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Updated: May 11, 2025
We decorate our graves with flowers as though the dead appreciated them; they are but the representatives of the ancient sacrifice to the dead. We drink to the memory of the deceased as though pouring out libations to them. Our tombstones are direct descendants of the menhir and the obelisk, our altar-tombs of the dolmen, our family vault of the primeval cave ossuary.
The light was very dull here, though it was nigh midday now, and indeed so high and overhanging were the cliffs that I do not think the sun ever reached the surface of the pool, save at this high midsummer, and then but as it passed athwart the narrow entrance, which faced south. Then it would send its rays across the pool full on the face of the menhir, as it seemed.
Some have professed to see in them the emblem of Amen, the Generator; or a finger of the god; or a ray of the sun. In sober truth, they are a more shapely form of the standing stone, or menhir, which is raised by semi-civilised peoples in commemoration of their gods or their dead. Small obelisks, about three feet in height, are found in tombs as early as the Fourth Dynasty.
All these blocks, of equal insignificance, speedily bored them; and one day, when they had just seen the menhir at Passais, they were about to return from it when their guide led them into a beech wood, which was blocked up with masses of granite, like pedestals or monstrous tortoises. The most remarkable of them is hollowed like a basin.
Merlin! retrace thy steps; There is no diviner but God. Merlin was supposed to know the past, the present, and the future, and to be able to assume the form of any animal, and even that of a menhir, or huge standing stone. Before history began he ruled in Britain, then a delightful island of flowery meadows. The sage ruled them as a father, his familiar servant being a tame wolf.
Menhirs, too, are not wanting in Syria. Perrot and Chipiez figure an example from Gebel-Mousa in Moab which is quite unworked, except for a shallow furrow across the centre of the face. In many cases the menhir is surrounded by one or more rows of stones. Thus at Der Ghuzaleh a menhir about 3 feet in height is set in the centre of what when complete must have been a rectangle.
We passed a great flat rock, whereon were strange markings and a hollowed basin, which stood behind the menhir near the cliff, and to this the path led, but not beyond, from the glen. Now we were almost in the opening, when both of us stopped and looked at one another. Surely there were footsteps coming among the rocks of the water course before us.
In some instances these hearths were made on an overturned menhir, and other menhirs, which had belonged to the alignment, were fitted into the walls. A Roman road passes near Avebury, and, contrary to their general custom, the haughty conquerors had turned aside to avoid the tumulus.
Within this circle were two others of smaller size, each in its turn enclosing yet another circle of upright stones. In the middle of one of these inner circles, that on the north, was a dolmen, whilst that on the south enclosed in the centre but a single upright menhir. The stones used in constructing these various groups were all such as are still to be found on the Wiltshire downs.
I swung aside from him, striking up his arm, and his blind rush carried him against the menhir, so that the blow which was meant for me fell thereon, scoring the stone deeply; and lo! his own hand ended with that blow what I had begun, marking the cross-beam I had yet to make, so that the holy sign was complete. And I saw that in a flash, even as he reeled back from the menhir and staggered.
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