Dolmens are special buildings made of huge stones and intended for burial and religious ceremonies.

History of the origin of dolmens

It is believed that the first dolmens appeared in the fourth millennium BC. The first was the Iberian Peninsula. But according to some data, they were already on the island of Sardinia in the fifth millennium. Next in line was North Africa and Sicily. Then Asia Minor. This is already the third millennium. And at the same time, dolmens appeared in the Western Caucasus. After the first millennium BC, no more dolmens were built.

16th century. A thorough study of the dolmens of the Caucasus.

1660 Priest Johan Picardt from the Netherlands claims that dolmens are the work of giants. When people started taking stones for their needs (construction).

1734 In the Netherlands (the city of Drenth) a law is being passed on the protection of mysterious structures.

1912 Painstaking study of dolmens by archaeologists and other scientists. Excavations turned up a lot of things: ceramic fragments, flint axes, amber beads. And, of course, the remains of human bodies. Food was left in ceramic vessels for the dead.

Where can you see dolmens?

• North Africa
• South and Southeast Asia (India and Indonesia, Vietnam and Korea)
• Russia (Western Caucasus)
• Europe

Moreover, in different territories there can be a completely different number of dolmens: in the whole of China, for example, there are less than a thousand, and in Korea there are more than thirty thousand.

How does a dolmen work? Types of dolmens

• Tiled. Makes up more than 90% of all dolmens. Six slabs were used, corresponding to the faces of the cube. There is a hole on the front wall of the dolmen. It can be varied in shape: round, oval, square. There may also be a special plug that closes the hole. False portal dolmen is a term meaning the absence of a hole in a building; it is often located at the back or side.
• Composite. Made from blocks. The simplest design is a large stone placed on top of another in the shape of the letter P.
• Semi-monolithic, or trough-shaped. A depression was made in the stones from the rocks and covered with a slab.
• Monolithic. It was located directly in the rock.

The parts of the dolmen are firmly connected, there are almost no gaps between the slabs. Granite slabs, sandstone or limestone were used for construction.

• Another type of dolmen with a mound. It was built at ground level, and a mound was built above it.
• Dolmen in the shape of the letter T. The main part of the structure was combined with a corridor in one variation or another.

Another important nuance is the decoration of dolmens. Some of them contain patterns on both the outer and inner surfaces. The drawings are represented by zigzag lines, labyrinths, geometric shapes and even landscapes.

Purpose of dolmens does not cause controversy among scientists. Archaeological excavations have repeatedly confirmed that dolmens were a kind of burial place.

How were ancient dolmens built?

To begin with, we chose stone in places nearby, or better yet, stone slabs. But if there was no material nearby, then they could be brought. Then it was time to process the stone. They did this with the help of tools, and also took wedges from wood. After this, the stone was left for a certain time so that it became stronger. The stone was polished with special graters and only then used for the construction of dolmen tombs.

Dolmens in Russia

There are about two thousand dolmens. Mainly in the Caucasus region. The resort cities of Sochi, Tuapse, Gelendzhik, Novorossiysk can boast of the presence of these mysterious buildings. The dolmens of the Western Caucasus were studied most fully and in detail by the domestic scientist V.I. Markovin. He owns descriptions of more than two thousand dolmens. In 1971, the scientist examined the homes of dolmen builders. Markovin believed that these people were not familiar with either iron or pottery. The main tool for farming was the hoe, and they had not even heard of the plow. Other scientists also wonder how such structures were created without special tools. According to historians, there used to be about thirty thousand dolmens in the Caucasus. But as a result of wars they were destroyed.

There are also burial grounds of this kind in the Karachay-Cherkess Republic. They differ in that the slabs in them are properly aligned. In Russia, dolmens are not protected, which is why some people want to get some benefit from them. The destruction of dolmens occurs thanks to forestry workers, sectarians, black diggers, tourists, businessmen and many others.

Questions still unresolved:

1. The average weight of a slab ranges from five to twenty tons. How were they delivered and transported at that time?
2. What tools were used to process the slabs?
3. How did builders achieve perfect alignment of the slabs with each other?
4. How were ornaments and designs made on stone?
5. What civilization do these buildings belong to?

What do historians say about dolmens? With this question, we turned to ancient history, captured in the sailing directions of ancient Greek sailors. And this is what we dug up in them.
A long time ago, the land in these places was covered with thick fogs. High bare rocks interspersed with deep crevices. Plumes of smoke and gas burst out from the underground depths. The earth was breathing. At the foot of the rocks the waves of a deep salt lake splashed.
Small, angry pygmies came here from the cold valley in search of warmth. During the day they climbed high mountains, and at night they climbed into deep caves. It was warm underground there, and most importantly, hot golden rivers flowed. Bird eggs could be boiled in molten gold and eaten on them.
Life in the underground delayed the development of this people. They were small, black, cruel and very bloodthirsty. This people had a hard life. One day they saw white giants. They were kind and hardworking creatures. They were constantly building something. They looked at the little pygmies, how they shivered from the cold in the cold, how the hot sun scorched them, and took pity on them. The giants built huge stone houses and allowed the dwarfs to live in them. The houses were so large that the dwarfs could not even get into them. Then the giants taught the dwarfs to tame hares. The dwarfs sat on the hares and forced them to jump into the houses through a small hole.
This is the only information about dolmens that comes from time immemorial. They cast a magical fog over strange structures, through which it is almost impossible to see either time, much less the builders themselves. Who were these mysterious giants - the builders of dolmens?
Gradually the lake rose and turned into a huge sea. It connected with the Mediterranean Bosporus Strait. The highly developed civilization of the ancient Greeks set out to find new lands.
For a long time, the ships of the Argonauts, the first navigators, crashed on the wandering rocks of Plankta, which were located at the exit from the Bosporus to the Black Sea. One day, a wise captain took a soothsayer named Phineus on his ship. He sent a dove ahead of the ship. The bird flew between the rocks. They dispersed, stopped in place and never closed again.
Since then, the history of the Black Sea coast began to be written. “A disastrous place, completely covered with fog. Huge black birds are found here - griffins, capable of pecking at a person; Amazon women who kill any man who sets foot on the shore; barbarian tribes live in the rocks. They sacrifice any stranger to their gods or eat them, and the skulls serve as cups for them,” this is how the civilized Greeks described the Black Sea coast. “A place near the underworld,” they said.

