Dolmens of the Western Caucasus and dolmens of the world - questions of connections and origin. Caucasian dolmens: mysterious ancient megaliths that excite the minds of modern archaeologists

Ancient crypts, built from huge boulders around the end of the 3rd - beginning of the 2nd millennium BC, are found in the vast territory of the Western Caucasus: from the Fontalovsky and Tuzla capes on the Taman Peninsula to the mountainous regions of Adygea and the Krasnodar Territory, in the north reaching the Laba river valley, in the south - the outskirts of the Abkhazian city of Ochamchira. The basin of the Kyafar River in Karachay-Cherkessia is known for separate clusters of dolmen-shaped tombs.

About 3 thousand megalithic structures have survived, representing the dolmen culture of the Middle Bronze Age, and only about 6% of them have been studied by scientists. Many stone tombs are gradually destroyed under the influence of time and natural elements, but a large number of them are destroyed by vandals, who stretch stone monoliths across their courtyards with the help of powerful tractor equipment.

A certain pattern can be traced in the location of the structures: as a rule, the tombs were found on small plateaus at a level of 250-400 m above the sea, less often up to 1000 m, on the sunny slopes of low ridges or in river valleys. The building material for them was stones mined nearby, usually limestone or various types of sandstone - yellow or reddish ferruginous.

Design features

Outwardly, the dolmen is a stone house, consisting of 4 vertically installed slabs, covered with a heel on top. On the facade, an inlet was made in the form of a manhole, usually round, closed with a stone cork, but there are also crypts with an oval, square or arched opening.

Depending on the structural features, archaeologist I. Lavrov proposed to classify dolmens as follows:

• tiled, or ordinary - erected from solid stone slabs;
• composite - composed of several stone fragments, fitted with the help of grooves hewn in stone;
• monoliths - carved in stone rock in the form of a chamber with a round hole, from which the internal space expanded;
• trough-shaped - cut down in a huge block and covered with a lid or turned upside down.

Each of the dolmens belonging to a particular species is distinguished by its individual features, for example, it has the shape of a trapezoid, square or rectangle in plan. The roof slab can lie horizontally or slope towards the rear wall. Its dimensions sometimes exceed the length of the side walls - a visor is obtained. Often there is something like a facade portal, in front of which a small courtyard was even equipped with paved stones. Occasionally, the portal finds a continuation in the form of a kind of corridor leading to the entrance-manhole. The floor inside consists of one or more stone slabs, sometimes it is simply covered with pebbles. The inlet is not always located on the facade wall, its imitation is often observed, and the entrance itself is on the side or behind the dolmen, which in this case is called a false portal.

Only a few of the structures are decorated with a peculiar semblance of an ornament - zigzag stripes carved in stone or even lines arranged in a herringbone pattern. Small bowl-shaped recesses are found on the roofs, side slabs of the facade and are also considered as decorative elements. Narrative engravings are rare: the most famous images are a man surrounded by animals and the struggle of two "twins" on the slabs of a dolmen near the village of Dzhubga. The paintings and petroglyphs on the inner walls of the dolmens have practically not been preserved, and it is not completely clear whether they were left by the builders of ancient tombs or those who used them later.

Connection with the dolmens of the world

Scientists involved in the study of megalithic structures around the world are increasingly expressing the opinion that the Caucasian dolmens have common features with similar stone crypts found in different parts of the world. For example, their similarity with the dolmen buildings of the Dekan Plateau of Hindustan can be traced; pottery fragments found in the West Caucasian dolmens look like bowls with beak-shaped spouts from North African megalithic structures; strongly protruding portals, borders around the inlets, grooves on the side plates of the Mediterranean dolmens are also similar to the Caucasian monuments of the Bronze Age. The well-known buildings in Turkey, especially in Buyunlu, are practically similar to those in the Caucasus; there are many common features of buildings in the upper reaches of the Kuban with the dolmens of Corsica and the Iberian Peninsula.

The later erected dolmen structures of Japan, Korea, and China have nothing in common with the megaliths of the Caucasus.

The most remarkable of the dolmens

In the vicinity of Greater Sochi:

No less famous is the dolmen excavated from the barrow in Dzhubga with petroglyphs, in the Tuapse region near the village of Maloye Pseushkho, an ancient stone structure on a triple terrace, a megalithic complex in the Novorossiysk region near the village of Vasilievka in the valley of the Ozereyka river, consisting of several dilapidated dolmens.

The crypts on the Zhane River are located east of the village of Vozrozhdenie near Gelendzhik. They are considered one of the easily accessible ancient megalithic complexes of the Caucasus, which includes five structures. The central tiled dolmen received the name "Royal", next to it - several low block structures in the form of a truncated cone. Nearby are buildings called "Universal", "Harmony", "Hidden Opportunities", and a little away from them, like a mushroom under a hat - "Fortitude".

Adyghe dolmens:

• Khadzhokh-3 and Khadzhokh-4 are located near the village of Kamennomostsky, both are tiled and portal, and Khadzhokh-3 is hidden in a stone mound. In 2013, work was carried out on the restoration of unique ancient crypts.
• Novosvobodnensky dolmens were found in several places near the village of the same name: on the Kamenny Kurgan, a crypt with a cromlech rises on a plinth made of an inclined slab; in the Klady tract, a dolmen of the Silver Mound is known with preserved elements of internal and external painting and a rectangular courtyard with menhirchiks.

Attractions near the dolmens of the Western Caucasus

Visiting buildings often coincides with exploring other interesting places nearby. So, a trip to the dolmens located in the vicinity of Greater Sochi is combined with hiking in the territory of the Sochi National Park and remains impressed by visiting the Zmeykovsky waterfalls, the Khmelevsky lakes or the observation tower of Mount Akhun.

In addition to the dolmens on the Zhana River near Gelendzhik near the village of Vozrozhdeniye, tourists admire the incredibly beautiful landscapes of waterfalls, look with interest at the town, called the center of positive creativity, in which an unusual festival is held annually - freshly squeezed juice, freshly cut figurines, freshly picked honey are sold in small wooden houses. The most enduring ones reach the baths of Aphrodite and then climb Mount Shakhan or Cossack.

Near the monuments of the village of Vasilievka in the Novorossiysk region are picturesque places of the Ozereyka valley and quite close - the famous wine cellars of Abrau-Dyurso, the mysterious lake Abrau, the sights of Novorossiysk.

A trip to any of the Caucasian dolmens can always be combined with a visit to interesting places located nearby.

Where to stay

Exploring the dolmens in the vicinity of Greater Sochi is quite affordable by staying in one of the hotels of the famous resort. The nearest of them are Bridge Resort, Luck Plus, Sport Inn, Arfa Park, Azimuth, Caucasus with accommodation prices of 1050 - 1500 rubles per day.

You can see the buildings of the Zhane River 8 km from Gelendzhik by stopping at one of the recreation centers in the village of Vozrozhdenie - the Yagoda-Malina country complex, the Rafael hotel complex, the Minutka guest house, as well as in the local spa center - eco- village "Health", a kind of balneological mini-resort with a healing iodine-bromine well.

It is quite possible to visit near the dolmens near the village of Vasilyevka of the Novorossiysk region, having settled down to rest in hotels of nearby settlements, remote by 3-4 km: in the guest house Izumrud in the village of Glebovsky, in the hotel Rose of the Winds in the village of Borisovka, in the guest houses in the village of Tsemdolina Lazurny, Alibi, Paradise , Chill Out with price offers 1660-3000 rubles per day

How to get to the Caucasian dolmens

From Moscow to Sochi (Adler) you can take a train or take an air flight, the cost of railway tickets, respectively, is from 2780 rubles, for an airplane - an economy ticket from 2960 rubles. From Moscow to Novorossiysk, a trip by rail will cost about the same amount as to Adler. Coastal highways are regularly followed by buses from Novorossiysk and Sochi, which can be used to get to the nearest settlement from the buildings.

