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Dolmen

January 19, 2024

For other uses, see Dolmen (disambiguation).

A dolmen (/ˈdɒlmɛn/) 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 Late Neolithic period (4000–3000 BCE) and were sometimes covered with earth or smaller stones to form a tumulus (burial mound). Small pad-stones may be wedged between the cap and supporting stones to achieve a level appearance.[1] In many instances, the covering has eroded away, leaving only the stone "skeleton".

Poulnabrone dolmen, the Burren, County Clare, Ireland
Dolmens in Amadalavalasa, Andhra Pradesh, India

Etymology edit

Celtic (dolmen, cromlech, etc.) edit

The word dolmen entered archaeology when Théophile Corret de la Tour d'Auvergne used it to describe megalithic tombs in his Origines gauloises (1796) using the spelling dolmin (the current spelling was introduced about a decade later and had become standard in French by about 1885).[2][3] The Oxford English Dictionary does not mention dolmin in English and gives its first citation for dolmen from a book on Brittany in 1859, describing the word as "The French term, used by some English authors, for a cromlech ...". The name was supposedly derived from a Breton language term meaning 'stone table' but doubt has been cast on this,[citation needed] and the OED describes its origin as "Modern French". A book on Cornish antiquities from 1754 said that the current term in the Cornish language for a cromlech was tolmen ('hole of stone') and the OED says that "There is reason to think that this was the term inexactly reproduced by Latour d'Auvergne [sic] as dolmen, and misapplied by him and succeeding French archaeologists to the cromlech".[4] Nonetheless it has now replaced cromlech as the usual English term in archaeology, when the more technical and descriptive alternatives are not used. The later Cornish term was quoit – an English-language word for an object with a hole through the middle preserving the original Cornish language term of tolmen – the name of another dolmen-like monument is in fact Mên-an-Tol 'stone with hole' (Standard Written Form: Men An Toll.)[5]

In Irish Gaelic they are called Irish: dolmain.[6]

Germanic (Hünengrab, dysse, etc.) edit

Dolmens are known by a variety of names in other languages, including Galician and Portuguese: anta, Bulgarian: Долмени, romanized: Dolmeni, German: Hünengrab/Hünenbett, Afrikaans and Dutch: hunebed, Basque: trikuharri, Abkhaz: Adamra, Adyghe: Ispun

Danish and Norwegian: dysse, Swedish: dös, Korean: 고인돌, romanized: goindol, and Hebrew: גַלעֵד. Granja is used in Portugal, Galicia, and some parts of Spain.[citation needed] The rarer forms anta and ganda also appear. In Catalan-speaking areas, they are known simply as dolmen, but also by a variety of folk names, including cova ('cave'),[7] caixa ('crate' or 'coffin'),[8] taula ('table'),[9] arca ('chest'),[7] cabana ('hut'), barraca ('hut'), llosa ('slab'), llosa de jaça ('pallet slab'),[10] roca ('rock') or pedra ('stone'), usually combined with a second part such as de l'alarb ('of the Arab'),[8] del/de moro/s ('of the Moor/s'),[8][11] del lladre ('of the thief'), del dimoni ('of the devil'), d'en Rotllà/Rotllan/Rotlan/Roldan ('of Roland'),[9][8]. In the Basque Country, they are attributed to the jentilak, a race of giants.

The etymology of the German: Hünenbett, Hünengrab and Dutch: hunebed – with Hüne/hune meaning 'giant' – all evoke the image of giants buried (bett/bed/grab = 'bed/grave') there. Of other Celtic languages, Welsh cromlech was borrowed into English and quoit is commonly used in English in Cornwall.

Western Europe edit

Origin and purpose edit

It remains unclear when, why and by whom the earliest dolmens were made.[dubious – discuss] The oldest known are found in Western Europe, dating from c. 7,000 years ago. Archaeologists still do not know who erected these dolmens, which makes it difficult to know why they did it. They are generally all regarded as tombs or burial chambers, despite the absence of clear evidence for this. Human remains, sometimes accompanied by artefacts, have been found in or close to the dolmens which could be scientifically dated using radiocarbon dating. However, it has been impossible to prove that these remains date from the time when the stones were originally set in place.[12]