However, despite all the difficulties, ancient researchers discovered that in those places where high rocks were not yet covered with vegetation, frozen rivers of real gold could be seen right in the crevices. The gold rush filled the sails of the desperate Greeks. The Odyssey describes the extraordinary dangers that accompany sailors. Cyclops, sorcerers, sea passions - all this was here, on the shores of the Black, inhospitable Sea.
We had to fight with local tribes - pygmies, who desperately defended their possessions. After all, golden rivers are the only source of heat in the deep underground; it was the source of their life. The Greeks called the pygmies “Keepers of Gold”.
The territory from Sochi to Novorossiysk was not conquered for a long time. It was an ominous place; it brought only death and misfortune.
Gradually the rocks became covered with sand, earth and vegetation. The golden rivers have cooled down. And the pygmies disappeared into oblivion. Maybe they live somewhere deep underground and guard their wealth, or maybe they have learned to survive on the surface of the earth. Greek written sources tell us that for a long time wild tribes of barbarians lived here, first cannibals, then sea pirates, and later slave traders. They worshiped their gods by sacrificing people. Highly developed peoples did not like these places.
Hordes of Scythians wandered past, entered into battles with barbarians, but no one managed to penetrate the terrible, hermitic world of savages.
The bloodthirsty spirit of the ancient tribes disappeared and scattered across the earth and left behind strange monuments.
Not a single ancient Greek written source, replete with fantastic details about the Black Sea coast, talks about dolmens. As if there were no stone structures here before and during the Greek colonization.

Scientists believe that the construction of dolmens took place in the era from 2400 to 1300 BC. e. in the Bronze Age. In those days, the Zigs, Achaeans, and Geniokhs emerged. These warlike tribes, following their more ancient ancestors, engaged in piracy. They captured people and turned them into slaves. Later the Geniokhs became slave traders. On the sea coast Tuapse For a long time there was one of the largest slave markets. In the 4th century BC. e. one of the kings of Bosporus, Eumenes, entered into a war with the Heniochs and cleared the sea of ​​pirates.
The name “dolmen” itself comes from the Celtic words tol - table, men - stone: stone table. In northern European countries, having massive ceilings, they resemble huge tables. Already by the middle of the 19th century, in scientific works the word “dolmen” was assigned to the ancient buildings of the Western Caucasus, while the local population still continues to call them differently. Among the Adygeis and Abkhazians these are “ispun” and “spyun” (houses of dwarfs, caves), among the Mingrelians - “keunezh” (houses of giants), the Cossack population calls them “heroic huts”.

The moment of discovery and the first mention of dolmens in scientific sources belongs to an academician (Imperial Academy of Sciences) Peter Simon Pallas. When he first saw dolmens, he compared these structures to tombs, without yet thinking about their true purpose. This was in 1794.
Traveling along the Taman Peninsula, at dusk he saw stone buildings that looked similar to tombs and described them. Other explorations were made in 1818 by Tebout de Marigny in the area of ​​the Pshada River. Pshad dolmens were also described James Bell. After these studies, all sorts of speculations and theories were born.
Interest in dolmens increased every year. These shrines seem to fascinate a person, and their unusual shape forces them to constantly unravel the mysterious affiliation.

Systematization of the dolmens of the Caucasus was carried out L. I. Lavrov. His work indicates 1139 buildings (1960).
From 1967 to 1976, the Institute of Archeology of the USSR Academy of Sciences created a special detachment to study dolmens under the leadership of Vladimir Ivanovich Markovin. A huge number of buildings were explored. In carefully recorded documents, there are 2308 dolmens. Markovin shares his impressions “... when the dolmens began to line up before my eyes not as light houses of cards, but as massive stacks of slabs and stones, towering above my personal dimensions, then even at night, alone with my thoughts, I could not get away from the impression of their stunning grandeur. Their silent combination with the huge trees and majestic mountain distances seemed eerie.
No traces have been found showing the prehistory of the emergence, development and complication of the design features of megaliths. Dolmens remain one of the most mysterious types of archaeological sites, as scientists note. The enormous range of their distribution in time and space makes it difficult to reconstruct a complete picture.

At the moment, the hypothesis that dolmens are ancient Adyghe burials has been rejected, otherwise they would not have existed, for example, in India. The theory of funerary tombs for leaders or priests has undergone serious criticism, since not enough material evidence has been found.
We have to believe that the principle and form of dolmens were given by someone once and for all. There are dolmens in some places all over the world. They maintain basic size relationships, despite the fact that they are located very far from each other.
It was assumed that the dolmens were built in 2 - 3 thousand BC. e. in the Bronze Age as tombs for noble and important people. However, no sufficient evidence has been found that the dolmens were truly stone burials. Skeletons of people were found in some dolmens, but they were either in a sitting or crouched position. This suggests that people could be hiding in a dolmen from serious danger and suddenly die. In others, dismembered and neatly arranged human bones were found. Perhaps they were carefully placed by the surviving tribesmen after a massacre or an epidemic of disease.
After the formation of the Center, a group of our researchers collected considerable material from personal intuitive research and testimonies of local residents who experienced the influence of dolmens.
Very interesting conclusions were made, confirming the initial presence of serious scientific and technical knowledge among the dolmen builders.
Dolmens capture waves and atmospheric vibrations, amplify them and distribute them into the surrounding space in such a way that the human brain is able to distinguish the sent information. Well versed in the technical intricacies of stone tools, ancient people used dolmens for various purposes. For example, by placing a dolmen with a hole in a valley, river or simply a body of water, they forced it to influence the enemy’s psyche, causing mortal horror, anxiety and a desire to move away from the strange place as quickly as possible. This arrangement of dolmens is just as dangerous now.
Ukrainian scientists have done very serious research on dolmens Furduy And Shvaidak. It is known that dolmens were built exclusively from quartz- and granite-containing rocks (granitoids, sandstones). Quartz SiO2 generates electric current and maintains constant oscillations (frequency stabilization). This property is used in radio engineering. When exposed to electric current, quartz crystals generate ultrasound. When mechanically deformed, quartz is capable of generating radio waves.
There are large, medium and smaller dolmens. The resonant frequency of such cameras is 23, 16 and 35 Hz.
Such frequencies are located at the lower threshold of human hearing, adjacent to the infrasound range. Such acoustic vibrations have an adverse effect. For example, ultrasound from 15 to 40 Hz causes the sensation of “gimlets” drilling into the skin. A powerful ultrasound beam on the brain of animals causes physical depression and turns off the irradiated areas of the brain.
Exposure of the human brain to low-frequency vibrations with a frequency of 13–25 Hz leads to resonance of various internal organs. Exposure to a frequency of 25 Hz for 30 minutes causes an epileptic seizure.
The resonant frequency of most Caucasian dolmens is close to this value. It is also known that exposure to low-frequency vibrations close to the natural frequencies of human organs, in particular the heart (6 – 12 Hz) can be harmful and even fatal.