Municipal buses depart from Novorossiysk to Vasilyevka on the route 101 and 102, the fare is 15 rubles.

The dolmens in the valley of the Zhane River are easily accessible by bus 112, which runs between Gelendzhik and the village of Vozrozhdenie.

You can get to the Sochi dolmens by any transport, following the coast through Lazarevskoye, and to the famous Volkonsky - by train to Volkonskaya station. Many travel agencies in Sochi organize excursions to various attractions, including visits to monuments.

Note to tourists

When choosing an excursion to the Caucasian dolmens, you should carefully review its program. As a rule, according to the compiled program, it is easy to understand whether a qualified specialist will lead along a tourist route. Unfortunately, representatives of various sects organize trips to the structures, presenting unique archaeological sites as places of power. Indeed, many scientists have noticed that people near buildings experience various changes in well-being, but they are most likely associated with the placement of megalithic structures on the fault lines of the earth's crust. First of all, dolmens are ancient crypts in the burial places of primitive people.

And in the north - to the valley of the Laba River. But earlier there were in the area of ​​the city of Zheleznovodsk in the Stavropol Territory and, possibly, in other places. A separate closed region of distribution of original dolmens or "dolmen-like crypts" of late construction is the Upper Kuban region (the basin of the Kyafar River in Karachay-Cherkessia). They continued to be used in the Late Bronze Age and beyond. In total, about 3,000 dolmens are known, including destroyed ones. Of these, no more than 6% have been studied.

Encyclopedic YouTube

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✪ Architecture ("Kolikho. The secret of the dolmens of the Caucasus")

✪ On the other side of the dolmens

✪ V. Pyatibrat about Dolmens.

✪ Interesting facts from the history of the North-Western Caucasus (Part 1)

Subtitles

local names

• Russians (since the 19th century): heroic huts or huts, didov and devil huts.

Security problem

Falsification of history and obscurantism

Since the second half of the 90s of the last century, after the appearance of literature of occult and mystical content, designed for a public completely free from specific knowledge, but having conveyed to it the news of the existence of such objects, a near-dolmen boom begins. The burial grounds have become a place of constant pilgrimage and even a place of residence for an exalted sectarian and inadequate public. The media were filled with the conjectures of various "researchers", as well as authors completely far from the subject being studied, who are looking for popularity or gathering flocks and clients for themselves, talking about some kind of "knowledge", "resonances", "strength", about some alternative options purpose of buildings. The most accessible dolmens have their own names and, having become an element of pop culture, they are included in the commercial and tourist business. Near some dolmens, structures (mazes, etc.) are created from small stones, which have never been here, but which are taken by sightseers for real antiquities. Regularly, teams of “researchers” who are far from both archeology and geology are shooting more and more new films filled with the same standard fabrications and outright lies.

Dating

The main number of dolmens appeared in the first half of the 3rd - the second half. 2nd millennium BC e. . Often dolmens are also called megalithic under-kurgan tombs of the Novosvobodnenskaya culture and carved tombs in Karachay-Cherkessia. There are suggestions about the latter that they were either built by the medieval Circassians - Kasogs or Alans in the VIII-XII centuries, or these are structures of the late period of the dolmen culture, and the Alans simply inserted their stone boxes into them, since they have just such a design.

In addition to classical dolmens, small dolmens, assembled from random stones, were also built on the southern slope of the Main Caucasian Range. There are also small underground well-shaped composite tombs. They are covered by an incomplete false vault and a covering slab. There are even ground-based tombs with a real dome filled with small stones and tiles. If the well-shaped tombs unequivocally belong to the dolmen culture, then with the chronology of others, there is still no complete clarity.

Origin

Regardless of their origin, dolmens in the Western Caucasus did not appear from scratch. More ancient stone tombs are known in the burial mounds of the Maikop and Novosvobodnenskaya cultures (or in other words, in the early and late periods of the Maikop-Novosvobodnaya community). Some structures represent a transitional phase from the Novosvobodnaya tombs to classical dolmens. At the same time, there is a version about the initial impulse that caused the start of dolmen construction in the Caucasus, from the Mediterranean side. Since it is there that they find the closest analogues in architecture to the Caucasian dolmens. There are parallels in ornamental symbolism. There is also a temporal correspondence. The path of the bearers of the dolmen tradition is traced starting from the Iberian Peninsula 4000-3500 BC. BC e. (Los Millares culture). Or, perhaps, an earlier center was in the Balearic Islands (Pre-Talayotian period), Sardinia (Bonu Iginu culture 4600-3300 BC - Pre-Uragic Sardinia) and Corsica. Further - North Africa (Rocknia) and Sicily - Jordan and Syria - Asia Minor and the Balkans (3rd-2nd millennium BC) - Western Caucasus - Crimea (3rd millennium BC). Also, many items of material culture of the builders of dolmens have their predecessors in the Aegean basin and in Asia Minor.

In the Caucasus, the oldest dolmens appeared on the southern slope, in the coastal and mountainous zones in the early Bronze Age in the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. e. These include dolmens in Esher, Azanta, Otkhara, Kulanurkhva, Shroma, Doi. They are small to medium in size.

In the Southern Crimea, somewhat later than in the Caucasus, the carriers of the Kemi-Oba culture built stone boxes (cysts), sometimes with grooves in the slabs, and even painted them. In general, throughout the Caucasus (including in the steppe regions), graves were lined with stone slabs, and in some places huge megaliths were built (Armenia, Georgia). The only question is whether there are mutual cultural influences in each of these cases.

Location of dolmens

Since clusters of dolmens are cemeteries of the dolmen culture, several settlements of this culture are usually located in their vicinity: either at a considerable distance, or nearby. There are some regularities in the location of dolmens. They are usually found on flat areas on the tops or on the sunny slopes of ridges (mainly at altitudes of 250-400 m above sea level, the maximum height is 1300 m) or on river terraces. The vast majority of dolmens are oriented down the sunny slope, which implies a fairly large spread of directions. If this was not possible, then the dolmen was oriented at least to a sunlit area on the opposite ridge. In addition, the orientation to specific astronomically significant points on the horizon was noted. The statement about the binding of dolmens to water sources has no basis.

The purpose of the dolmens

The purpose of dolmens is not just an established fact, but has always been a known fact. As a type of tombs, the dolmens of the Western Caucasus are on a par with many similar structures from different times and many peoples. The most ancient burial places discovered in dolmens were left by their builders. And although a certain number of soil burials of the dolmen culture are already known, they were apparently less common, and their known number does not at all correspond to the many fairly large settlements.

Of course, the structures also served as a sanctuary, most likely a family or tribal one: this, for example, is evidenced by the discovery of a stone altar during the reconstruction of the dolmen complex on Zhana (located in the Gelendzhik Museum of Local Lore). The newly reconstructed complexes on the Zhana River and on Mount Neksis (both near Gelendzhik), as well as many dolmens with "courtyards", allow us to imagine the ceremonies that once took place there.

Some dolmen complexes were clearly designed to be visited by a significant number of people. These are, first of all, the megalithic mound Psynako I near the village of Anastasievka in the Tuapse district, the Silver Mound in the Klady tract near the village of Novosvobodnaya, and the same complexes on the Zhana River and on Mount Neksis. All of them could well fulfill the role of tribal objects of worship. Unfortunately, the museumification of the first from the list has not been carried out, and the second is almost destroyed.