Middle East edit

Dolmens can be found in the Levant, some along the Jordan Rift Valley (Upper Galilee in Israel, the Golan Heights,[13] Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and southeast Turkey.[14][15]

Dolmens in the Levant belong to a different, unrelated tradition to that of Europe, although they are often treated "as part of a trans-regional phenomenon that spanned the Taurus mountains to the Arabian peninsula."[14] In the Levant, they are of Early Bronze rather than Late Neolithical age.[14] They are mostly found along the Jordan Rift Valley's eastern escarpment, and in the hills of the Galilee, in clusters near Early Bronze I proto-urban settlements (3700–3000 BCE), additionally restricted by geology to areas allowing the quarrying of slabs of megalithic size.[14] In the Levant, geological constraints led to a local burial tradition with a variety of tomb forms, dolmens being one of them.[14]

Korea edit

 
Dolmen at Ganghwa Island, South Korea

Dolmens were built in Korea from the Bronze Age to the early Iron Age, with about 40,000 to be found throughout the peninsula.[16] In 2000,[16] the dolmen groups of Jukrim-ri and Dosan-ri in Gochang, Hyosan-ri and Daesin-ri in Hwasun, and Bujeong-ri, Samgeori and Osang-ri in Ganghwa gained World Cultural Heritage status.[17] (See Gochang, Hwasun and Ganghwa Dolmen Sites.)

They are mainly distributed along the West Sea coastal area and on large rivers from the Liaoning region of China (the Liaodong Peninsula) to Jeollanam-do. In North Korea, they are concentrated around the Taedong and Jaeryeong Rivers. In South Korea, they are found in dense concentrations in river basins, such as the Han and Nakdong Rivers, and in the west coast area (Boryeong in South Chungcheong Province, Buan in North Jeolla Province, and Jeollanam-do.[16] They are mainly found on sedimentary plains, where they are grouped in rows parallel to the direction of the river or stream.[16] Those found in hilly areas are grouped in the direction of the hill.[16]

Types edit

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ Murphy (1997), p. 43.
  2. ^ Bakker, Jan Albert (2009). Megalithic Research in the Netherlands, 1547–1911. Sidestone Press. p. 36. ISBN 978-9088900341.
  3. ^ Corret de la Tour d'Auvergne, Origines gauloises. Celles des plus anciens peuples de l'Europe puisées dans leur vraie source ou recherche sur la langue, l'origine et les antiquités des Celto-bretons de l'Armorique, pour servir à l'histoire ancienne et moderne de ce peuple et à celle des Français, p. PR1, at Google Books, 1796–97.
  4. ^ OED "Dolmen", 1st edition, 1897
  5. ^ "Vandals threaten stone age monuments". TheGuardian.com. 12 November 1999.
  6. ^ "dolmen – Translation to Irish Gaelic with audio pronunciation of translations for dolmen by New English-Irish Dictionary". www.focloir.ie. Retrieved 2020-11-26.
  7. ^ a b "dolmen". Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana (in Catalan). Barcelona.
  8. ^ a b c d Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. "caixa" (in Catalan). In: Diccionari català-valencià-balear. Palma: Moll, 1930–1962. ISBN 8427300255.
  9. ^ a b Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. "taula" (in Catalan). In: Diccionari català-valencià-balear. Palma: Moll, 1930–1962. ISBN 8427300255.
  10. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. "llosa de jaça" (in Catalan). In: Diccionari català-valencià-balear. Palma: Moll, 1930–1962. ISBN 8427300255.
  11. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. "cova" (in Catalan). In: Diccionari català-valencià-balear. Palma: Moll, 1930–1962. ISBN 8427300255.
  12. ^ Lewis, S. (2009) Guide to the Menhirs and other Megaliths of Central Brittany, Nezert Books, ISBN 978-9522705952
  13. ^ Megalithic Structures in the Golan and the Galilee Reveal Rock Art of a Mysterious Ancient Culture, Friends of the Israel Antiquities Authority, New York,12 July 2020. Accessed 12 Nov 2023.
  14. ^ a b c d e James A. Fraser, Dolmens in the Levant, 1st Edition 2018: "Description". Routledge homepage. Access 12 Nov 2023.
  15. ^ Fraser, James A. (2018), "Approaching dolmens in the Levant", Dolmens in the Levant, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, pp. 3–9, doi:10.4324/9781315147796-1, ISBN 9781315147796, retrieved 2021-12-22
  16. ^ a b c d e "고인돌 Dolmen". encykorea.aks.ac.kr (in Korean). Retrieved 2023-11-10.
  17. ^ . 2007-03-24. Archived from the original on 2007-03-24. Retrieved 2023-11-10.