It is assumed that dolmens were at one time a multifunctional tool. They not only generated ultrasound, but also emitted it directionally in the form of a beam (spotlight effect), as evidenced by the design features of the dolmens. They are a bell that expands in the direction from the back wall to the front. An important element in the design of dolmens is the hole in their front wall - the “manhole”. It is located on the center line of the front wall at a certain height from the floor. The hole diameter is most often 40 cm.
The holes in the dolmens were closed with special stone bushings - plugs. Their shape is similar to ultrasonic emitters used in modern technology to focus ultrasonic flow.
A dolmen installed in some strategically important place (gorge, pass) as a combat installation and “launched” at the right frequency at the right moment did not allow enemies to pass, causing them the feeling of “drilling gimlets”, or even loss of consciousness and death .

In France, women specially spent nights at megaliths in order to recover from infertility, beg for a happy marriage, and so on. On the back wall of one of the French dolmens there is a relief in the form of a stylized human figure consisting of parallel lines. Some of these lines resemble human acupuncture lines known to acupuncturists. But most of the lines go far beyond the contours of a person’s body and rather resemble the lines of his aura. The heart and lower part of the spine, that is, the energetically most important organs, are especially highlighted in the relief. The drawing is drawn upside down.
Dolmens were used for psychogenic effects on humans. By tuning the dolmen to a certain frequency, it was possible to ensure that a person (priest) entered a special state of trance and began to utter prophecies, just as the ancient Greek oracles or Eskimo shamans did.
It is believed that the dolmens were used for technological purposes, for example, for ultrasonic welding of jewelry, in particular, Celtic and Scythian jewelry, made, as experts suspect, using a completely incomprehensible technology for attaching small parts to a base, reminiscent of high-frequency or ultrasonic welding.
Western Caucasian dolmens, as suggested by Furdui and Shvaidak, were installed in seismically dangerous areas, along zones of active geological faults. As we already know, these scientists were almost at the truth, they approached the innermost secret of dolmens and went further, revealing another of their important functions - signaling an approaching earthquake. It is known that before a strong earthquake, stresses in rock blocks increase and small tremors occur. The dolmen could pick up this sound and began to “buzz”, warning the priest and the population about upcoming events.
Studies have shown that dolmens in the North Caucasus generally have an adverse effect on humans. Their vibrations have a destructive effect on the psyche and body, so it is necessary to communicate with them with extreme caution.
Dolmens were built all over the world: from Japan to the Iberian Peninsula, from India to the Caucasus and from North Africa to the northern regions of Western Europe. Similar monuments are known in South America - Peru, Bolivia. In Western Europe - in England, France, Germany. On the islands of the Mediterranean Sea - Corsica, Sardinia, the Balearic Islands, Malta and the island of Mallorca. They were found in England (the famous Stonehenge), in France, in Germany, in Spain, even in Africa. The shape of dolmens is different. These are simple high-standing stones, pointed upward in the shape of a pencil (menhirs), and two high-standing stones with a crossbar on top.
On the small Pacific island of Malekula, part of the New Hebrides archipelago, a few decades ago local residents erected dolmens and menhirs, reminiscent of those that were built all over the world millennia ago. These dolmens were shrines for all the islanders. It was believed that the leader of a secret religious union on the island on certain days listened here to the voice of the spirit of the great ancestors and asked him for advice. At certain times of the day, the stone megalith emits a strong ultrasonic sound, drowning out the squeaks of bats.
Before sunrise, the stone monument emits ultrasonic pulses that die down shortly after sunrise. Ultrasonic radiation is most intense and lasting during the equinoxes, and minimal during the solstices. Individual stones that make up the structure have different sound cycles.

Dolmen - (Celtic) “tol” - table, “men” - stone. those. "Stone Table" They belong to the culture of “megaliths” - (from Greek) “huge stones”. The carriers of this amazing culture have not been precisely identified, but the monuments they left behind are truly grandiose. The name is European for a reason; dolmens are quite widespread. One can trace an interesting sequence of their distribution. Early dolmens are found on the western coast of the Black Sea, then their distribution extends to Asia Minor, then the Middle East.

Palestine - North Africa - Spain - Portugal - France - Holland - northern Germany - along the Danube to the Balkans - Western Bank of the Black Sea. In this way a closed loop is traced. Apparently the carriers of the “Dolmen” culture migrated along this route. True, there are separate dolmens in Central Africa, India, and even Japan. But still, the most interesting for researchers were the dolmens of the Northwestern Caucasus. The name Stone Table was not given for nothing - the presence of a massive lid that crowns almost every dolmen makes it look like a table. Caucasian dolmens are almost all individual, although for decades archaeologists have not given up attempts to find some kind of mathematical pattern to their structure. But in the words of the famous Soviet archaeologist Markovin, a researcher of dolmens who devoted several decades of his life to them, this idea of ​​systematizing these stone monuments is “art for art’s sake,” similar to medieval scholasticism. It is unlikely that the ancient builders suspected some of the mathematical laws that their researchers tried to fit the dolmens into. Rather, it is important to understand what their creators were trying to show by building dolmens.

Scientific research of Caucasian dolmens begins at the end of the 17th century, when the famous Russian naturalist and geographer Pallas first made detailed descriptions of these buildings, which he found on the Taman Peninsula. True, he somewhat downplayed their age. Pallas discovered in one of the dolmens several objects of a later date than the burial structures themselves. Therefore, he dated them to the time of Greek colonization. Later, the study of dolmens was carried out by such scientists as Tebu de Marigny, Frederic Dubois de Montpere, Felitsyn, Veselovsky and others. Since the mid-twentieth century, archaeologists Teshev, Kondryakov, Outlev, Markovin have been studying this problem. Thanks to their work, many questions regarding dolmens have now been revealed.
The distribution strip of Caucasian dolmens extends from the Taman Peninsula to Abkhazia, 480 km long. Its width varies from 30 to 75 km. Dolmens are not located haphazardly; they can usually be found along river basins and near passes. The map of the distribution of dolmens, when combined with a map of the strike of the main rocks, showed that these buildings were always located where there was material convenient for their construction. In total, according to archaeologists, there are about 2,500 dolmens in Kuban. Local buildings, despite their certain similarity with European dolmens, also have their own characteristics, for example, almost all Caucasian dolmens have a hole on the front side, usually round in shape, the diameter of which ranges from 37 to 43 cm. Apparently, Caucasian dolmens are later than European ones and this can be seen in their more regular form. According to Jessen they date back to about 2500 BC. AD The period of construction of dolmens lasted about 900 years, after which traces of their builders disappear.
The nature of the finds made in dolmens allows us to draw two conclusions - these were burial structures because In untouched dolmens, the remains of human burials (usually bones sprinkled with red ocher) and burial goods were found. - the second conclusion is that these are undoubtedly cult buildings, as evidenced by their monumentality and astronomical orientation (some researchers conclude that the dolmen holes are directed to the place of sunset on certain days).
Despite the fact that Vladimir Ivanovich Markovin rejected attempts at mathematical systematization, he himself and his colleague Pshemaf Ulagaevich Outlev systematized dolmens into five main groups.

