A megalith is a large, usually unworked or only roughly dressed stone used as a building element in prehistoric times. The word combines the Greek megas (great) and lithos (stone). Structures built from such stones are called megalithic monuments.
Forms
- Dolmen — a burial chamber of upright supporting stones carrying one or more heavy capstones. The Dutch hunebedden are a regional variant
- Menhir — a single standing stone set upright
- Cromlech — a circle or row of standing stones, as at Stonehenge
- Cist and passage grave — burial forms in which the chamber is reached through a passage
The Netherlands has more than fifty hunebedden, almost all of them in the province of Drenthe. They were built by people of the Funnel Beaker culture from erratic boulders carried there by the ice sheet of the penultimate glaciation — there is no natural stone in the Drenthe subsoil at all.
Looked at as construction
Megalithic building is dry construction in its purest form: no mortar, only mass, friction and a carefully judged balance. The uprights lean slightly inwards so that the capstone presses them together rather than apart. What still stands today does not stand by chance — it is the work in which that principle was applied properly.
Several reconstructions of the transport method exist: sledges, rollers, levers and earth ramps are all proposed. What is certain is that it was the work of a large group using simple aids that are remarkably effective when used well.
Related terms
- Dolmen
- Cromlech
- Natural stone
- Rubble stone
- Cyclopean masonry
- Monolith
- Mastaba
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