Sources edit

  • Cooney, Gabriel. Death in Irish prehistory. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2023. ISBN 978-1-8020-5009-7
  • Holcombe, Charles (2011). A History of East Asia: From the Origins of Civilization to the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521515955.
  • Murphy, Cornelius (1997). The Prehistoric Archaeology of the Beara Peninsula, Co. Cork. Department of Archaeology, University College Cork.
  • Piccolo, Salvatore (2013). Ancient Stones: The Prehistoric Dolmens of Sicily. Thornham/Norfolk: Brazen Head Publishing. ISBN 978-0956510624.

Further reading edit

External links edit

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Dolmen.
 
Look up dolmen in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
  • Piccolo, Salvatore. "Dolmen." World History Encyclopedia.
  • The Megalith Map
  • The Megalithic Portal and Megalith Map
  • "Dolmen (Goindol) sites in Korea". on UNESCO's World Heritage List.
  • Dolmens of Russia
  • Dolmens. Part 2. How and for which purpose were they built? Hypotheses

January 19, 2024
dolmen, other, uses, disambiguation, dolmen, portal, tomb, type, single, chamber, megalithic, tomb, usually, consisting, more, upright, megaliths, supporting, large, flat, horizontal, capstone, table, most, date, from, late, neolithic, period, 4000, 3000, were. For other uses see Dolmen disambiguation A dolmen ˈ d ɒ l m ɛ n 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 Late Neolithic period 4000 3000 BCE and were sometimes covered with earth or smaller stones to form a tumulus burial mound Small pad stones may be wedged between the cap and supporting stones to achieve a level appearance 1 In many instances the covering has eroded away leaving only the stone skeleton Poulnabrone dolmen the Burren County Clare IrelandDolmens in Amadalavalasa Andhra Pradesh India Contents 1 Etymology 1 1 Celtic dolmen cromlech etc 1 2 Germanic Hunengrab dysse etc 2 Western Europe 2 1 Origin and purpose 3 Middle East 4 Korea 5 Types 6 See also 7 References 7 1 Sources 8 Further reading 9 External linksEtymology editCeltic dolmen cromlech etc edit The word dolmen entered archaeology when Theophile Corret de la Tour d Auvergne used it to describe megalithic tombs in his Origines gauloises 1796 using the spelling dolmin the current spelling was introduced about a decade later and had become standard in French by about 1885 2 3 The Oxford English Dictionary does not mention dolmin in English and gives its first citation for dolmen from a book on Brittany in 1859 describing the word as The French term used by some English authors for a cromlech The name was supposedly derived from a Breton language term meaning stone table but doubt has been cast on this citation needed and the OED describes its origin as Modern French A book on Cornish antiquities from 1754 said that the current term in the Cornish language for a cromlech was tolmen hole of stone and the OED says that There is reason to think that this was the term inexactly reproduced by Latour d Auvergne sic as dolmen and misapplied by him and succeeding French archaeologists to the cromlech 4 Nonetheless it has now replaced cromlech as the usual English term in archaeology when the more technical and descriptive alternatives are not used The later Cornish term was quoit an English language word for an object with a hole through the middle preserving the original Cornish language term of tolmen the name of another dolmen like monument is in fact Men an Tol stone with hole Standard Written Form Men An Toll 5 In Irish Gaelic they are called Irish dolmain 6 Germanic Hunengrab dysse etc edit Dolmens are known by a variety of names in other languages including Galician and Portuguese anta Bulgarian Dolmeni romanized Dolmeni German Hunengrab Hunenbett Afrikaans and Dutch hunebed Basque trikuharri Abkhaz Adamra Adyghe IspunDanish and Norwegian dysse Swedish dos Korean 고인돌 romanized goindol and Hebrew ג לע ד Granja is used in Portugal Galicia and some parts of Spain citation needed The rarer forms anta and ganda also appear In Catalan speaking areas they