1. Tiled - the most common type of dolmens, about 90% of the total number of known ones. The name comes from the shape and principle of construction. It was built from five massive stone slabs (hence the name). Four slabs made up the walls, the fifth made up the ceiling. It has the shape of a truncated pyramid, the thickness of the walls is from 30 to 60 cm. With great care, V.I. Markovin, after taking careful measurements, derived the proportion of the ratio of the front, rear and equal side slabs. It turned out that the dolmen builders had a certain architectural module, i.e. a unit of measurement with which the entire structure was repaired. This module is equal to 1/10 of the front plate. The general proportion of most of the tiled dolmens was 10 x 12 x 8 (the ratio of the front, side, and rear sides, respectively, of the dolmen's inner chamber).

The slabs are massive, hewn and are not inferior in thickness to modern artificial panels. We must not forget that there were no cranes or tractors during the era of the construction of ancient structures.
Dolmens in the full sense of the word are the creation of human hands. Historians unanimously consider them as the most ancient architectural monuments. It is with the description of megaliths that almost all educational courses in the history of architecture begin, because works of architecture inextricably combine solutions to practically necessary utilitarian problems with purely artistic creativity. Each era has its own architecture, the images of which actively influence human consciousness and feelings. It should be added that architecture is not only a construction business or a purely artistic creation; it is a synthesis of both.
Famous art critic Mikhail Vladimirovich. Alpatov, studying ancient megalithic monuments as architectural structures, wrote: “One can imagine with what sense of self-esteem and creative satisfaction people looked at these monuments, who with their efforts defeated the physical resistance of the stone.” When building a dolmen, a person, in his words, “by piling up material, limits the space; For the first time, load-bearing and resting parts are clearly contrasted here; this opposition became the basis of architecture." From the internal space of the dolmen, "the interior should have developed" - "The dolmens reveal the beginning of order, primarily rhythm, the beginning of which in one form or another became the basis of the artistic language of architecture." To these qualities we can add proportionality and scale, for they create a feeling of strength and grandeur. As a rule, the materials for the construction of dolmens were sandstones and quartzites. And the softer the stone, the more regular the shape of the dolmens themselves and the slabs that made them. Archaeologists have reconstructed with great certainty the technology used to build these tombs. First, a massive block of approximately suitable thickness broke off from the formation. A thin gutter about 1 cm deep was knocked out along the contour of the future slab. After 20-30 cm, along the perimeter of the future slab (along the gutter), through holes were drilled into which wooden wedges were tightly driven. After this, the gutter was watered, and after a while the wood swelled and the stone cracked. The result was a blank for a future dolmen slab.

archaeologists have found unused blanks for future slabs, and the tools with which these slabs were processed. A hole was made in the front slab. After careful cutting and fitting, the slabs were transported to the assembly site (sometimes several kilometers away, given the mountainous and forested area). Transportation apparently took place using both human and oxen traction. The slabs were transported on log rollers, alternately placing them under the moving slab (the famous Thunder Stone was transported in a similar way for the monument to Peter in St. Petersburg). The location for the construction was not chosen by chance, not far from the water (usually along the banks of rivers), and on a hill or on the slopes of mountains (usually, these are places where the sunset is clearly visible). A powerful stone foundation was laid out from two or three large stones, less often from one. For tiled dolmens, grooves were knocked out at the joints of the slabs and their installation began. First, the front and rear slabs were installed using supports, and then the side slabs were attached to them from the sides. The joints were fitted so tightly that in the surviving dolmens you couldn’t even fit a sheet of paper into them. Sometimes a temple was built around a dolmen, most likely intended for ritual sacrifices. After this, an earthen embankment was made on one of the sides of the building, and the top cover-slab was rolled over it. The hole was closed with a mushroom-shaped stone plug. Based on the fact that a dolmen usually weighs several tons, according to archaeologists, approximately 50 - 70 people took part in its construction. The dolmen did not immediately become a tomb. There are dolmens in which there have never been burials; this fact suggests that most likely the dolmen was not built for a specific person, but burial in it took place after a certain period, after its construction. All tiled dolmens have a “portal”, i.e. protrude 30-40 cm beyond the junction of the front and side plates. Some scientists associate the presence of the portal with the fact that the dolmen personified the transition to the other world. And the portal could thus represent a gate. Whether this is true or not, some dolmens have such a massive portal that they had to make additional supports for it. All dolmen slabs had a trapezoidal shape in plan, and in general the tiled dolmen has the shape of a truncated pyramid, which ensures the overall strength of the structure.

Thus, the building expands towards the base and towards the “portal”.

2. The next type of dolmen - systematized by Markovin - is a composite dolmen, which is built not from five huge slabs, but from a larger number of smaller stones. Analysis of the study of these buildings showed that at first this was a necessary measure, because Large stones may have been missing and were replaced with smaller pieces.
Dolmens have been found with three monoliths at the base and one of the walls made up of several stone blocks. Later, the composite dolmen becomes an end in itself for its builders, and thanks to the greater plasticity of the architecture of these buildings, dolmens of the most unusual shapes begin to appear.
Even round in plan, although it should be noted that composite dolmens are relatively rare. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, due to their design features, they are less durable and less resistant to the elements and human barbarity. Secondly, due to the greater complexity of the technology, fewer of them were built.

3. The so-called “trough-shaped” dolmens are the third type of dolmens identified by V.I. Markovin. Their very name reveals their unique features.
A dolmen chamber was hollowed out in a large block of stone, and the outer part of the stone was cut. A hole was made in the front plate. Then a lid was mounted on the resulting “trough”. Due to their more complex construction technology, these dolmens are also rare.

4. Even less common are “trough-shaped” and “composite” dolmens, which are significantly smaller than all the others. The name itself speaks about their structure - they are hollowed out in a large block. In this case, a “portal” is necessarily imitated, which indicates their later origin than tiled dolmens. They are extremely rare.

5. And finally, the fifth group includes “false portal” dolmens. Their name comes from a strange design feature. If all dolmens with a portal have a hole located on the vertical axis of symmetry, then “false portal” dolmens either have no hole at all or are located in the rear or side slabs. What explains this peculiarity of their construction, scientists have not yet undertaken to answer reliably. There are also very few of these dolmens, one might say only a few. The closest of them to Anapa is located in the valley of the river. Zhane.