Construction of dolmens

For the construction of dolmens, stone from the closest deposits was used, if possible. If there were suitable plates of natural origin nearby, then they were also collected. But if there was no choice, then the cut-out slabs could be transported for several kilometers. Various types of sandstones and limestones were used for buildings. marl. In one building, different breeds could be combined.

The stone quarry used the power of water-swelling wooden wedges to break the stone. Fresh quarry stone is softer and can even be worked with stone tools. But the builders of the dolmen culture also had bronze chisels in their arsenal, whose clear traces are constantly found when studying buildings. It is assumed that the processed plates could be aged for some time before use in order to gain sufficient hardness. Grinding of surfaces and grooves was carried out by stone grinders, which are found in construction sites. The cover slab was dragged along the sloping embankment behind the dolmen. The power of animals could also be used in construction.

Frequent speculations about the impossibility of repeating the exact fit of dolmen slabs in our time, for example, after moving it to a new place, occur only because of a misunderstanding of the fact that it is almost impossible to re-duplicate all the features of the old foundation in a new place. Which leads to various distortions and mismatches.

Dolmen architecture

Design

ornamentation

Compared to the total number, quite a few dolmens are decorated with engraved and even convex ornaments. But, probably, many of the ornaments simply did not reach our time due to the erosion of the stone. They are located throughout the portal and inside the chamber. There is an image on the front plate with a cross in a circle and a labyrinth-like pattern similar to a comb with a zigzag extending from it and the inlet. Sometimes there are just rows of vertical zigzags. On the front slab, an image of another dolmen portal is sometimes placed, as well as one or two pairs of large bulges above it. Or just made a rectangular recess that occupies a larger area of ​​the plate. Rows of vertical and horizontal zigzags may have ends of side plates. And attached portal plates on the inner plane are sometimes decorated with a landscape consisting of a series of triangles (mountains) and vertical rows of zigzags (rivers). Above the mountains is placed the sun in the form of an oval with a cross. Sometimes the entire portal slab is covered with horizontal stripes, each of which is formed by a herringbone pattern of chisel cuts. The side plates can also be decorated in this way. Recently, dolmens have been found whose facades were decorated, in one case, with convex diagonal stripes forming a large framed "Christmas tree"; and in the other - already deepened horizontal rows of a wide stretched zigzag. This zigzag is further complicated by segments of single vertical zigzags on the side and on the sides of the inlet. Sometimes a stone was chosen for buildings, which had an unusual surface, due to its internal structure. Such a dolmen, without special processing, received a decorative design in the form of bizarre dents and bulges.

Inside the dolmen chamber is sometimes surrounded by a horizontal zigzag of a wide strip and a straight line above the horizontal zigzag. In the second case, a series of hanging triangles or scallops is obtained. This design can be further complemented by sections with vertical zigzags. Stone plugs can also have embossed concentric circles on the cap, like a nipple in the center, four bulges around the circumference and one in the center, or a embossed cross.

Sometimes on the roof of a dolmen there are numerous small bowl-shaped depressions or holes scattered over the surface randomly or forming short rows and circles with crosses inside. Similar signs are also found on the side and front plates of dolmens. And also on separate stones near the dolmens, where they can also have a circle around them.

Some of the stone blocks that form the courtyard bear bulges on their surface - bosses. They do not have such a regular shape as those on the front plate. These are the remnants, preserved after the alignment of the entire plane of the wall. Whether they had any significance other than decorative is unknown.

There are also some simple engraved petroglyphic drawings on or near the dolmens. Their meaning is not yet clear, as well as the time of their application is unknown.

Recently, two plot engraved images were discovered on a dolmen in the village of Dzhubga: a scene with a man and animals and a struggle between two "twins". The second plot fully corresponds to the known images on the anthropomorphic steles of the Kemi-Oba culture. Perhaps the same plot is present on the triple hook from the Novosvobodnenskaya tomb.

Crypts with medieval Alanian burials in Karachay-Cherkessia, almost completely covered with wavy furrows and various symbols, stand apart. It is believed that it was the Alans who decorated the more ancient buildings. The so-called “royal mausoleum”, in which Christian motifs are already found, is especially distinguished by its plot images.

There are almost no dolmens in which there are traces of colorful painting in the chamber and on the facade. The poorly preserved coloring in the dolmen of the Silver Mound is now completely disfigured by vandals. And the color drawings in the two two-chamber Novosvobodnaya tombs represent an earlier culture.

List of some notable dolmens

Gallery

This voluminous and detailed article contains a lot of evidence in favor of the manufacture of most of the dolmens of the Caucasus using casting. How and where did the builders quarry huge masses of sandstone, how were they transported, how were the bas-relief signs made?

Almost all researchers considered dolmens to be burial structures. In many dolmens, the remains of people and animals with attributes of ritual burials were found. True, the finds found in the dolmens belong too much to different historical eras. From Neolithic stone scrapers and ceramics to Hellenic coins and medieval weapons. So, the question of the age of dolmens is still open. Approximately 1.5 thousand years BC. Dolmen culture has died out. Dolmens were no longer built. What happened to the people who built the dolmens is unknown.

Representatives of other cultures and peoples have used dolmens for thousands of years as places of worship and as burial chambers. That is, speaking in legal terms, all signs on which assumptions are made about the age of dolmens and their purpose are indirect.

The meager and ambiguous finds in the dolmens themselves and nearby give a very approximate, and sometimes controversial, idea of ​​the dolmen culture. It is very strange that, having such a perfect technology for the construction of places of worship, they did not use this technology in housing and military construction. We are completely unaware of the cultural foundation of the ethnic group that gave rise to dolmens, and on which these structures were "built".

In 1971 V.I. Markovin excavated the Deguaksko-Dakhovsky settlement, in which, according to his assumption, the builders of dolmens lived. These people were very poorly equipped technically. They did not know iron, the potter's wheel, loosened the earth with hoes, not knowing about the plow, already invented at that time in the East. The builders of dolmens lived, as evidenced by the excavation materials, in miserable adobe shacks. And yet, they created structures that amaze us, modern people. As Professor N.B. Anfimov in his introductory remarks to the book by V.I. Markovin "Dolmens of the Western Caucasus" "... So far, we must limit ourselves to hypotheses, since there is no indisputable evidence in favor of one or another theory about the origin of dolmens on our territory."

S.V. Valganov in his book "Dolmens of the Caucasus - Reconstruction of the Cult" also notes that during the excavations of the dolmens, neither tools nor technical devices were found, with the help of which these megalithic structures were erected. That is why we are so amazed by these mysterious megalithic structures, which give great scope for various parascientific fantasies, which flourished especially in the early 90s of the last century against the backdrop of a general passion for everything mysterious and esoteric.

A lot of hypotheses have appeared explaining the origin of dolmens, from cosmic to magical. But if we do not take into account the fabulous and esoteric assumptions, but rely only on scientific facts, then dolmens (as a phenomenon) raise a number of questions to which we, for today, do not have answers.

The generally accepted point of view on how dolmens were built goes something like this: Ancient builders broke out stone slabs, transported them to the future construction site, processed them, giving them the shape of future structural elements of the dolmen, and assembled the dolmen perfectly fitting the slabs to each other. But it is precisely this generally accepted point of view about how dolmens were built that does not provide answers to the important details of the construction of dolmens in the early Bronze Age.

1. How and where did the builders quarry huge blocks of sandstone of the required size?

In the literature, many authors mention ancient quarries, in which the building elements of future dolmens were cut down. Here is how, according to Yu.N. Voronov, stone was split. “ The slabs were broken out, probably, with the help of wooden pegs driven into pits hollowed out according to a contour drawn on the surface of the rock in advance. The pegs were poured with water: when they swelled, they broke off slabs of the required size"(Voronov, 1979, p. 51.).