are known simply as dolmen but also by a variety of folk names including cova cave 7 caixa crate or coffin 8 taula table 9 arca chest 7 cabana hut barraca hut llosa slab llosa de jaca pallet slab 10 roca rock or pedra stone usually combined with a second part such as de l alarb of the Arab 8 del de moro s of the Moor s 8 11 del lladre of the thief del dimoni of the devil d en Rotlla Rotllan Rotlan Roldan of Roland 9 8 In the Basque Country they are attributed to the jentilak a race of giants The etymology of the German Hunenbett Hunengrab and Dutch hunebed with Hune hune meaning giant all evoke the image of giants buried bett bed grab bed grave there Of other Celtic languages Welsh cromlech was borrowed into English and quoit is commonly used in English in Cornwall Western Europe editOrigin and purpose edit It remains unclear when why and by whom the earliest dolmens were made dubious discuss The oldest known are found in Western Europe dating from c 7 000 years ago Archaeologists still do not know who erected these dolmens which makes it difficult to know why they did it They are generally all regarded as tombs or burial chambers despite the absence of clear evidence for this Human remains sometimes accompanied by artefacts have been found in or close to the dolmens which could be scientifically dated using radiocarbon dating However it has been impossible to prove that these remains date from the time when the stones were originally set in place 12 Middle East editDolmens can be found in the Levant some along the Jordan Rift Valley Upper Galilee in Israel the Golan Heights 13 Jordan Lebanon Syria and southeast Turkey 14 15 Dolmens in the Levant belong to a different unrelated tradition to that of Europe although they are often treated as part of a trans regional phenomenon that spanned the Taurus mountains to the Arabian peninsula 14 In the Levant they are of Early Bronze rather than Late Neolithical age 14 They are mostly found along the Jordan Rift Valley s eastern escarpment and in the hills of the Galilee in clusters near Early Bronze I proto urban settlements 3700 3000 BCE additionally restricted by geology to areas allowing the quarrying of slabs of megalithic size 14 In the Levant geological constraints led to a local burial tradition with a variety of tomb forms dolmens being one of them 14 Korea edit nbsp Dolmen at Ganghwa Island South KoreaDolmens were built in Korea from the Bronze Age to the early Iron Age with about 40 000 to be found throughout the peninsula 16 In 2000 16 the dolmen groups of Jukrim ri and Dosan ri in Gochang Hyosan ri and Daesin ri in Hwasun and Bujeong ri Samgeori and Osang ri in Ganghwa gained World Cultural Heritage status 17 See Gochang Hwasun and Ganghwa Dolmen Sites They are mainly distributed along the West Sea coastal area and on large rivers from the Liaoning region of China the Liaodong Peninsula to Jeollanam do In North Korea they are concentrated around the Taedong and Jaeryeong Rivers In South Korea they are found in dense concentrations in river basins such as the Han and Nakdong Rivers and in the west coast area Boryeong in South Chungcheong Province Buan in North Jeolla Province and Jeollanam do 16 They are mainly found on sedimentary plains where they are grouped in rows parallel to the direction of the river or stream 16 Those found in hilly areas are grouped in the direction of the hill 16 Types editGreat dolmen Type of dolmen in Nordic megalith architecture Inuksuk Inuit built stone landmark or cairn Polygonal dolmen Type of dolmen with five to nine supporting stones Rectangular dolmen Rectangular enlarged or extended dolmen Simple dolmen Early form of dolmen or megalithic tomb nbsp Trethevy Quoit one of the best preserved in Cornwall UK dated to around 3500 2500 BCE nbsp Chun Quoit in Cornwall UK about 2400 BCE nbsp Lanyon Quoit in Cornwall UK 3500 2500 BCE nbsp A dolmen erected by Neolithic people in Marayur Kerala India nbsp Dolmens of Marayoor India nbsp A southern style dolmen at Ganghwa Island South Korea nbsp The biggest dolmen near Hwasun South Korea nbsp The dolmen Er Roc h Feutet