Findings of primary objects placed in dolmens by their builders help archaeologists answer some historical questions regarding the bearers of this material culture. For example, despite the later period of existence of the dolmen culture. Pottery and metallurgical production was at a level lower than that of the carriers of the “Maikop” culture. Also, archaeologists have not been able to find the remains of settlements of dolmen builders, which is still unclear. Apparently this bygone civilization embodied all its achievements in these grandiose structures, paying less attention to the everyday side of life. To this day, dolmens and their history, despite the enormous interest in them both from science and from ordinary people, remain the greatest mystery of mankind.

Interesting structures in the Caucasus - dolmens. They are found on almost all continents, with the exception of Australia. So in France there are about 4,500 of them. And in Madagascar, for example, dolmens very similar to those in the Caucasus were built back in the 19th century, but it would never even occur to anyone to seriously talk about any historical connection between them.

The slabs from which dolmens are constructed contain quartz, which carries the energy of the dolmen. Each dolmen has a round hole with a diameter of about 40 cm which, almost always, goes towards the water (stream, river, sea).

Sochi scientist V. Kondryakov superimposed the location of dolmens on a geological map of the area, and it turned out that all dolmens are located on the fault line of the earth’s crust. Such zones are sometimes called “places of power.”
To solve the problem of the origin of dolmens in the Caucasus, archaeologists will have to answer a more important question: how did this grandiose culture arise and why, after almost 1500 years, it disappeared, leaving us with a legacy of thousands of dolmens on the vast territory of the Western Caucasus?

TYPES OF DOLMENS

Along the Black Sea coast and in the mountains of the Western Caucasus there are unique ancient structures - dolmens. Outwardly, they look like stone houses or birdhouses, where each wall can weigh tens of tons.
During the time of global warming on Earth (11 - 8 thousand years ago), favorable conditions were created for human life and development.

At the end of the Neolithic and the beginning of the Bronze Age, megalithic structures appeared in many parts of the world (from the Greek “mega” - huge, “lithos” - stone). These are the pyramids of Egypt, Stonehenge in England, rows of stone pillars-menhirs in the west of France. All of them were built from huge stones almost at the same time (4-2 millennium BC). In the same era, dolmens appeared in the Western Caucasus and, despite severe destruction, they are the best of the structures of this type, not only in Russia, but throughout the world. Presumably in the area of ​​Gelendzhik, Novorossiysk, Shapsugskaya there were more than 1,500 dolmens, but now the number of intact and not very damaged ones is more than 150. And mainly the largest dolmens have been destroyed. In total, there were more than 7 thousand of them in the Western Caucasus.

a) Typically a tiled dolmen consists of 4 walls, a lid and a floor consisting of one large or several smaller (heel) slabs. The camera is rectangular or trapezoidal. The side plates have grooves into which the back and front plates fit absolutely precisely. The front slab, framed by the projections of the side slabs and the overhanging canopy, forms a portal. Since dolmens were usually located under mound embankments, these same ledges protected the embankment from sliding onto the front slab of the dolmen. Sometimes an additional portal or dromos corridors were attached to the dolmen.
b) Composite dolmens are quite rare buildings and have a wide variety of options. Such dolmens were built from separate blocks. Chamber shape in plan: rectangular, trapezoidal, horseshoe-shaped, round and multifaceted.
c) Trough-shaped dolmens are common. A depression, similar to a deep trough, was cut out of a rock or a huge block of stone, then covered with a slab on top or turned upside down. A hole and portal projections were made.
d) Dolmen-monoliths are entirely hewn out of one block of stone or in the rock. They are very rare.
The dolmen holes were closed with stone plugs - phallic-shaped bushings weighing up to 150 kg.

ORIGIN OF DOLMENS

Translated from the Low Breton language (in French Britain), dolmen means “stone table”. They are divided into four types: tiled, composite, trough-shaped and monoliths.
The question of the origin of dolmens in the Caucasus is quite complex. Such monuments have not yet been found anywhere in the world that would be structurally close and at the same time precede the Caucasian ones.
Early dolmens in the Western Caucasus appear over a large area, have a perfect shape and certain proportional mathematical relationships of the dolmen's inner chamber.
Slabs weighing from 3 to 30 tons are connected by grooves with millimeter precision. To build dolmens, certain types of sandstone are selected and sometimes moved tens of kilometers away. Moreover, no traces of roads along which stones could be transported have been found.

On early dolmens there are similar thematic drawings, possibly of technical or philosophical significance. Some dolmens depict an ornament of vertical and horizontal zigzag lines, as well as triangles.
There are also weak traces of the presence of primitive man, who made early single burials inside dolmens. It turns out that, having left behind the most mysterious monuments that have passed through millennia, these people did not leave behind any houses or anything even more significant... Some scientists believe that dolmens were built by wild, illiterate people who were afraid of the forces of nature. But is it possible now to repeat the feat of the ancient builders?
It also seems unusual that in the early stages of the appearance of dolmens in the Western Caucasus, the evolution of development is not traced - from more primitive forms and technology to more complex ones, but perfect complex structures immediately appear.
In the late period of construction, tiled dolmens lose their clear proportions, false portal, trough-shaped dolmens appear, composite dolmens are built - with false arches and monolithic dolmens are carved into the rocks, which is more reminiscent of a monument erected in honor of a tiled dolmen.
Subsequently, the construction of dolmens ceased, and many of them were used for secondary burials and as a kind of ossuary.(mospagebreak)

DRAWINGS ON THE WALLS OF DOLMENS

Drawings on the walls of dolmens left by their builders have reached us. Often, horizontal rows of herringbone notches are visible on the front slab of tiled dolmens.
There is a pattern on dolmens made in the form of zigzags in several rows. Some archaeologists see the image of water in these drawings. Markovin writes “... zigzags could symbolically represent water. In this graphically laconic way, since ancient times, throughout the East, moisture, and even snakes, were depicted as the “personification of the underworld.” Naturally, the zigzags decorating dolmens and symbolizing water could be interpreted as a kind of good wishes for the return of the souls of the dead. Water, being an invariable giver of life and fertility, was also an all-cleansing agent.”
Other archaeologists see dolmen patterns as a “topographic map of the area,” where river valleys are indicated by waves.
On the front slab of some dolmens there is a portal that looks like a table. As if on a dolmen, a dolmen was drawn - a “stone table”, on which four convex hemispheres were sometimes depicted. There is also a convex frame around the dolmen opening.

WHERE ARE THE DOLMENS?

The dolmens of the Caucasus are located from the Taman Peninsula to the Colchis Lowland at a distance of 480 km - in length and from 30 to 75 km - in width. Dolmens usually stand in groups and occupy convenient and fairly flat areas along watershed hills, on the flat tops of mountain spurs. They stand along river basins, facing the portal into open space - mainly to the south, east, or in an intermediate direction - between south and east.