We examined several places indicated by local historians as "ancient quarries" in the area of ​​the village of Pshada in the Gelendzhik region, the village of Stone Quarry in the Tuapse region, the village of Erivan in the Abinsk region and others. We did not find any signs of quarries there. In fact, these were natural sandstone outcrops. True, these sandstone outcrops were not quite ordinary. And that's what makes them unique.

So, the sandstone outcrops, which were pointed out by local historians, as ancient quarries, did not have a layered structure characteristic of sedimentary rocks, but were bizarre massifs with signs of flows and covers. As if the “sandy lava” was erupted and solidified. We will talk about this in more detail a little later. And now back to the “ancient quarries”.

It has been suggested that the traces of stone splitting could be erased (eroded) over time. But after all, convex drawings on the portals of dolmens (petroglyphs) are only a few millimeters high. And despite this, the past millennia have not erased them from the stone. Traces of stone splitting are much rougher, but they are not.

Some researchers of dolmens suggest that the builders found the slabs necessary for the construction of dolmens ready and they only had to deliver them to the construction site and process them "in place".

In fact, among the layers of marl, there are layers of sandstone of suitable thickness. But, firstly, layers of suitable sizes (approximately 2 x 3 meters) are extremely rare. Secondly, the problem of transporting stone slabs over mountains and gorges, no less complicated than chopping stone, arises in the absence of roads over long distances. The processing of these plates to the desired size and fitting among themselves remain inexplicable.

Currently, about 2,300 dolmens have been described in the Western Caucasus. According to some researchers, in fact, there could be about 30,000 of them. On average, the weight of a composite dolmen (a dolmen consists of 6 slabs - 4 side ones, a heel stone and a cover slab) is 15-30 tons. Although there are dolmens, in which only one cover plate weighs about 20 tons. The amount of sandstone mined required for the construction of one dolmen, taking into account production and transport waste, should be approximately 40-60 tons. Consequently, on the territory of the Western Caucasus there should be quarries as ancient as dolmens with a total productivity of 1,200,000 - 1,800,000 tons. The calculations are rough. But this is a whole industry in the Early Bronze Age and there are no traces of such production.

The question of where the ancient builders could take huge stone blocks from remains unanswered.

2. How were multi-ton blocks transported to the construction site of the dolmen in the absence of roads in the mountainous area?

The builders of dolmens faced a complex and far from trivial transport problem. How to deliver multi-ton stone blocks to the construction site of a dolmen in mountainous conditions in the absence of roads? V.I. Markovin suggests that it was like this: "... But here the slabs in their raw form are cut down. They must be brought to the place. And with the help of rollers (of the same shape as logs), ropes, human and bullish strength, they dragged the material to the chosen corner where the dolmen would be erected. The method is very ancient."(Markovin, 1985, p. 61.)

Despite the simplicity of the described method, it is not so simple. A road is needed to transport a multi-ton stone block. The road as an engineering structure that creates a plane in the mountainous terrain, along which it is possible to move large-sized, multi-ton blocks without the threat of lateral slipping and without an excessively steep angle of ascent.

Markovin in his book “Ispun. Notes on the dolmens of the Western Caucasus” writes: “ You can name only one point, the village of Ulyai, where stone slabs were brought from afar, no less than 40-50 km from the rocky outcrops to build a dolmen. Usually, the construction material extraction sites are located at most 10-15 km nearby.”.

In addition, the road surface must be strong and level enough to allow rollers (approximately 20 cm in diameter) to be rolled on it, on which multi-ton blocks are laid. Just an earthen or clay surface will not work. Log rollers will simply be pressed into the ground in multi-ton blocks.

For example, in ancient Egypt and Greece, when transporting stone blocks in this way, they paved the road with stone slabs. Surrounded by most dolmens, there are no traces of roads, and they stand in very inaccessible places. How, then, were multi-ton slabs delivered tens of kilometers away?

3. How and with what tools were stone blocks processed?

It is generally accepted that stone blocks are cut from a stone massif. Then they are given the necessary form, which has certain proportions and dimensions, determined by the size of the entire dolmen as a whole and the dimensions of the adjoining plates in particular (side plate, cover plate, portal plate, back plate). Why are there no traces of stone splitting and processing on the outer surfaces of stone blocks and their ends?

Markovin's book “Dolmens of the Western Caucasus” contains a photograph of a stone slab prepared for splitting (photo 1.). The photo clearly shows that the holes are not drilled (not round). Markovin suggests that they were hollowed out with bronze or even stone tools. Further, Markovin gives descriptions and sketches of several such wedge-shaped tools found by him. The tool blade is approximately 5 cm wide, 1.5-2 cm thick (photo 3).

The dimensions of the notches and the tool are close, but it is not possible to gouge notches 6-7 cm deep in the stone with such a tool. But it would be easy to prick or press such “notches in soft clay with stone or even wooden tools.

But the most interesting thing is that such traces of splitting plates are not found anywhere else. The slabs from which the dolmens are composed do not bear traces of splitting by a similar method. The outer surface of the slabs, ends, corners look like natural stone or poured concrete (more on that later).

Here is how this process is described by V.I. Markovin "... wedge-shaped stone and bronze tools were used. They are well polished and resemble the knives of our planes. Traces of their work are visible on the walls of many trough-shaped dolmens. Their blade had a width of 3-4 cm. Grinding chimes completed the work: rounded stones, with a wider working part (base). They brought the plates to the desired cleanliness and smoothness"(Markovin, 1985, p. 61.).

As you can see, even this single example does not provide answers to the question “How were stone blocks processed, with what tools?”. Stone cutting technologies became available to people only when they reached a certain level of organization of society - the state. It is not possible for a tribe to do this. These are the conditions of the technological process of stone processing.

4. How did you achieve ultra-precise fitting of multi-ton blocks along curvilinear joints?

The front and back plates of the tiled dolmen are, as it were, clamped in special grooves between the side plates. The same grooves are arranged in the heel stone and on the cover plate. The mating of the end surfaces of the plates and grooves is ideal and not at all straight-line. The degree of conjugation is especially striking in well-preserved composite dolmens (for example, a dolmen on Mount Neksis and on the Zhane River near Gelendzhik (see photo). each other, and the line of conjugation could not take such an ideal shape.

An example of the fact that pairing blocks with such accuracy is a difficult and often impossible task is an attempt to transport a perfectly preserved dolmen to Esheri, described in the book "Monuments of Primitive Art" by A. Formozov. "In 1960, it was decided to transport some dolmen from Esheri to Sukhumi - to the courtyard of the Abkhaz Museum. They chose the smallest one and brought a crane to it. No matter how the steel cable loops were fixed to the cover plate, it did not move. They called the second crane "Two cranes removed a multi-ton monolith, but they were unable to lift it onto a truck. Exactly a year, the roof of Esheri waited for a more powerful mechanism to arrive in Sukhumi. In 1961, with the help of this mechanism, all the stones were loaded onto vehicles. But the main thing was ahead: to assemble the house again. The reconstruction was only partially carried out. The roof was lowered on four walls, but they could not turn it so that their edges entered the grooves on the inner surface of the roof. In ancient times, the plates were fitted to each other so much that the knife blade between them crawled through. Now there is a big gap left."

An attempt to reconstruct a round dolmen on the Zhane River was also not entirely successful. Despite repeated attempts by archaeologists to assemble ready-made blocks of a collapsed composite dolmen, they were not crowned with success. Between the blocks there were gaps of several centimeters.

