Access to megalithic sites

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Urdolmen approaches A – D
Dolmen access and passage grave plan
Passage grave entrances and soul hole
The acute-angled approach (2)
Access with hinges

The megalithic entrance is an architectural design feature that can penetrate to the designation. The megalithic systems of the funnel beaker culture (TBK) and the related cultures in Central and Northern Europe have no entrances (they are originally not accessible), but rather entrances that can usually only be overcome by crawling.

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

Most of the dolmens are open; a (movable) locking stone or references to other stone or wooden locking variants are not available in Germany or Northern Europe. However, the design of the access to some buildings shows the endeavor to close the grave in such a way that the interior remains accessible even after a long period of time. For this purpose, the Nordic megalithic architecture , the Wartberg culture and the Horgen culture used some variants that are found in the international megalithic area in a similar form or little changed.

No matter how sophisticated the individual solutions were, they all had one thing in common: to be able to lock the system in such a way that it could be opened again under conditions that were difficult but manageable by the user community (without specialists).

Access types

Basically, the following forms can be distinguished:

near Urdolmen (top picture)

  • A) no access
  • B) Access from above
  • C) half-height end stone
  • D) shoulder-high half stone (with a coaxially forward passage) in dolmens

at dolmens etc. (lower pictures)

  1. the angled (axial or coaxial) access each with a pre-built passage (lower picture)
  2. the acute-angled passage (common in Sweden, but also found in France; for example at the Allée couverte of Giraumont in the Ardennes)
  3. the lintel; represented almost everywhere
  4. the (low) corridor placed in front of a portal (e.g. Angevin type (also called Loire type)), in gallery graves and stone boxes
  5. the round or oval soul hole (also with locking stone; as found in Guiry-en-Vexin , Le Guilliguy and Degernau )

for large dolmen (no picture)

Variant 2 has its main focus in the Swedish Bohuslän ( Dolmen of Haga ). The two stones forming the entrance were selected or worked in such a way that they together form a triangular entrance (top left). This form, which replaces the door lintel, is also found in northern France ( Allée couverte de Giraumont ) and in the Languedoc-Roussillon region , e.g. B. at the dolmen of Rascassols , which is located near Saint-Hippolyte-du-Fort in the southern French department of Gard .

The lintel , variant 3, in which an overhanging element compensates for the distance to the ceiling slab via two lower supporting stones and enables access via a trilith (top center), is used throughout the Nordic megalithic architecture with a low corridor in front.

In the case of portal-like openings in the chamber wall, which are created by omitting a beam-high supporting stone (lower picture above and below right), a forward corridor ensures that the access cross-section is reduced. The seven stone houses are an example of this type of construction . "Chambers without a (verifiable) passage" are also found in Schleswig-Holstein and the Netherlands . In the Netherlands (Province of Drenthe ), where this form is common, it is the seamless systems as portal tombs, otherwise known as tomb portal a subspecies of the British Isles form and structurally nothing in common with the continental systems.

Variant 2 is close to the so-called soul hole (bottom left), which creates a mostly round access by picking out the front panel or, as shown in the picture, by two panels (generally divided vertically - but there are also horizontally divided soul holes in Russia). The panels consisted of a material that allows processing with timely means / methods. This variant occurs in Central Europe in the facilities of the Wartberg culture and the Horgen culture in Baden-Württemberg , France ( Allée couverte von Corn-er-Houët ) and Switzerland ( Dolmen of the Schwörstadt type ). Some Swedish so-called megalithic stone boxes also have soul holes. The name came about because of the erroneous assumption that the holes were created with the intention of letting the soul of the deceased (in the mind of the builder) escape.

The dolmen of Ala-Safat on the Golan in Syria has a square soul hole. In Bronze Age and Iron Age structures in Sardinia and on the Iberian Peninsula, there is a similar, narrow, apse-like, (step-shaped - also called furnace hole entrance) opening (dolmen of Castillejo, La Peña de los Gitanos of the Montefrio dolmen), possibly with an embedded closure plate to find.

Another feature is that there is a so-called threshold stone in the area of ​​the ground level entrances . It separates the profane corridor from the sacred space. In some cases it is used to support the locking device (plate). Otherwise, on the opposite side, between the supporting stones of the corridor, instead of the intermediate masonry, door stones (English jamb stones) are inserted, which hold the locking plates. In some, presumably early, installations, the closure consisted of rolling stones or field stones. In the case of some sunken ancient dolmen and the Irish portal tomb , the threshold stone is so high that, as a half-height end stone, it enables access above and is at the same time part of the chamber jacket.

Access design

Closure device with side panels - seen from above
  • The aisle width and height seldom have major deviations between the beginning and the confluence with the chamber. Usually the passage is evenly wide, in some cases the outer confluence is narrow, while the passage becomes a little wider towards the chamber. In Swedish passage graves one can sporadically find graves next to the evenly wide passage, where the entrance to the chamber is narrower than the rest of the passage. Danish passage graves have both equally wide and funnel-shaped passages.
  • In the entrance area, the aisle is sometimes lower than at the transition to the chamber, where it can almost reach the chamber height. At Gillhög there is a height difference of about half a meter between the first and last pair of stones in the Ganges. In Carlshögen the overhang is missing from the last two outer stone pairs and in Ramshög the entire outer half of the corridor is uncovered.

Locking devices and frames

Occasionally, plates were found inside the chamber that could have served as a locking device. In systems, the corridors of which were finally used as a chamber extension and were therefore paved, you will find door post and threshold stones at both ends of the corridor (sometimes in between) . In the large stone grave of Katelbogen , a complete locking device with a link guide and a door panel that can be pushed in from above is preserved at the inner transition to the chamber. In Katelbogen, a double frame (link guide) for guiding the door panel to be lowered from above was created by inserting a second upper plate and a double threshold stone. There was probably something like that in the passage graves 1 and 2 of Gnewitz, as well as in Liepen 1, as the pairs of threshold stones at the entrance to the chamber show. In the passage grave 2 of Liepen, there was a much wider central section in the 5.0 m longest passage in Mecklenburg. It is separated from the beginning and end of the aisle, which is 1.5 m long and 0.8 m wide, by a door frame, so that the middle section looks like a wider anteroom to the chamber. In the passage grave Särslöv No. 4, a whole door frame with post stones, overlying stone slab and threshold stone was found. According to Gustav AT Rosenberg (1872–1940), doorpost stones in passage graves are more common on the Danish islands than in Jutland; however, as in Skåne, they occur in complexes of various forms.

Alignment

The main corridor alignment of Schleswig-Holstein with dolmens and corridor graves covers about a semicircle. It begins roughly in the south-west and runs over the south, south-east and east in a somewhat decreasing sequence for passage graves and increasing for dolmens to the north-east, which is not quite reached at 56.5 °. The main corridor alignment in dolmens and corridor graves in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (investigation by Ewald Schuldt ) also covers about a semicircle. To the south over 50, to the south-west and south-east (9 each) to the east 11. The west, north-west, north and north-east are represented 2 to 4 times. Access from the west or even north is rare, as is the case for example. B. show the passage grave of Tjæreby on Zealand and two other passage graves in Denmark.

See also

literature