have their own diagram and radiation intensity. This is multiplied and modulated in some way due to the thoughtful arrangement of all the stone blocks that make up this megalith.

In the course of further research, it was found that some of the stones of the megalith emit strong ultrasound directed outside the complex.

Almost all megalithic structures, without exception, are emitters. To increase their power, one stone block was placed on top of another in a special way. And menhirs were installed on a thinner end, under which they placed a specially processed supporting stone - which had a well-pronounced piezoelectric effect.

And the last mysterious fact - many megaliths are located above the deep faults of the earth's crust. These are the so-called pathogenic/geopathogenic areas. This is hardly a mere coincidence, but what does it mean and how did the people of the Stone Age determine the structure of the earth's firmament at a depth of kilometers? All this remains a mystery awaiting a scientific solution.

Megaliths, huge structures made of massive stone blocks, are also found in our country. There are a lot of similar structures in Russia, but they are not known like the famous Stonehenge in Great Britain or Ollantaytambo in Peru. We will get acquainted with the ancient megalithic structures found on the territory of Russia further.

The first place to start the journey is Mount Vottovaara - highest point West Karelian Upland - 417.3 m above sea level. The area of the mountain is 6 square meters. km.
The place is just full of strange artifacts after which you start to think about the ancient highly developed technologies for stone processing, let's take a better look at the photo.

Mount Vottovaara.
Scattered blocks of megaliths.

The middle block was cut at an angle of 90 degrees or a game of nature?

It was as if a laser had been carried out :) geologists believe that cracks and faults were formed as a result of a strong earthquake about 9 thousand years ago. The even planes of the stones are the result of the properties of the local rock - quartzite, the structure of which sets such even planes when split.

So is it nature or man-made? Let's take a closer look.

More like perfectly sawn blocks tightly fitted to each other. It is hard to imagine an ancient ancestor with a copper chisel, who, somewhere on the mountain, grinds such even blocks.

Good angle, perfectly flat wall.

Who lost the ball?

Here, obviously, high technologies for stone processing could not have been done, or is it still a game of nature? :)

Mount Pidan.
At first glance, it looks like an unremarkable pile of stones of a cracked rock.

But coming closer, it becomes more like a megalithic masonry.

Looking between the blocks, where the stones were less affected by erosion from wind and rain, one can see man-made and how smooth edges have been preserved.

In the place where the junction of the blocks parted, you can see an even saw cut and the technology of laying these blocks opens before us.

stone city in the Perm region.
According to scientists, the Stone City is the mouth of a river that flowed into the Perm Sea millions of years ago, this is what explains beautifully and evenly, at right angles, carved stones, their neat laying and “mouths” perpendicular to each other.

Stone city.

See what smooth sides of the megaliths, as if cut down.

Again, the old method is to look between the blocks inside the masonry, look at the far block in the center, an even cut along the entire length of the block.

They say somewhere Kola Peninsula This pool is carved right into the rock.

In the south of Western Siberia, in the mountainous Shoria in the Mezhdurechensk region, there is a small geological settlement called Kameshki.
Several educated talented geologists live in this village. These are Alexander Bespalov, Vyacheslav Pochetkin and others. These people have been doing research all their lives. mountain systems Western Siberia. Once they came across strange megalithic structures in the mountains, which they could not explain to themselves. These were walls made of giant stone blocks and strange buildings with vertically mounted stone obelisks. They contacted Georgy Sidorov via the Internet, and this is how the first expedition was assembled.

Mountain Shoria.
Some of the granite blocks below were made of red granite, crowned with blocks of gray granite, and above lay a polygonal masonry of various blocks, both red granite and gray.

Granite in some places melted from exposure to huge temperatures and flowed under the weight of the upper rows. Kungurov would say about this that these are traces of melting from a thermonuclear explosion :)

The wall is composed of polygonal masonry of multi-colored blocks.

The size of the blocks is impressive, according to one version, the find is a man-made structure over 100 thousand years old.

In the photo, Georgy Sidorov, in his opinion, all this megalithic structure may be the ruins of an ancient power plant or power plant, which translated seismic energy into some others.

Looking inside the masonry again, where the blocks were less prone to erosion, even straight edges are visible, see how the two blocks lie tightly, man-made is better visible here.

Polygonal masonry.

Mountain Shoria. Huge blocks.
at the Department of Radiophysics at Tomsk State University, they showed photographs on the screen, talked about various types of masonry, about stone castles that hold giant granite blocks together, and not a single physicist said that all this was of natural origin. Most of all, they were surprised how the ancients could lift giant stone blocks to a height of more than 1000 meters and install them there on a special platform.

Then, in the Tomsk branch of the Russian Geographical Society, photographs were studied by geologists and geographers. Both those and others came to the conclusion that the presented artifacts are man-made.

Sklyarov was asked to comment on the find. And what did he say? That all the artifacts found are nothing but rocks cracked at right angles. That there is nothing man-made here. Just a game of nature, nothing more.
After these words, I am not surprised why LAI does not study Russian megaliths.

Between blocks.

For comparison, on the left is the megalith in Baalbek, on the right is the megalith in the mountain Shoria, it looks like the author is the same :)

Mount Shaman near the village. Nizhnetambovskoye, Khabarovsk region.

Ancient megalithic masonry.

Again, between the blocks, man-made and straight lines are better visible.

Big block megalith.

A large block of megaliths on small stones, this is done for better seismic resistance.

Megalithic masonry resembles Mountain Shoria.

Kabardino-Balkaria, a cave in the Baksan Gorge.
First you need to squeeze into a hole measuring 40 by 120 cm, then descend on a rope along a narrow vertical shaft. It is formed by two parallel stone slabs. After 9 meters - the first "knee": the hole goes to the side and immediately breaks down again. Already here you will be covered by absolute silence - not a sound penetrates from outside. Another 23 meters deep - and a new "knee". To reach the bottom of the cave, you need to overcome more than 80 meters, and it will take an hour. But, having passed the "bottleneck", you will find yourself in a huge room, which the researchers called the "flask". Inside, we will see processed walls made of tuff and granite, built of polished megaliths of different sizes, tightly fitted to each other.

Descent into the cave.

The edges of the blocks and the seams between them are clearly visible.

The even masonry is striking and the seams are clearly adjusted to each other.

The trihedral blocks parted a little.

Barely visible block seams on the left crescent wall and on the wall behind it.

how do you like the seams?

Rotate the cave at an angle of 90 degrees. Two large megalithic blocks stand on top of each other.

Stone processing technologies are striking, and even more striking is the comment of Vera Davidenko, head of the Kabardino-Balkarian geological exploration expedition, but she is a realist and believes that nature can do everything and concluded: “Tuff is an accumulation of ejection products of a volcano - ash, fragments of lava , volcanic glass and, to a small extent, rock fragments that make up the walls of the crater. The ejecta material during accumulation was hot, and therefore, during solidification, separate cracks formed - that is, the entire tuff massif turned out to be, as it were, broken into blocks. The depression discovered near the village of Zayukovo is one of those cracks of gravitational separation, which is characterized by smooth contact surfaces, ”but this is the head of the geological exploration expedition, she probably knows better.

Structure diagram.

A little fantasy for the finale) Arakulsky Shihan, strange building in the middle of the forest. I have everything, kick :)