Here is a very recent example. In 2007, in Gelendzhik, in an amusement park on the top of the ridge, they decided to build a dolmen to attract tourists. Several slabs were taken from real but long-destroyed dolmens. They brought the missing slabs of heel and cover stones. invited an experienced archaeologist from Novorossiysk A.V. Dmitriev. In 2000, under his leadership, a group of dolmens was reconstructed in the area of ​​​​the village of Vasilievka near Novorossiysk. The slabs were processed and adjusted by specialists using modern construction power tools. When loading, transporting and assembling, a crane and a powerful truck were used, which lifted the slabs along the logging road to the top of the ridge (more than 700 m). According to all the rules and in compliance with the proportions, the marking and adjustment of the plates, future grooves and mating planes were carried out. On the plates, traces of fitting to the grooves are visible. But despite this, the newly built dolmen does not even have a hint of such a pairing of plates as we see in ancient dolmens. The gaps between the plates are several centimeters.

Compare a similar fragment of a dolmen on Mount Neksis (photo below). The photo shows the same structural elements - the junction of the cover plate with the portal plate and the right side plate. the fit is just perfect, and after all, at least 3-4 thousand years have passed (maybe more) since the construction of this dolmen.

Outwardly, “Dolmen-2007” looks exactly like a typical Caucasian dolmen. But the technology of its manufacture is completely different. These two dolmens are not related. It is also possible that nothing connects other doolmens of Europe, India, Africa, Israel, Korea. Or maybe on the contrary, someone from the bottom is “relatives”.

How at the beginning of the Bronze Age, in the absence of special construction equipment (although, as we see from the example of Ashery and Gelendzhik, it does not solve everything), the builders achieved ultra-precise adjustment of multi-ton blocks? A question to which scientists and specialists studying dolmens have no answer today.

5. How were convex (bas-relief) signs made on some plates?

The volume of work to create such a bas-relief is huge and requires the possession of complex stone processing technology and certain technical equipment. The possession of such technology of stone processing is possible with a certain development of production forces and production relations. And we have the beginning of the Bronze Age, tribal relations, the number of the tribe is 40-60 people. According to the calculations of the Soviet archaeologist V.P. Pachulia one dolmen should be built by up to 150 people within 1 to 2 years (Pachulia, 1961, p.61).

150 strong men, specialists in road construction, stone extraction in quarries, masons builders. How many men and women had to be engaged in hunting, cattle breeding, defense and maintenance of the entire economic infrastructure to provide the builders with everything they needed. This is possible only in a society with a state structure.

Many researchers mention bronze tools that were supposedly used in stone processing (Voronov, Markovin). But it is impossible to chop a stone with a bronze tool, even in the form of a scarpel (a chisel for splitting a stone) and not a planer knife. Bronze is too soft for that. And using a bronze tool for grinding stone is not economically viable. First, bronze was rare and quite expensive at that time. Secondly, taking into account the abrasive properties of sandstone, the tool would wear out rather quickly, and it would take tens of kilograms of expensive and rare bronze tools for that time to grind one dolmen. On the stone blocks of dolmens, inside dolmens, between perfectly fitted slabs, we would see green traces of copper oxides. But we don't see them.

During the excavations of dolmens, neither tools nor technical devices were found with the help of which these megalithic structures were erected. We do not see any traces of the alleged dolmen construction technology. We do not know how ancient people built dolmens.

6. How did it arise and why, after almost one and a half thousand years, did this grandiose culture disappear, leaving us a legacy of thousands of dolmens in the vast territory of the Western Caucasus?

As early as the beginning of the 19th century, scientists suggested that the Caucasus (Circassia) was that part of the world through which dolmens from India (and they are there) spread in two branches across the Mediterranean and Northern Europe. There is a hypothesis that the builders of dolmens belonged to a single people of seafarers.

In our opinion, such assumptions are speculative and are not based on facts. The scientists who made this assumption unite all megaliths by kinship without taking into account important details. Let us recall what Professor N.B. Anfimov in his introductory remarks to the book by V.I. Markovin "Dolmens of the Western Caucasus" "... So far, we must limit ourselves to hypotheses, since there is no indisputable evidence in favor of one or another theory about the origin of dolmens on our territory."

The spread of dolmens is not only the spread of an ideology or a religious concept. This is also the spread of dolmen construction technology, i.e. the institute of mining engineers, architects, masons, civil engineers, bearers of ideology - priests - should be exported. To export such a complex infrastructure, a certain level of organization of society is needed - the state.

In addition, the dolmens of India and the dolmens of Europe and the dolmens of Africa are completely different and cannot be compared with the dolmens of the Caucasus. Most often, these are megaliths, represented by menhirs, cromlechs and burial chambers. And the only thing they have in common is the structural elements - huge boulders, installed in a certain (dictated by a certain ritual) way. Caucasian dolmens are also a ritual space organized in some way, but to trace the technological genesis between them, northern seids, menhirs and Indian cult structures, however, are not possible. The four types of dolmens given at the beginning of the article are different in design, but their ideological relationship is obvious. Portal with a low-lying manhole, portal ledges, overhanging cover plate and ultra-precise fit of plates.

E. Tyler in his book " Primitive culture" claims that "... the need of man to increase his knowledge is inherent in him by nature and is expressed in attempts to explore and interpret what he perceives. If knowledge is not enough, he uses familiar images and connections to explain the unknown. Use is also subject to certain laws, and these laws are the same for people of any race and in any place. Therefore, among peoples completely unrelated to each other, the same ideas arise, which are clothed in the form of similar rituals and myths. This gives food for all sorts of parallels, completely unrelated to the actual development of events”.

But the Caucasian dolmens differ from the dolmens of other areas precisely in the ultra-precise fitting of stone slabs. Those. a distinctive and characteristic feature of the dolmens of the Western Caucasus is precisely the technology of their manufacture. The technology is complex, providing that the builders have certain scientific knowledge, tools, mechanisms that have not yet been discovered during excavations. The technology is extremely unusual and unlike anything else.

It is even more incomprehensible why such a perfect technology, which has existed and developed for one and a half thousand years, suddenly disappeared without a trace, without being embodied in domestic and military buildings? Why did the builders of dolmens, possessing the technology of stone processing, practically do not decorate them, with the exception of very rare zigzag patterns and triangular ornaments, and even rarer petroglyphs?

When studying dolmens, we were most struck by such a constructive and ideological contradiction, on the one hand, the very design of the dolmen and its aesthetic concept are very reminiscent of children's sand or plasticine structures, naive and uncomplicated, self-sufficient by the very fact of their occurrence. On the other hand, it is striking that the multi-ton slabs that make up the dolmens are fitted to each other with such unique accuracy. With such a jewelry processing of joints, the plates themselves, especially the outer surfaces and non-joint ends, are processed very roughly, or rather, they are not processed at all.

At the same time, there are very interesting technological elements on the structural elements of dolmens, the occurrence of which cannot be explained by the process of processing and fitting stone. Below we will give photographs of frequently encountered structural elements of dolmens.

The cover plate of the dolmen has the appearance of a natural stone with the texture of a frozen mortar with sloping edges and corners. On the lower face of the cover plate, one can often observe a clear boundary formed according to the principle of spreading of the plastic mass over a solid horizontal surface. The end of the slab has a rounded shape and does not show signs of splitting or stone processing.

In large cover slabs, on the side faces, one can quite often observe a clear plane that has a pronounced border with the bordering plane. The upper surface of the slab (having no traces of processing) is rounded off and abruptly passes into the lateral plane. As if the solution was poured or laid in a formwork (for example, earthen).

