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There can hardly be any doubt that Sir Arthur Evans is right in seeing in the Maltese temples signs of a baetylic worship. But is he right in his further assertion that the cult was a cult of the dead? Albert Mayr assumes that he is, and endeavours to show that the 'dolmen-like' cells in the niches are not altars, but stereotyped representations of the dolmen-tombs of the heroes worshipped.
Algeria has been far more completely explored, and possesses a remarkable number of megalithic monuments. Many of the finest are situated near the town of Constantine. Thus at Bou Nouara there is a hill about a mile in length which is a regular necropolis of dolmen-tombs. Each grave consists of a dolmen within a circle of stones. The blocks are all natural and completely unworked.
At Carrowmore, Sligo, there seems to have been a veritable cemetery of dolmen-tombs, each of which has one or more circles around it, the outermost being 120 feet in diameter. The tombs in these Carrowmore circles were not always simple dolmens, but often corridor-tombs of more or less complicated types. Their excavation has not given very definite results.
At any rate, if we can show that the skulls of the megalithic tombs conform to a single type in respect of their index we shall have a presumption, though not a certainty, that they belong to a single race. For Africa the evidence consists in a group of twenty skulls from dolmen-tombs giving cephalic indices which range from 70.5 to 84.4.
They often lie east and west, and are often broader at the west end. Many are surrounded by a double circle of stones. In one of them two copper rings were found. At Ain Dakkar more than 160 dolmen-tombs are visible from a single spot. They are built on circular terraces of earth and stones about 3 feet high. The Arabs call them Graves of the Children of Israel.
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