WHEN WERE THE DOLMENS BUILT?

Dating an archaeological site can be done in several ways. One of them is to analyze the evolutionary development of manufacturing techniques, the shapes of ancient products and many other features. For example: study of the “cultural layer” in the ground. When people live in one place for a long time, a layer of earth forms, mixed with fragments of ceramics, discarded or lost tools, weapons, remains of dwellings, animal bones, etc. Some peoples replaced others and the layers increased, sometimes reaching several meters. It is quite natural that what is deeper is something ancient.
Another method is radiocarbon dating. By extracting organic remains of that time, for example, coals and bones, the content of the radioactive carbon isotope C14 is measured in them. Thus, archaeologists came to the conclusion that the Western Caucasus dolmens were built since 3500 BC. to 1400 BC, i.e. dolmens are from 5500 to 3400 years old.(mospagebreak)

BURNINGS INSIDE DOLMENS

When conducting excavations inside dolmens, archaeologists find the burials of ancient people of the Bronze Age, already known to them from ground burial grounds. The skeleton is in what archaeologists call a “crouched pose,” when all the human bones are pressed unnaturally close to each other. This position is also called the embryo or fetal position. This could have had an important meaning for ancient people, who probably believed that from what position a person is born, he should leave this world in the same position.
Next to the deceased they find his things, stone and first bronze tools, and dishes made of gray clay.
From then until our time, many peoples lived in the Western Caucasus. Many of them, without building dolmens, buried their ancestors, until the late Middle Ages. These were different tribes of the Caucasus, nomads, as well as Scythians and Greeks.
In the vicinity of Khosta, in the village of Kudepsta, in addition to cave sites, dolmens and sacrificial places were also discovered.
In addition to the tombs themselves, the dolmen culture includes fragments of rocks found near dolmens with holes, circles and other images carved on them that had cult significance.
A special place is occupied by the Kudepsta “sacrificial” stone, known among the local population as the “Circassian” stone. This is a block of sandstone, in plan it has the shape of a triangle, each side of which is about 5 m long. In its northeastern edge, two seat-shaped recesses are carved. Behind the seats, on the upper surface of the stone, two parallel trough-shaped depressions up to 2 m long and up to 1 m wide were made. Four holes were also knocked out here, a bowl-shaped depression with a diameter of up to 0.2 m. Next to the first block lies another one of the same size. Cup-shaped depressions are also visible on its surface. In front of the blocks, the remains of a stone foundation from a building were found, which, judging by the nature of the ceramic fragments, dates back to the early Middle Ages. The relative position of the blocks and the foundation suggests that at this time the blocks no longer played any role in the life of the local population. The nature of the stone processing, individual design details and the fact of the independence of the complex of blocks from the foundation make it possible to attribute this monument not to the 16th - 17th centuries, as was previously believed, but to the dolmen time (3-4 thousand years BC), when these the stones undoubtedly played the role of a sanctuary.

LEGENDS ABOUT DOLMENS

The mountain peoples of the Circassians, who lived in the Western Caucasus, or as they were called before - Circassians, considered dolmens to be sacred structures, revered and protected them. The Cossacks who arrived here in the last century called the dolmens “heroic hut”, “didova” or “devil’s hut”. The mountaineers called them houses of dwarfs ("ispun").
Europeans who arrived in the Western Caucasus wrote down many legends in which they told how giants built houses for dwarfs.
“A long time ago, in a time that Almighty Allah alone knows and remembers, in this rich region, then covered with impenetrable forests, there lived only two tribes of people. A tribe of large, oak-like, terrible-looking giants and a tribe of small dwarfs. The giants lived in the river valleys and hunted, and the dwarfs lived high in the mountains, near the snow - in dark, cold caves and practiced witchcraft. The dwarfs rode around on harnessed hares. The giants, although they had terrible strength, were still stupid, like a herd of rams. when the dwarfs, having no strength at all, were very cunning. The two tribes lived for a long time, not seeing and not knowing each other. But one day the dwarfs descended into the valley and saw the giants when they were playing games, throwing rocks at each other. Having fun, they tore out the trees with their roots. The little dwarfs, by cunning and witchcraft, soon managed to conquer the stupid giants and forced the dwarfs to serve them. The giants quickly got to work and built stone huts with small round holes for the dwarfs throughout the mountains and valleys. , through which only the dwarfs could get inside. Many years have passed since that time, and there are no dwarfs, but their strong stone huts still stand today.”

Stonehenge.

Egyptian pyramids.

Myths and reality.

Origin and purpose.

Design differences.

Material used.

Builders of dolmens.

Ornaments and paints.

Finds in dolmens.

DOLMENS

In the territory Kr Asnodar region There are thousands of monuments scattered around, which in terms of historical and cultural significance are on a par with the famous Stonehenge and are the same age Egyptian pyramids.

This dolmens. For 200 years now, historians and archaeologists, anthropologists and linguists have been struggling with the mystery of the origin of dolmens, trying to penetrate behind the thick “curtain” of thousands of years in order to plunge into the everyday life of those distant times. There are many obstacles in the way of their research, the main one being time.

Gradually, thanks to the scrupulous work of scientists, the darkness of the past is dissipating, revealing an amazing period of world history. Just as archaeologists extract ancient artifacts from the ground bit by bit, the daily life of the ancient builders, their technical capabilities and scientific knowledge, beliefs and customs is revealed to us step by step.

Dolmen s. Pshada.

Myths about dolmens and the history of their study

Dolmen of Mount Nexis.

Scientific name "dolmens" Caucasian monuments have received since their discovery (at the beginning of the 18th century). Since then, it has become entrenched in the scientific literature. The first who paid attention to these structures were foreigners, more precisely, European travelers who, by chance, found themselves on Caucasus , namely in the area Gelendzhik . IN 1818 year Frenchman, Tetbou de Marigny explored a group of dolmens on Pshada River . A decade later, they were described in his diary by an English ethnographer (part-time spy, resident of English intelligence) James Bell . In the 30s of the 19th century, our dolmens attracted the attention of the Swiss, Dubois de Montperet , who in the middle of the century published his research, thus opening the Caucasian monuments to European science and determining their place among megaliths Europe. IN Russia they begin to be studied much later, only in the 70s of the 19th century.