A close examination of the dolmen slabs reveals a wide variety of traces of plastic deformation and mortar spreading. On the lower part of the cover slab in most dolmens, traces of sagging are visible (with the exception of those dolmens where the ceiling in the chamber is hewn) and landing recesses exactly corresponding to the edges of the upper ends of the slabs.

The side slabs of tiled dolmens (92% of all dolmens are tiled) have a characteristic lenticular shape in the section with a bulge outwards. The inner surface of the plate is absolutely flat. The ends of the slabs, which should have been cut down, processed and adjusted, have the appearance of a completely wild natural stone.

The quality of joining multi-ton stone blocks in dolmens is amazing. This is especially evident in the design of the composite dolmen on Mount Neksis. The joints between the blocks are curvilinear, but the blocks are exactly matched. The side blocks are L-shaped, they bend and pass from the side walls to the back wall, and there is not the slightest gap anywhere.

Features shown are not single artifacts. They can be observed on each dolmen with varying degrees of severity.

The emergence of such structural and technological elements could be easily explained by assuming that the elements of dolmens were made not by splitting and hewing stone, but by forming them from a plastic mass. The question is the existence of the most plastic mass in the Early Bronze Age.

It was not possible to find information about the possibility of creating an artificial stone in the Early Bronze Age. But the search for such a natural phenomenon turned out to be more successful and, as it seems to us, allows us to assume the reality of the existence of such a geological phenomenon in the past.

Some Answers

Recently, the attention of scientists has been attracted by rocks formed by the interaction of deep hydrothermal fluids with surface or near-surface rocks. Fluid flows through faults rise to the surface and impregnate the strata of sediments, often bringing the resulting mixture to the surface, where cementation occurs as a result of degassing, dehydration, and precipitation of compounds dissolved in the fluid. The rocks formed in this way are called fluidolites or fluid-explosive formations (FEO), (tuffizites, fluidizates, mud breccias). Fluidolites during their formation (movement, interaction with sedimentary strata) are plastic and even liquid masses that easily move along faults, impregnate porous sandstone layers and erupt to the surface.

Some scientists propose to single out fluidolites as a separate taxonomic unit of high rank - a special class of rocks. (site "]]> Fluidolites ]]> ")

Similar eruptions of fluidolites occurred earlier, several thousand years ago in the Caucasus. Traces of such eruptions occur in the Caucasus in the form of shapeless blocks of sandstone and limestone in many places.

For example, the rock mass Gray Monasteries. It is located near Novosadovy village on the northern slope of the main Caucasian ridge. The massif stretched for 3.5 km with the height of this sandy wall up to 50 meters. The maximum width of this wall is about 8 meters. This rock wall is located on the slope of a ridge composed of layers of marl and sandstone 15-30 cm thick. The direction of the marl layers does not agree with the direction of the Gray Monasteries rock massif.

Probably, a break occurred along the modern course of the Gray Monasteries rock mass many thousands of years ago. A fluidite mass rose from the depths along the fault to the surface, which was cemented into a sandy massif. Over time, the host rock collapsed and eroded, and the wall came to the surface. Such a geological formation is called a sand dike.

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Archaeologist Kondryakov N.V. together with his father Kondryakov V.M. in 1995 an interesting study was made. Looking for an answer to the question "... why there are no dolmens in the coastal part from the village of Dagomys to the Abkhazian river Khashupse, although there is enough building material." They plotted well-known dolmens on a topographic base at a scale of 1:100,000. information was transferred to the same map from the neotectonic map compiled at SKTGU in 1976 and the geological map of the USSR, namely, geological disturbances represented by thrusts, shifts, faults, etc. They were surprised to find that all the dolmens mapped by him and Teshev M.K. stand on the lines of the frontal parts of large thrusts and ruptures feathering to them (Kondryakov N.V. "Secrets of Sochi dolmens" 2002).

The presence of geological faults created conditions for the exit fluidolites to the surface. It was in these places that rocky outcrops of sandstone were formed on the surface (the Gray Monasteries tract near the village of Novosadovy, Gelendzhik region, the tract Novye Monastyri near the village of Novy Abinsk region, the area of ​​the village of Pshada, Shapsugskaya, on the Godlik River, the village of Volkonka, etc.).

Another interesting pattern has been revealed. Near each dolmen or their accumulation, there are necessarily outcrops of sandy shapeless blocks. By "shapeless" we mean not having a layered structure characteristic of sedimentary rocks. But having a massive texture, bearing traces of plastic deformation.

The soil near the dolmens and, most importantly, near the sandy blocks is always sandy-clayey. Sand blocks formed from fluidolite and sandy-argillaceous soil around are genetically related to each other. These are the same traces of "cold" eruptions, only with a different chemical composition of the cement.

These sand blocks are most often located directly near the dolmens. For example, on the Zhane River, the area of ​​​​the Stone Quarry (Tuapse district), the dolmens of the village of Pshada, on the Godlik River, the village of Novy, pos. Vasilievka, pos. Erivan, etc., etc. This is a kind of law. Near the dolmen there should be an exit of blocky (fluidogenic) sandstone.

The dolmen near the village of Shapsugsky stands on a ridge, but not far from it, literally 300 meters away, there is a rocky outlier (sandstone) Devil's finger and then a rocky ridge called the Shambhala tract. It is there, in the Shambhala tract, that there are unfinished (three) dolmens in the rock.

Dolmens on Mount Neksis stand on a ridge and there seem to be no boulders in the area. But on the northern side of Mount Neksis, there is the so-called "Park of Stones" consisting of just the same fluidogenic sandstone.

Construction technologies

When studying the technology of building dolmens, the location of dolmen groups and the features of sandstone outcrops, we formed a different, different from the generally accepted theory of building dolmens. The proposed theory gives quite logical answers to all the contradictions of the quarry point of view. Dolmens (individual structural elements) were cast or molded from a fluidogenic mass, which was squeezed out of the depths to the surface directly at the sites of geological faults (thrusts).

1. From this point of view, the builders of dolmens did not need to extract huge, multi-ton blocks of sandstone in quarries. The development of sandstone in quarries and its processing without iron tools is impossible. The construction was carried out in the immediate vicinity of the emerging ruptures and places where fluidolites were released to the surface.

2. Fluidolites were transferred from the place of allocation directly to the construction site of the dolmen in simple baskets, one by one or two. For this type of transportation, roads are not needed. Therefore, they are not near the dolmens.

3. To form the building elements of the future dolmen, the fluidolite was placed in an earthen formwork or the future element was directly formed (sculpted). The labor-intensive processing of stone blocks with bronze, which was very expensive and not strong enough for such work, was not needed. There were enough stone and even wooden scrapers.

4. Traces of slabs, which are visible on the inner surface of the dolmens and on the portal, could well have been left by stone, bronze and even wooden scrapers-spatulas. For work on plastic and not completely cemented fluidogenic mass, this tool would be quite enough.

5. So everyone's amazing ultra-precise fitting of multi-ton blocks along curvilinear joints is a natural property of molding or casting technology.

6. The application of convex signs and petroglyphs to the surface of the slabs is also a natural property of the molding or casting technology. But to make such a pattern with stone-cutting technology is extremely time-consuming.

7. Dolmen culture arose when active geological processes took place in this territory (or rather, they had already subsided), liquefied sandstones from many kilometers of sedimentary rocks were squeezed out through faults to the surface. Over time, geological activity in the region faded away, fluidolite outpourings ceased, and the dolmen culture died out, having lost the main building material — fluidolite. Then her traces disappeared in the whirlpool of the great migration of peoples.

So, let's try to describe the construction technology of the most common tiled dolmen.

If the fluidogenic mass was sufficiently plastic, then restrictive boards were formed to prevent its spreading from the ground. Those. again created an earthen formwork. Traces of these restrictive boards are visible on many dolmen roofs.