in Carnac Brittany France nbsp Crucuno dolmen in Plouharnel Brittany France nbsp Kilclooney More dolmen near Ardara County Donegal Ireland nbsp Lancken Granitz dolmen Germany nbsp T shaped Hunebed D27 in Borger Odoorn Netherlands nbsp Dolmen da Aboboreira Baiao Portugal nbsp Dolmen of Avola Sicily nbsp Dolmen of Bisceglie Apulia nbsp Dolmen of Fasano Apulia nbsp Tinkinswood Vale of Glamorgan Wales around 3000 BCE nbsp Dolmen of Oleiros Galicia nbsp Dolmen Sa Coveccada Mores Sardinia nbsp Russia nbsp Bulgaria nbsp Keriaval Dolmen Carnac Brittany France nbsp Dolmen Batu Brak in Sumatra Liwa Indonesia See also editGochang Hwasun and Ganghwa Dolmen Sites Irish megalithic tombs List of dolmens List of megalithic sites Megalithic art Neolithic Europe Nordic megalith architectureReferences edit Murphy 1997 p 43 Bakker Jan Albert 2009 Megalithic Research in the Netherlands 1547 1911 Sidestone Press p 36 ISBN 978 9088900341 Corret de la Tour d Auvergne Origines gauloises Celles des plus anciens peuples de l Europe puisees dans leur vraie source ou recherche sur la langue l origine et les antiquites des Celto bretons de l Armorique pour servir a l histoire ancienne et moderne de ce peuple et a celle des Francais p PR1 at Google Books 1796 97 OED Dolmen 1st edition 1897 Vandals threaten stone age monuments TheGuardian com 12 November 1999 dolmen Translation to Irish Gaelic with audio pronunciation of translations for dolmen by New English Irish Dictionary www focloir ie Retrieved 2020 11 26 a b dolmen Gran Enciclopedia Catalana in Catalan Barcelona a b c d Alcover Antoni M Moll Francesc de B caixa in Catalan In Diccionari catala valencia balear Palma Moll 1930 1962 ISBN 8427300255 a b Alcover Antoni M Moll Francesc de B taula in Catalan In Diccionari catala valencia balear Palma Moll 1930 1962 ISBN 8427300255 Alcover Antoni M Moll Francesc de B llosa de jaca in Catalan In Diccionari catala valencia balear Palma Moll 1930 1962 ISBN 8427300255 Alcover Antoni M Moll Francesc de B cova in Catalan In Diccionari catala valencia balear Palma Moll 1930 1962 ISBN 8427300255 Lewis S 2009 Guide to the Menhirs and other Megaliths of Central Brittany Nezert Books ISBN 978 9522705952 Megalithic Structures in the Golan and the Galilee Reveal Rock Art of a Mysterious Ancient Culture Friends of the Israel Antiquities Authority New York 12 July 2020 Accessed 12 Nov 2023 a b c d e James A Fraser Dolmens in the Levant 1st Edition 2018 Description Routledge homepage Access 12 Nov 2023 Fraser James A 2018 Approaching dolmens in the Levant Dolmens in the Levant Abingdon Oxon Routledge pp 3 9 doi 10 4324 9781315147796 1 ISBN 9781315147796 retrieved 2021 12 22 a b c d e 고인돌 Dolmen encykorea aks ac kr in Korean Retrieved 2023 11 10 Korean National Heritage Online 2007 03 24 Archived from the original on 2007 03 24 Retrieved 2023 11 10 Sources edit Cooney Gabriel Death in Irish prehistory Dublin Royal Irish Academy 2023 ISBN 978 1 8020 5009 7 Holcombe Charles 2011 A History of East Asia From the Origins of Civilization to the Twenty First Century Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0521515955 Murphy Cornelius 1997 The Prehistoric Archaeology of the Beara Peninsula Co Cork Department of Archaeology University College Cork Piccolo Salvatore 2013 Ancient Stones The Prehistoric Dolmens of Sicily Thornham Norfolk Brazen Head Publishing ISBN 978 0956510624 Further reading editKnight Peter 1996 Ancient Stones of Dorset full citation needed External links edit nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to Dolmen nbsp Look up dolmen in Wiktionary the free dictionary World heritage site of dolmen in Korea Piccolo Salvatore Dolmen World History Encyclopedia The Megalith Map The Megalithic Portal and Megalith Map Dolmen Goindol sites in Korea on UNESCO s World Heritage List Jersey Heritage Trust Dolmens of Russia Dolmens Part 2 How and for which purpose were they built Hypotheses Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Dolmen amp oldid 1194505288, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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