A wide variety of fictions and legends have long been around these ancient structures. For example, according to the legends of the local population (Adygs) , once lived here giants sledges and dwarfs , weak and helpless. Out of pity for this lowly people, sled they erected impenetrable, fortress-like houses made of huge stone slabs for them, leaving in the front part only a small passage in the form of an opening through which only a very small person could pass. That's why Circassians and called them "ssysypp-una" , that is "dwarf houses" . Having moved to Kuban Cossacks , shocked by the monumental buildings, they believed that only heroes could create them, and accordingly gave them the name "heroic huts" . All these legends arose several centuries ago. The 20th century brought even more fantastic speculation about the origin, age and purpose of dolmens. An excess of enthusiasm, mixed with mysticism and superstition, gave rise to the most incredible assumptions about dolmens as ultrasonic weapons of the ancients, platforms for take-off and landing of UFOs, or primitive computers created hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Time of occurrence and purpose

In fact, the first megalithic monuments appear at the end of the 6th century. BC. (about 7.5 thousand years ago). First of all, they began to be built in France . Here on Western Caucasus , the first dolmens were erected at the end of the 4th century BC. This is around 3400 BC. (plus or minus 50-70 years). From this time on, in For almost 2 thousand years, amazing tombs “grew” along the slopes and saddles of mountains, in river valleys, reliably guarding the ashes of the ancient inhabitants of these places.

No matter how romantic and attractive the myths that have developed around these grandiose buildings may be, the research of scientists gives us a completely clear answer to the question of the functions and purpose of these monuments. First of all, dolmens served as tombs. However, due to the religious beliefs of those distant times, they were also used as places of worship.

Dolmen s. Pshada.

Dolmen r. Pshada.

Dolmen of the river valley Zhane.

Dolmen s. Pshada.

Design Features

Dolmen of the river valley Zhane.

Dolmen of Mount Nexis.

Sometimes in the twilight of the Caucasian mountain forests you can see lonely monuments; more often you come across small ones dolmen groups , but there are necropolises , consisting of several hundred tombs. Despite the external similarity, as if the architects were making copies from one sample, they have many options: composed of huge slabs, round, half or entirely hollowed out in a piece of rock, with walls made of small blocks, etc.

To make the building more durable, the side slabs were supported untreated stone blocks (buttresses) , and an embankment was made on top of the entire structure, which left only the facade slab open, with the hole closed stone plug .

In front of the dolmen paved area (yard) , rectangular, square or round, sometimes fenced off with walls of small blocks. Some tombs have a courtyard that covers an area of ​​hundreds of meters. Often the dolmen was surrounded cromlech (a ring of stones around the entire structure). Its function is simple - to keep the embankment and yard from destruction. All slabs and dolmen blocks were individually adjusted and fastened together using grooves . But perhaps the most surprising thing is that some buildings have the most real, storm drainage . Thus, the ancient builders provided everything to protect their creations from the negative effects of natural elements.

Construction Materials

Material for construction was taken from quarries , located, as a rule, somewhere nearby. Distances were not such a difficult problem for Bronze Age builders. In practice it turned out that blocks within 20-30 tons are amenable to human power: processing and moving . In fact, the most difficult thing is not to transport, but cut off a slab or block of the required size . A very simple but effective method was used for this. Shallow oval notches were made on the workpiece. Then they took bronze tape 2 times longer than the depth of the notches, folded in half and placed the fold in the hole and carefully hammered a wooden or metal wedge between the walls (strips) of the tape, alternately in each of the notches . Gradually the stone cracked exactly along the line marked by the notches. And thus, blocks of the required size were obtained.

Construction process

Blanks for blocks and wood dragging transported to the site of future construction. Here the stone was subjected to final processing. They did this using bronze And stone tools . If you look closely, on the surface of the carefully hewn slabs you can see traces of the work of ancient masters. Long, narrow notches abandoned bronze tool , A "pockmarks" (round) stone (with a sledgehammer or a stone chipper).

The process of collecting dolmen was labor-intensive. First, the side walls were laid and installed, then the embankment , which left only the facade open, and along this embankment with the help of levers, ropes and the draft power of the oxen was pulled along the logs and the ceiling was installed . After that, all other details were completed. All this dry masonry , without using any fastening solution, and all cavities were filled with fine crushed stone .

During construction they used measures of length , such as elbow, palm etc., and also construction module , whom he most likely served hole diameter in the front wall. As surprising as it may seem, but dolmen builders not only that were familiar with actual temple or cult funerary architecture , but also had quite deep mathematical knowledge . Indeed, to create such a design, complex mathematical calculations are required, especially for round dolmens . They are composed of small blocks arranged in several tiers, tapering from the base and forming a kind of false arch . Every block in such a building represents circle segment . The length of these segments needed to be calculated so that in the end, during assembly, the result is exactly what was intended. And the thought involuntarily arises whether we have the right to consider ancient peoples primitive, standing at a lower level of development than you and I.

Dolmen of the river valley Pshada.

Builders of dolmens. Who are they?

For a long time, there have been endless discussions and debates on this matter. Some scientists believe that the tradition of building such tombs was brought by settlers from Asia Minor , others tend to think that this idea came from countries Mediterranean , still others believe that it is the indigenous people of these places . AND the last theory is the most convincing . Judging by the remains found, these were people of average height and graceful build , in appearance, probably similar to Circassians . In the scientific world the name has been assigned to them "tribes of dolmen culture" .

We are separated by 5 thousand years, and now it is difficult to restore in the smallest detail the life and spiritual culture of these peoples, but we still know something about them.

TO III century BC. (i.e., by the time the tombs were built) people learned the properties of metals and learned to smelt tools from copper and bronze. This gave them a significant advantage: for example, a copper ax turned out to be 3 times more effective than a stone one, the productivity of a copper knife was 6-7 times higher than that of a stone one, most noticeably revealed advantage of copper when drilling (20 times faster) . However, stone tools continued to be used at this time.

The main occupations of the population were cattle breeding And agriculture , and with technological progress, new professions appeared among local residents: foundries, blacksmiths, jewelers, gunsmiths .

Despite such impressive tombs, the dwellings of the dolmen culture tribes were made of adobe, so they were not preserved. In general, very few settlements of that era are known, about 10, and only 5 have been explored. Apparently, for the ancient builders it was much more important to create "eternal" burial structure than to build a comfortable home. Why is that? What is this connected with?

Let's imagine that distant time. Several disparate tribes coexist in a small area. They were not always peaceful towards each other. Frequent skirmishes, wars for the right to exist and live in that territory forced us to look for a way to somehow establish ourselves in the land of our ancestors. . The land with its rich natural resources was the most valuable, it was valued above human life . How could this or that people prove that this is the land of their ancestors? Exactly funerary monuments , who have become family crypts and served as such evidence. According to the plans of the ancient builders dolmens were supposed to claim ownership of the land forever . Society has always had a complex structure, and most likely dolmens and dolmen complexes did not belong to ordinary citizens . If these were medieval monuments, they could be called "princely" . But for the Bronze Age it is not yet known which term to apply in this case. These are family crypts .

