Dolmen

Description

In their actual position of degradation, the dolmens are often presented under the appearance of simple tables, which could a long time make think of pagan furnace bridges, but they are well sepulchral rooms and galleries of Tumulus (artificial hillocks), of which the movable part (fill) was eroded during the centuries. Their architecture comprises sometimes a passage access which can be built in flagstones and/or dry stone. The sepulchral room, with the variable forms (rectangular, polygonal, oval, circular…) can also be preceded by a “anteroom”. In certain dolmens the entry presents a door cut in one or more vertical flagstones.

The morphology of the dolmens can vary according to the areas; thus observes one for example in Loire-Atlantique (France) of the dolmens whose central corridor serves several rooms on both sides, thus forming one or two Transept S and complicating the plan of the burial notably. Elsewhere in Brittany, or in other areas, in Paris region for example, and in good of other countries, certain inordinately long dolmens, whose of the same room and corridor width merge and who are covered with several tables are called “gone covered”. The complexity and the importance of the monuments can be such as certain tumuli recover several dolmens, like large the tumulus of Barnenez (Finistere, France) which covers eleven burials with corridor, ones megalithic and others with dry stone vaults in Encorbellement… On the other hand, the area of the the Cevennes is rich in tombs of the kind cases, often in flagstones of schist and dry stone, without corridor and under a cairn rather low, sometimes joined together of number in a necropolis of peak.

Etymology

It seems that it is Theophilus Malo Corret of the Tower of Auvergne which is l'" inventeur" term “dolmen”, in its work Origins Gallic. Those of the most former people of Europe drawn from their true source or research on the language, the origin and antiquities of Celto-Breton of Aarmorique, to be used with the modern old story and of these people and for that of the French , published between 1792 and 1796.

Its name “dolmen”, will quickly be relayed by Pierre Jean-Baptiste Legrand d' Aussy (1737-1800) who will propose an interpretation different from the function of the dolmen while seeing there, either a table of sacrifice or a furnace bridge as thought it Malo Corret, but well a burial.

7 ventôse of year VII (February 25th, 1799), Legrand d' Aussy made, at the Institute, a reading of its work, Of the national burials , published thereafter in 1824 and of which here an extract (of which the orthography is restored such as it is):

Mr. Coret, speaking about one of these tables which I will make known soon, and that one sees in Locmariaker, known as that into low-Breton one calls it dolmin . I seized again this expression, which, like the two preceding ones, is necessary for me. In a completely new subject, and whose consequently vocabulary does not exist, I am forced of me to do one of them; and though, by my right, I was authorized to create words, I prefer nevertheless to adopt those which I find existing, especially when they give me, like theBreton one, the hope to represent the old Gallic denominations. I thus adopt the word dolmine , and I will employ it to indicate the tables of which I parle.

Would the term seem forged starting from the words Breton S

T (D) AOL (related with Latin tabula ?), table
and men , stone.

It should be noted that this word is not a Breton word and that if it had been attested in this language, it would have been written “ taol-men ”, “ a daol- v in ” (a dolmen), “ my zaol-men ” (my dolmen).

The authentic Breton word to indicate a dolmen is in fact “ Liah vaen ”, alternative “ Liaven ” or “ lieven ” and “ leven ” in the compounds…

Very differently, certain etymological dictionaries advance that this term would have been forged on the other side of the channel, starting from the Cornique “ tolmen ”, which would have indicated in the beginning a stone circle or a perforated stone…

Function

The dolmens were collective burials with character reusable. That explains why in certain dolmens, one could discover the human remainders several hundreds of individuals and furniture of different periods (Neolithic, Âge of Copper, Bronze, Iron, or even later periods). A little with the image our caveaux family, the dolmens could be useful much longer than today and it is sure that certain tombs had to serve as the centuries.

The term of “collective burial” does not imply inevitably that it is about a tomb for all : within sight of the quantity of bones sometimes rather weak discovery in burials of big size - prestigious monuments -, one wonders whether some were not reserved for a group of not privileged community.

As-with the tumulus, it did not have only one protective utility of the funerary room but undoubtedly also a function of indication, even of ostentation: large a tumulus, faced, imposed its mass to the visitor, was to inspire the respect of the place and to confer an unquestionable prestige on the community which had set it up.

In addition, several archaeological lucky finds (offerings, furnace bridge, alleys, etc) make think that these monuments could have a religious function . Even well after the great period of erection of the megaliths in Europe, the people Celtes have them sembe it sometimes used with fine nuns but are not therefore their manufacturers as the first checheurs celtomanes affirmed it 18th and 19th centuries which systematically attached the megaliths to Gallic and with the Breton ones. One claims in particular that they were built with the crossing of fields telluric tensions and would be carrying magnetic capacities which the Druide S. Cependant detected, nothing does not allow to affirm such an assumption.

Localization

Fifty thousand dolmens were listed in the world. Twenty thousand of them are in Europe, where they are very numerous in certain areas of France (approximately 4500 dolmens disseminated in an about sixty departments), especially in Aveyron (1000 dolmens), Brittany, Quercy with 600 to 800 dolmens, Ardèche with 800 dolmens in this only department and the Languedoc with at least 600 dolmens. In France, one always believes that the greatest number of dolmens is in Brittany. It of it is nothing because makes the department of Aveyron of it, with 1000 dolmens, adds up some with him only more than all joined together Brittany. One finds of it a score in the Var, including 7 in the village of Mons (VAr).

To schematize the establishment of the dolmens in France, one can leave the west of the country with Brittany then while going down by Poitou for then joining more in the south causses of Quercy and Aveyron and finally arriving in Mediterranean seaside at Languedoc (see chart).

One also finds some in Ireland, with the Wales with in particular the “portal dolmens”, in the English counties of the Devon and of Cornouailles, with the Portugal with the spectacular sites of Haut-Alentejo close to the town of Evora, in the south of Spain with the remarkable sites of Antequera which counts among the most imposing dolmens in the world, in Belgium (the Mégalithes of the field of Wéris in Wallonia]), in Germany of North, in Scandinavia, in North Africa, India and more modestly in Syria, Ethiopia and the Crimea (Russia).

Korea only conceals with it 30 000 dolmens, of various types, high on all II, and according to evolutionary techniques. One also finds some in Japan but period much more recent. The dolmens are absent from continents American and Australian.

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