Cove (menhirs)

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The longstones
Castlerigg stone circle with cove

Cove is a term coined by the British antiquarian William Stukeley (1687-1765) for groups of large plate-shaped menhirs from the Stone and Bronze Ages in Great Britain . These upright stone slabs are mostly rectangular or square and occur within Henges , but also in stone rows and stone circles . There are usually three, sometimes even four, orthostats that enclose an angular or approximately square area. They are reminiscent of dolmens , but have no capstone and are open at the top. Their original function is unknown.

British examples are:

  • Avebury in Wiltshire with two coves
    • Avebury Cove, near the center of the north inner stone circle, originally consisted of three large menhirs, two of which have been preserved
    • Beckhampton Cove, which includes the larger of the two longstones also known as "Adam and Eve"; the smaller stone is possibly the remainder of a row of stones, as William Stukeley suggested as early as 1724
  • Callanish on the Isle of Lewis has a cove within the Callanish III stone circle
  • Mount Pleasant Henge in Dorset
  • Stanton Drew in Somerset , made up of three large stones, 300 m from the largest of the three stone circles
  • The Stones of Stenness on Orkney probably contain a cove, which was reconstructed as a dolmen in 1907 , but has since been destroyed again
  • Castlerigg near Keswick (Cumbria) is also viewed by Aubrey Burl (1926-2020) as a variant of a cove, although the rectangular structure, open on one side, consists of ten stones

literature

  • Aubrey Burl: Coves: Structural Enigmas of the Neolithic. In: The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 82, 1988, ISSN  0262-6608 , pp. 1-18.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Megaliths at Avebury put upright again BBC report of June 4, 2003
  2. ^ Mark Gillings, Joshua Pollard, and David Wheatley: Excavations at the Beckhampton Enclosure, Avenue and Cove, Avebury: an interim report on the 2000 season. The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, 95-96, pp. 249-258, 2002
  3. ↑ The Longstones with Stukeley's drawing from 1724, which shows Beckhampton Cove still undamaged
  4. ↑ Calanais III (photos)
  5. ↑ Stanton Drew - The Cove Photos
  6. ↑ Rodney Castleden: The Stonehenge People: an exploration of life in Neolithic Britain, 4700-2000 BC. Routledge, 1st edition, 1987, p. 146, ISBN 0-710-20968-1
  7. ^ Aubrey Burl: Coves: Structural Enigmas of the Neolithic. The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, 82, pp. 1-18, 1988, p. 11