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Pshada. Eightolmen. The end face of the cover plate of the dolmen.

The top of the slab was covered with earth. It is possible that the dolmen stood in such a filled form for several months or years. In some cases, an earthen mound was formed into a cromlech, a portal was completed, a corridor was built using the same technology. The solution gained strength. Then it was necessary to dig out the portal. It was not difficult to polish the fluidolite, which had not yet completely hardened. Through the hole, the earth was removed from the dolmen (it is convenient to remove the earth through a low-lying hole) and that's it, the dolmen is ready. Most likely, the dolmen remained inside the mound. The dolmen plug was made later, locally, from the same fluidogenic mass.

Let's see how the bas-relief was cast. The soil that was used as formwork was clayey. That part of the formwork that formed the outer surface of the portal, the dolmen builders plastered with clay and then “sculpted” or squeezed out the contour of the future bas-relief, or, more correctly, the counter-relief. Then everything is as usual. The inner part of the formwork was formed and the fluidogenic mass was poured. After grouting, the portal was dug out and the bas-relief is ready.

Particular attention should be paid to portals with a herringbone pattern. Portals with such a pattern are rare. But more often than dolmens with a bas-relief.

In the area of ​​st. Erivan, at the confluence of the Kruchen-nogo stream into the Abin River, is the "City of Dolmens". The outer surface of the portal slab has a design in the form of a herringbone ornament. In the lower part of the slab, right under the manhole, the drawing is especially well preserved. Upon careful examination, it is clear that the “herringbone” on the stone was not applied with a piercing tool, but as if squeezed out or cast. There is every reason to believe that the herringbone pattern is an imprint of a fabric roughly woven from bark or grass, similar to matting. (Mattling is a coarse household fabric. Initially, it was made from the fibers of the cattail plant (hence the name), and later from bast (linden bark). From such fabric, elk, matting bags, floor mats, etc. were made. .).

The outer wall of the formwork was lined with this fabric and PGCM was poured. Here is the imprint of this "matting" we observe on the portals.

Unfortunately, the volume of the brochure does not allow showing and describing all casting artifacts. They are very numerous and, upon closer examination, are found in every dolmen. True, erosive processes that proceed extremely unevenly often greatly change the original appearance of stone blocks.

Now let's briefly describe the construction technology of composite dolmens. They were built in much the same way as tile ones. During the construction of composite dolmens, a heel stone was made, then an earthen formwork was poured and a fluidogenic mass was placed in it. The size of the poured blocks, apparently, was determined by the amount of the extracted solution, or its quality (setting time), as well as the time of delivery from the source to the construction site. The connecting seams were perfect, and the shape of the blocks could be the most bizarre. Consider the L-shaped blocks of the composite dolmen on Mount Neksis, the block from the side wall goes to the back. Between themselves, the blocks are joined along curvilinear seams, but at the same time very tightly, without gaps.

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Rear and side walls of a composite dolmen on Mount Neksis.

Consider the L-shaped blocks of the composite dolmen on Mount Neksis, the block from the side wall goes to the back. Between themselves, the blocks are joined along curvilinear seams, but at the same time very tightly, without gaps. In the dolmen complex on the Zhane River (three dolmens in the meadow behind the apiary), the two outermost dolmens are round. The left dolmen is without a roof, perfectly round. Blocks of different thicknesses are absolutely exactly, without the slightest gaps, docked together. The inner surface of the chamber is polished after assembly.

The right dolmen is almost intact, but there are large gaps between the blocks left after the reconstruction. In the 60s, the dolmen was destroyed. In 2001, the expedition of the Institute of the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg), led by Viktor Anatolyevich Trifonov, reconstructed these dolmens. Specifically, the right dolmen was shifted several times, but they were not satisfied with the assembly, because. could not fully restore the original conjugation of blocks.

As you can see, history in Ashery repeated itself on the Zhane River. It turned out to be impossible to make ready-made, fitted blocks without gaps, despite the fact that specialists armed with modern technology were engaged in the reconstruction.

Semi-monolithic (trough-shaped) dolmens are of two types. Some dolmens are relatively small in size, standing separately. Other semi-monolithic dolmens were carved directly in sandy rocks or in huge sandy blocks. This implies two different approaches to the technology of construction of semi-monolithic dolmens.

Semi-monolithic dolmens of a relatively small size, standing separately, were presumably built in the following way. They poured a mound. In the barrow, they dug a hole corresponding in shape to the future dolmen. Filled the bottom - the base. On the base, the future inner space of the dolmen was formed from the earth and the walls with portal protrusions and a manhole were continued to be poured. The roof was poured on top. After cementation of the PGCM, a portal was dug out, a mortgage was taken out of the manhole and the earth was removed from the dolmen.

Semi-monolithic dolmens in rocks and huge boulders were built differently. Huge non-solidified masses formed in the places of the PGCM eruption. In the unhardened sandy-clay massif, they raked (“scraped out”) the chamber of the future dolmen, the manhole and the portal. Then, after cementing the workpiece, the chamber was covered with earth and the lid was poured on top. Further as usual. removed the earth through the manhole and the dolmen is ready.

It should be noted that monolithic dolmens were also built using the same technique. Those. a portal was carved in the sandy rock, a manhole in the portal and through the manhole the unhardened PGCM was already taken out, forming a chamber of a dolmen chamber.

It is interesting to consider the stages and technology of building monolithic dolmens on the example of an unfinished dolmen near the village of Shapsugskaya (Abinsk district), a recently opened monolithic dolmen near the village of Erivan (Abinsk district) and a monolithic dolmen on the Godlik river (Lazarevsky district).

An unfinished dolmen near the village of Shavsugskaya Above along the ridge from the Shapsugsky dolmen. The rock is processed under the portal from two sides. From the south and from the east (in the photo, the southern manhole is on the left, the eastern one is on the right).

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Unfinished monolithic dolmen near st. Shapsugskaya.

South portal on the left. East portal on the right.

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Most likely, several millennia ago, a fracture of primary sedimentary pores occurred at this place (the mountain is composed of marl and mudstone). PGCM came to the surface. Local residents decided to make a monolithic dolmen. they carved one portal, began to make a hole, but the PGCM froze faster than they expected and they were forced to abandon the idea. But, as we mentioned earlier, PGCM is not homogeneous in composition, and on the other side of the knotted sand block, the mass solidified more slowly, and they decided to try to make a dolmen from this side. The portal was again carved and the future hole was outlined. Having a negative experience with the construction of the previous manhole, we decided to test the pliability of the material in depth with a stick (you can use a staff for romantics). At a depth of 55 cm, the stick came across a hard sandstone block in the depths. construction was stopped.

If you look at the photo. 50. then to the right and a little lower there is another prepared portal but without a manhole. Apparently another attempt to make a monolithic dolmen ended in failure. Reason - PGCM cemented too quickly.

This rocky ridge is also interesting because, having passed across the ridge, it ends with the rocky outcrop “Devil's Finger” (sandstone), behind which, along the line of the ridge, there are two mud volcanoes.

Now let's consider a monolithic dolmen in the area of ​​​​the village of Erivan. Apparently, during its construction, a clay landslide came down from above and filled up the entire portal of the future dolmen. He was found on April 14, 2007. His camera is very small, but it is a camera. In the photo you can see the very first camera shot of this dolmen. There are no traces of chisels and greenery from oxidized copper, which is part of bronze, on the walls. We clearly see traces of plastic and volumetric excavations of the sand mass. They go in an arc i.e. along the radius of the camera. The footprints look like they were digging in damp sand.