Perhaps separate types of dolmens corresponded to certain strata of society ( leaders, priests, elders and so on.). Or maybe different structures were built different tribes . All this remains a mystery for now.

All dolmens face down the slope . But there are times when they stand on the top of a ridge, for example on grief Nexis (near Gelendzhik ). And here it is not clear why they are facing exactly that direction and not the other? Is it related to the rising or setting of the sun, the location of the planets and stars? The orientation could be astronomical, but it could also depend on the relief . Both of these claims have not been proven. There is only one known case where a dolmen is oriented toward sunset, marked with a stone (obelisk) - this is a dolmen in the area of ​​the village of Novosvobodnaya. The top of the stone was decorated concentric circles , which in many ancient cultures symbolized the sun . Now this obelisk is kept in Maykop Museum .

Religion of the Ancient Builders

Attempts to look back into the depths of thousands of years and determine the religious beliefs of ancient builders lead the views of scientists to the ornaments carved on dolmen slabs. Simple drawings in stone lead us to the origins of religion . Plunging into the mysterious world of paganism. The most common ornaments are in the form diverging circles, repeating zigzags and triangles .

WITH funerary cult many peoples are connected various symbols . One of these symbols snake . It was believed that she was a mysterious creature connecting this world with the otherworldly, the earthly with the underground. And the snake plot was often repeated in the Bronze Age. In ancient times, a snake was depicted in a zigzag pattern. . On one of the dolmens on Mount Nexis zigzags topped with small snake heads . When the dolmens near the village were explored Novosvobodnaya, we discovered that two of them had painted ornaments on the walls inside the chamber red ocher even before the entire structure is assembled. It can be assumed, that the dolmen building, tightly closed with a stone plug, was a receptacle for deceased ancestors who could influence future prosperity and fertility. These are not just funerary monuments, they are also cultic. Why? For the same reason we are now visiting cemeteries - commemorating relatives, cult of ancestors . The dead were always respected and feared; they believed that they could mystically interfere in the affairs of the living, which is why they performed this cult.

Dolmen of the river valley Zhane.

Dolmen of the river valley Zhane.

During the archaeological survey of the valley Zhane River an amazing discovery was made - block-altar (altar), which is currently stored in the Gelendzhik Museum of History and Local Lore . Apparently, he stood in the top row of walls enclosing the dolmen courtyard (he has groove ). Perhaps it adjoined directly to the dolmen. Its exact location has not yet been determined. This altar is a unique thing. He once again makes us understand that in those distant times, here, in front of the dolmens, some complex rituals unknown to us were performed. What spells did the sullen tombs hear, whose blood sprinkled the stone altars, to which gods did the exalted priests offer prayers? ? The ancient tombs will never reveal this secret. We will also not know who accompanied the deceased on their final journey. What is known for certain is that the roof of the dolmen was never moved during the funeral procession . It was always blocked by an embankment. The deceased was brought into the cell through a hole in the front slab , which then, after performing the accompanying rituals and funeral feast, was tightly closed cork .

Dolmen of the river valley Pshada.

Dolmen of the river valley Pshada.

What do archaeologists find in dolmens?

Dolmen of the river valley Pshada.

Unfortunately, many of these monuments were robbed in ancient times. But some scientists were lucky and managed to pull out traffic jam dolmens were the first, after the last person put it in place thousands of years ago, burying relatives. And the remains of these people (how they lie, what things are next to them) prove that this crypt . Sometimes there are several buried there (usually 2-3 people, sometimes, as in the dolmens of Abkhazia, up to 15). There are 2 types of burials:

— crouched when the skeleton lies on its side with its knees tucked to its chest;

— plastic bag (bag) with bones, sometimes embroidered beads . The skull, long bones, and sometimes the bones of the chest and pelvis were placed in such a bag. This phenomenon is known for the Bronze Age - ritual procedures were very complex.

Often at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. crouched position of the buried perceived as sedentary . Some bones are sprinkled red ocher And coal . In many ancient cultures, ocher was a symbol of blood, life in the other world . This means that the dolmen builders believed that death is just a transition to another life , where a person will need things that he used in earthly life. Therefore, next to the burial - personal belongings of the deceased (weapons, decorations etc.) and parting food (usually in clay vessels). Traditional weapon set – bronze spear And dagger .

To confirm that this is not only funerary monuments , but also cult , archaeologists find traces of funeral feasts that took place on the sites in front of the dolmens - these are ceramic dishes, animal bones and knives.

Happens, at the entrance to the dolmen is stacked with fossils (shellfish, etc.) selected from the river. Rarely do you come across images of animals . For example, one dolmen has about villages Novosvobodnaya 2 bronze s were found silver figurines dogs (one - how Laika , the other is similar to fox ), and at the other dolmen - with an obelisk, partially damaged bull figure . For some unknown reason, approximately in the first halfII century BC. construction of dolmens stopped . But the buildings of the Bronze Age were not forgotten. For a long time they were used for burials and funeral feasts by tribes of later times ( Meotians, Adygs ).

Modern archaeological research

For the last few years, two expeditions have been working in the Gelendzhik area. One of them is under the leadership candidate of historical sciences B.V. Meleshko , — has been conducting excavations for three seasons in a row dolmens Nazarova Gap near resort village Arkhipo-Osipovka . This expedition operates within the framework Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAN, Moscow) . And its goal is not only to excavate a specific monument, but also searching and mapping new dolmen locations . Now on Caucasus About 3 thousand dolmens are known. But their true number should be about 3 times larger (i.e. about 10 thousand).

The second expedition operates from Institute of the History of Material Culture (RAS, St. Petersburg) V valley of the Zhane river . Leads it Candidate of Historical Sciences V.A. Trifonov . The expedition's work is being carried out from 1997 of the year. Together with archaeologists from St. Petersburg and Moscow, specialists from the USA, Italy, Australia, and Denmark took part in it, so it may well be called International . As a result of completing the planned work, it is expected return the Zhane River valley complex to a look as close as possible to the original, including dolmens, mound structures and interstitial structures. mound space. And create natural archaeological reserve , and within its limits – archaeological park . A similar technique is known in the West as reconstructive . This is the first time such work has been carried out in our country. Also in 2001 year Presidential Fund , who allocated funds to continue research, directly called this project a project of national importance .

Dolmen of the river valley Pshada.

Due to the similarities between dolmens and widely known megaliths Europe and Asia, Caucasian monuments remain the focus of attention in world prehistoric archaeology. But so far, as a result of the research, scientists have more questions than answers. Between us and Bronze Age tomb builders millennia of history have passed. Probability of ever being fully solved the secret of the dolmens- is insignificant, but for those who are bewitched by the harsh beauty of these historical monuments and the amazing atmosphere of the surrounding landscape, this no longer matters.