BASIC INTRODUCTION OF ELEMENTS IN STONE AGE - HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE

1. ELEMENTS IN
PREHISTORIC
AGE

2. MENHIR :
● Menhir is an large single upright
monolith .
● It was made on Religious purpose.
● Menhirs' size can vary considerably, but
often taper toward the top.
● The word menhir was adopted from
French by 19th-century archaeologists.
● Sometimes thousands of these were
arranged in parallel ways.
● They can also be found individually as
monolith.

3. REMAINS OF MENHIR TODAY:
● Largest surviving menhir till today:
● Located in locmariaquer Brittany
● It is known as ‘LA GRAND MENHIR BRISE`’
[great broken menhir].
● Once it was nearly 20.6m [68ft].
● Now it lies in fractured four pieces, but it
would have weighed near 330 tonnes
when intact

4. ● THESE ARE THE MEGALITHS AROUND ALL THE WORLD
Frostatinget bautasten. Menhir in Sardinia
The Kerloas menhir , tallest
standing menhir in Brittany Punchestown Longstone, Ireland
Maen hir Maenaddwdy , Wales
The menhir kamenny, Czech Republic

5. MEGALITHS [MENHIR] IN INDIA :
● According to archeologists around
2,200 magalithic sites can be found
in peninsular INDIA.
● These are concentrated in the states
of Mharashtra [mainly in Vidarbha],
Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala,
Andhra Pradesh, Telangana.
● Menhirs are found all across India
which are tall as 20 to 40 feet.
Distribution of megalithic sites in peninsular India.

6. MENHIR IN KERALA:
● A gruop of menhirs are found at
Pothamala hills in Nedumkandan in
Idukki.
● The biggest among them is 20 meter
tall { largest found in the state}.
● There are around 10 varieties of
menhirs found .
● These are located at 4000m altitude
above sea level.
● These have not been preserved by any
means , these stand among people who
does not value its existance.

7. DOLMEN:
● These were the single megalithic chamber
tombs.
● These were the tombs of standing stones .
● These contain two or three vertical stones
and above them there was a horizontal
stone placed usually called ‘capstone’.
● This type of stone monument can be found
in many parts of the world still today.
● The most widely known dolmens are found in
northwest Europe, notably in the region of
Brittany, France; southern Scandinavia;
Britain; Ireland; and the Low Countries.
Poulnabrone dolmen, the Burren, County
Clare, Ireland

8. DOLMENS IN KROEA:
● A dolmen in South Korea
● The term dolmen is also used in
relation to sites in central and
southern Europe, particularly central
and southern France, the Iberian
Peninsula, Switzerland, Italy, and
islands in the Mediterranean.
● Dolmens are also known from parts
of Africa and Asia.
● More than 30,000 such monuments,
making up some two-fifths of the
world’s total, are in Korea alone, and
in 2000 three of the Korean dolmen
sites at Koch’ang (Gochang), Hwasun,
and Kanghwa (Ganghwa) in South
Korea were designated UNESCO
World Heritage sites.

9. DOLMEN IN IRELAND:
● Poulnabrone dolmen, County
Clare, Ireland
● The dolmens of northwest Europe
were built in the early Neolithic
Period (New Stone Age), which
began in Brittany about 5000 BCE and
in Britain, Ireland and southern
Scandinavia about 4000 BCE.
● Sites in central and southern Europe
were constructed at a similar date,
but that corresponds to the middle
or late Neolithic in those areas.
● Outside Europe, dolmens were built
over a broad date range, and they
continue to be constructed in some
parts of the world—such as the island
of Sumba, Indonesia—up to the
present day.

10. DOLMEN IN WALES:
● Portal dolmen, Pentre Ifan, Wales
● In Britain, for example, portal
dolmen indicates that a
monument exhibits a
distinctive pair of stones, the
portals, at the entrance to the
chamber.
● Most sites called dolmens in
Brittany are more precisely
passage graves, so called
because a passage leads to
the chamber area.

11. CROMLECH
● A cromlech is a megalithic
construction made of large stone
blocks.
● These are the stones arranged in a
circular forms.
● These were used as a solar
observatory - to mark the sun’s path
during sunrise or midsummer days.
● A good example is at Carn Llechart.