True, a year later someone tried to dig into the walls of the chamber and left fresh scratches and chips on them.

The famous monolithic dolmen on the Godlik River. A feature of this dolmen (besides the fact that it is monolithic) is the discrepancy between the dimensions of the portal (height 1.9, width 5.1 m) and the dimensions of the chamber (see section in the photo). The chamber is small (width -160, length - 190, height -94 cm) and has rounded outlines like in a dolmen near the village of Erivan. Apparently, here, too, the setting time of PGCM was quite fast compared to the speed of construction work. Although, presumably, it was measured in weeks.

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In the mountains of the Caucasus, somewhere between the cities of Gelendzhik, Tuapse, Novorossiysk and Sochi, there are hundreds of megalithic monuments, which are called dolmens here. The age of all these megalithic dolmens dates back to approximately 10,000 - 25,000 years, and today both Russian and Western archaeologists argue what they were intended for.

There is no single point of view about dolmens in the Caucasus - some archaeologists believe that the age of these megalithic structures is actually from 4000 to 6000 years. Thousands of prehistoric megalithic monuments are known all over the world, but those located on the territory of the former Soviet Union (including the Caucasus) are little known in the West.

Dolmens are mainly located in the Western Caucasus (in Russia and Abkhazia) on both sides of the mountain range, covering an area of ​​approximately 12,000 square kilometers. Caucasian dolmens are a unique type of prehistoric architecture - structures created from perfectly fitted cyclopean stone blocks. For example, there are stones in the form of a bull "G", which were used on the corners of dolmens, or stones in the form of a perfect circle.

Although such "fragments of the ancient era" are generally unknown in Western Europe, these Russian megaliths are no less significant for science than the megaliths discovered in Europe - both in terms of age and in terms of the quality of architecture. And the most amazing thing is that their origin is still unknown. Scientists note that despite the diversity of Caucasian stone structures, they show a striking resemblance to megaliths from different parts of Europe and Asia (Iberian Peninsula, France, Great Britain, Ireland, Holland, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Israel and India).

A number of hypotheses have been put forward to explain this similarity, as well as speculation about the purpose of the construction of megaliths, but so far all this remains a mystery. At the moment, about 3000 such megalithic sites are known in the Western Caucasus, but new megaliths are constantly being found. At the same time, unfortunately, many of the Caucasian monoliths are in an extremely neglected state and will be completely lost if they are not protected from vandals and natural destruction.

Most of the megaliths, dolmens and stone labyrinths that are found in the Caucasus mountains (but they are little studied) look like rectangular structures made of stone slabs or carved into the rocks with round holes as an entrance inside. However, not all dolmens look like this. In fact, here you can find very diverse examples of architecture: multi-storey stone buildings, square, trapezoidal, rectangular and round.

Remarkably, in all such buildings on the facade there is a hole leading inside. Most often it is round, but sometimes square ones are also found. Also, stone “plugs” are often found in dolmens, with which the inlet was closed. Sometimes these stone plugs are phallic in shape. Inside the dolmen, there is most often a round platform, on which light fell through a round hole. Scientists believe that some rituals may have been performed at such sites. Such a platform was surrounded by large stone walls, sometimes more than a meter high.

It is in this area that archaeologists have found Bronze and Iron Age pottery that helped date these burials, as well as human remains, bronze tools, and jewelry made from silver, gold, and semi-precious stones. Usually, the repertoire of decorations for such graves is not very diverse. The most common are vertical and horizontal zigzags, triangles and concentric circles carved on stone blocks.

One of the most interesting megalithic complexes is a group of three dolmens, which is located on a hill above the Zhane River on the Black Sea coast in the Krasnodar Territory, not far from Russian Gelendzhik. This area has perhaps the largest concentration of all types of megalithic objects, including settlements and dolmens.

Photo: thelivingmoon.com
Sourced from ewao.com

General information about dolmens(from published sources)

Dolmens (from Bret. taol maen - stone table) - ancient burial and religious buildings belonging to the category of megaliths. Name"dolmens" comes from the appearance of structures common to Europe - a slab raised on stone supports, resembling a table.
In early archaeological works, the term"dolmens" was used as a collective name for megalithic chamber tombs.In English-language archaeological literature this the term is obsolete and is used for tombs whose original design cannot be determined, or non-standard types that do not fall into the category of gallery or corridor tombs. In French, the term"dolmens" is still popular. In Portugal, dolmens are usually called "antha", in Scandinavia - "röse"; these words are part of the names of local dolmens.In Russia, dolmens are traditionally called West Caucasian (now also Ural) stone tiled, composite and monolithic tombs. it title extends to similar structures in other regions of the world.
Dolmens are located mostly in North Africa (in Roknia), Western, Northern and Southern Europe.The largest number of dolmens(at least 30,000) found in Korea.In Russia, in the Western Caucasus there are also many dolmens. Dolmens were built at different times by people of different cultures. In Western Europe, active construction was carried out by the population belonging to the culture of "funnel-shaped cups", which got its name from the characteristic vessels they used. Stone for dolmens in Western Europe was often not cut down, but erratic boulders were used, transferred during the Ice Age from Scandinavia.
Caucasian dolmens were created during the Early and Middle Bronze Age from the 3rd-2nd millennium BC and were used until the 1st millennium BC. e. during the existence dolmen culture (see below) .
In the simplest version dolmen - this is one stone placed on several others (sometimes on one). The stones are large and heavy. The most popular option is 3 stones set in the shape of the letter P (Stonehenge is built from a variety of just such elements).In the most architecturally complete form (which is inherent in the dolmens of the North Caucasus), the dolmen consists of five or six stone slabs and is a stone closed box: on four slabs, placed vertically, lies the fifth; optionally, the sixth plate is the bottom. In the front transverse slab, as a rule, there is a hole - round (most often), oval, arched, subtriangular or square, which is closed with a stone plug - however, it may not be there (false portal dolmen): in this case, the hole may be behind or on the side. The plates are often connected in a groove, there are practically no gaps. Side walls and roof dolmens they can protrude forward of the portal or facade, forming a portal niche, which was covered by a common roof or had a ceiling from a separate slab.
A dolmen could be arranged on the surface of the earth and a mound was poured over it, which later often fell and was destroyed; or at the top of the mound. Sometimes dolmens took a more complex form: for example, they were connected to a narrower corridor of standing slabs, or they were arranged in the form of a large rectangular chamber, in one of the longitudinal sides of which an entrance with a corridor was made (so that the whole structure looked like the letter T), or, finally , the dolmen turned into a series of longitudinal chambers following one after another, sometimes more and more expanding and deepening into the ground. The material from which the dolmens were made varies depending on the area: granite, sandstone, limestone.
The main function for dolmens of all types is funerary, which is confirmed by archaeological research.Fragments of ceramics, flint axes, arrowheads, amber beads were found in the dolmens, but only a few human remains - they were poorly preserved in sandy soil. Sometimes, judging by the found shards, the number of ceramic vessels reached 600. If we assume that there were two or three vessels with food for each deceased, then quite a lot of people were probably buried in some graves.

The orientation of dolmens on the ground is different, but, as a rule, it fits into the arc of sunrise-sunset and the culmination of heavenly bodies northeast-south-northwest. Only single monuments are directed to the north ... observations at individual monuments (the Psynako-1 complex, a dolmen with a cromlech of the "Wolf Gates" group, a dolmen with a sight "Mamedova Shchel") showed that they mark the points of sunrise and sunset on the days of solstices and equinoxes(M. Kudin "Dolmens and Ritual". Sochi local historian, issue 4. Sochi, 1999.). Such observations may be an indirect confirmation of the assumption that the builders of the dolmens were not alien to the solar cult.