12. THESE ARE SOME OF THE CHROMLECH CAN BE FOUND STILL TODAY
Cromlech. Complesso megalitico di
Stonehenge, Gran Bretagna
Stonehenge, Salisbury, UK
Stonehenge, England

13. TUMULUS
➢ A tumulus is a dominent type tomb
or a man-made mound of earth and
stones covering one or more graves.
➢ In other regions of the world, such as
England, ancient villages usually built
a stone chamber, which they then
covered with sod and debris.
➢ In different parts of the world, burial
mounds go by various names
➢ Purpose of tumulus:
➢ Protecting the dead
➢ Honoring the dead
➢ Burying the dead together

14. TUMULUS IN DIFFERENT REIGONS:
● Barrow (England):
In the western parts of Europe and the British Isles, burial mounds are
known as barrows.Early barrows were longer in shape, whereas more
modern barrows were round.
● Cairn (Scotland):
In Scotland, an alternative name for a tumulus is a cairn. Burial cairns in
Scotland date back primarily to the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age
periods. But they’re still used to this day in regions where the soil is
difficult to dig into
● Kurgan (Central Asia):
Burial cairns in Scotland date back primarily to the Neolithic and Early
Bronze Age periods. But they’re still used to this day in regions where the
soil is difficult to dig intoOne of the highest peaks east of the Taurus
Mountains, in southeastern Turkey, is thought to be a royal tomb from
around 100 BCE
● Rujm or rogem (Middle East):
In Arabic, the term rujm refers to stone heap, under which a body is
buried. In Hebrew, the term for a heap of stones covering a burial
chamber is the similar-sounding rogem.

15. BURIAL MOUNDS IN ANCIENT
AND MODERN WORLD

16. DOUGLEBY HOWE [ BRITAIN ]
➔ It’s located in an area where there are
four such burial mounds, known as
the Great Barrows of East Yorkshire.
➔ It consists of a mound that’s 120 feet
in diameter and about 22 feet high,
with a flattened top. It sits within a
circular enclosure of ditches.
➔ Archeologists believe Dougleby Howe
was constructed in the late Neolithic
period

17. COUNT NEMRUT ,TURKEY
● Atop one of the highest peaks in the Eastern Taurus
mountain range, in Southeast Turkey, is the burial
mound known as Nemrut Dag or Mount Nemrut.
● The tumulus is the temple-tomb of King Antiochos
(69-34 BCE), and he had it built himself.
● Mount Nemrut has a diameter of 145 meters, and it
stands 50 meters high.
● It’s made up of stone chips and surrounded by
terraces on three sides.
● There are also five giant limestone statues facing
outwards from the mound on the upper level of
terraces.
● The statues’ inscriptions identify them as important
deities and guardians.

18. ALL CANNINGS BARROW [ ENGLAND ]
● Barrows are ancient, but they’re not
related to the ancient past.
● In 2014, work began on the All Cannings
Barrow in the UK.
● The completed, Neolithic-style barrow
was split into multiple chambers, each
containing about 300 cremation urn
niches.
● And the niches sold out quickly, showing
that the public still had an interest in
burial mounds.

19. REFERANCES:
● https://www.livemint.com/Sundayapp/ah8MlN3mwHQjIpmBZBhcXJ/Exploring-Indias-megalithic-cultu
re-a-riddle-set-in-stone.html
● https://m.timesofindia.com/city/kochi/researchers-find-states-biggest-menhir/amp_articleshow/70386
417.cms
● https://www.sibellevilla.co.uk/history/dolmen-menhir-cairn-what-is-a-megalith-en-87-art.html
● https://www.sibellevilla.co.uk/history/dolmen-menhir-cairn-what-is-a-megalith-en-87-art.html
● https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_circle#:~:text=A%20stone%20circle%20is%20a,concentrations
%20appearing%20from%203000%20BC
● https://www.loveexploring.com/galleries/97573/the-worlds-most-mysterious-stone-circles-revealed
● https://link.springer.com/10.1007%2F978-1-4614-6086-2_9297
● https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumulus
● https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/tumulus
● What is a Tumulus (Burial Mound)? And Where Is It Used? | Cake Blog (joincake.com)

20. THE PROJECT DONE BY : GEETANJALI VERMA
DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE
SUBJECT : HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE-II [AR-123]
NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY - HAMIRPUR

21. THANK-YOU