Where are the dolmens from? History of dolmen research. Dolmen chamber size ratios

Dolmens are buildings built from large stone blocks, presumably of a cult nature. Today, about 3,000 dolmens have survived in the Caucasus. They appeared at the end of the 3rd-2nd millennium BC.

If you ask local residents about dolmens, they will certainly tell the legend about the dwarfs who once settled in these places. The people were so tiny that they used hares for riding. Next to them, as usual in fairy tales, lived giants. It was they who built stone dwellings for their weak neighbors so that they could take refuge during bad weather.

People who are prone to an esoteric explanation of the unknown believe that dolmens were installed by residents of extraterrestrial civilizations and endowed them with magical powers that can awaken unusual abilities in a person, give him love or restore health.

Scientists put forward only hypotheses. To date, there are two versions about the purpose of dolmens. They could be both religious buildings of a tribe or a separated family, and funerary ones. During excavations, many of them found burials of people who lived in different historical eras, and next to them, various items that could be useful to the deceased in another world: from stone scrapers and shards of gray clay dishes to medieval weapons. Although later burials, of course, were secondary.

In the Western Caucasus, 2300 dolmens have been discovered and described, most of them are located in the region of Gelendzhik, Novorossiysk and Shapsugskaya. There are about 150 completely intact and not very destroyed among them. But even such a number of artifacts does not shed light on the history of their creation. Only the time of their construction is precisely known, which was determined on the basis of radiocarbon analysis of organic remains extracted from the chambers of dolmens. It was found that the West Caucasian dolmens were built from 3500 to 1400 BC. e.

Ancient builders built dolmens from blocks of quartz sandstone. On average, the weight of the structure is from 15 to 30 tons. This means that there should have been quarries on the territory of the Western Caucasus, but even the slightest traces of their existence have not been found to this day. If they were not nearby, then how were the huge blocks of stone delivered to the construction site in the absence of roads suitable for transporting heavy loads? And the main question: how did the ancient architects calculate the parameters of the plates, the junctions of which do not have a straight surface, and all the plates clearly adjoin each other due to specially arranged grooves? The joints are so dense that it is impossible to insert a knife blade between the plates. It also seems surprising that even the earliest buildings are not primitive, but complex structures. The dolmens on Mount Neksis and on the Zhane River near Gelendzhik can serve as an example of the ideal work of engineering thought.

Such a precise adjustment of structural details was beyond the power of a modern person. During the reconstruction of dolmens, it has not yet been possible to compile multi-ton slabs without errors. And in 2007, in the Safari Park of Gelendzhik, they decided to assemble a dolmen from slabs of destroyed buildings, the processing and fitting of which was decided to be carried out using ultra-precise power tools. However, this time the builders of the Bronze Age turned out to be head and shoulders above - there were gaps of several centimeters between the plates of the newly assembled dolmen.

So who were these people who owned such a perfect technology of the construction business? According to the assumption of archaeologist Vladimir Markovin, who devoted most of his life to the study of Caucasian dolmens, they lived in adobe shacks, did not know iron, the potter's wheel, and worked the earth with hoes. And yet, it was they who created the structures that still amaze the imagination with the perfection of designs.

What are dolmens

Tiled dolmens usually include four walls, a roof and a floor consisting of one large or several smaller (heel) slabs. The chamber is rectangular or trapezoidal. There are grooves in the plates, due to which all the plates are tightly connected. The front plate, framed by side protrusions and an overhanging visor, forms a portal.

Composite dolmens are partially or completely assembled from separate small blocks. They have a complex geometric connection. The shape of the chamber is diverse: rectangular, trapezoidal, horseshoe-shaped, round and multifaceted.

Trough-shaped dolmens were carved in the thickness of the stone, and then covered with a slab from above.
Dolmens-monoliths are entirely carved from one block of stone or in the rock. They are very rare.

Dolmen group Ust-Sakhray

Before the foundation in 1862 of the village of Ust-Sakhrai, a dolmen field was located on its territory. At present, the construction of houses has destroyed its main central part. The first mention of the Ust-Sakhray dolmens was left by Yevgeny Felitsyn. Vladimir Markovin, relying on Felitsyn's notes, also mentions Ust-Sakhrai, but he did not have to explore the local megaliths.

The study of the Ust-Sakhrai dolmen group was carried out by the joint archaeological expedition of ARIGI and ASPI (DSU) in 1991-1994 under the leadership of Nurbiy Gazizovich Lovpache.

Two groups of the western and eastern edges of the village remained from a large dolmen field of a kilometer length between the Dakh and Sakhrai rivers. On Bukreeva Polyana, in front of the western outskirts of Ust-Sakhray, there are about fifty mounds. Under ten of them, portal and non-portal dolmens, two-chamber tombs, a stone box, burial grounds with a cromlech and a menhir were examined and investigated. Beyond the eastern edge of the village, between the outskirts and the modern cemetery, there are 5 visible megalithic structures, three of which have been partially explored.

A characteristic feature of the Ust-Sakhray dolmens is their chronological multi-layeredness and constructive-typological diversity. The megaliths of Ust-Sakhray date back to the second half of the 4th millennium BC. - the first half of the III millennium BC. e.

Deguak glade is located in the Belaya (Shkhaguashche) river basin. It got its name from the Deguak stream, which flows in the northern part of the meadow. It is a vast basin bounded on the north and east by the riverbed, the distant ridge and the forested slopes of Mount Gut. From the south, the glade wedges into the gorge of Pisana Mountain, and from the west it gradually merges with the slopes of the Sibir and Skala mountains. Deguak glade is known for a rather large group of dolmens. There are more than 200 of them here. They occupy ridge-like and kurgan uplifts made of gravel and river pebbles. The megaliths of the Deguaksko-Dakhovskaya glade date back to IV-II millennia BC. Local dolmens are carved from sandstone slabs and sandy limestones and shell rocks.

During the study by Markovin of a group of dolmens in the Deguaksko-Dakhovskaya glade, fragments of black-clay and gray-clay vessels with ornaments, bone products, carnelian beads, and bronze objects were found.

The menhirs of the Deguaksko-Dakhovsky dolmen necropolis are simple and squat. The largest menhir, 2.5 m high, ends with an anthropomorphic mask.

Kozhzhokh dolmen group

The Kozhzhokh dolmen group was discovered by Felitsyn and described in 1904. It is located on the right terrace of the right bank of the Belaya (Shkhaguashche) River, between the tributaries of the Maly and Sredny Khadzhokh, on the northern outskirts of the village of Kamennomostsky.

There are 27 mounds in the Kozhzhokh dolmen group, 16 of them with the ruins of dolmens. The megaliths of this group date back to the 4th-3rd millennium BC. During the study, gray-clay and black-clay vessels, fragments of molded pots and flat-bottomed bowls, bronze arrowheads, a bronze pin, flint flakes, and animal bones were found.

In the journal of excavations of the dolmens of the Kozhzhok group, Felitsyn described dolmen No. 20, located on a high mound. Dolmens of this type are rare in the Western Caucasus and have not been preserved in Adygea at present.

The Khadzhokh-1 dolmen is located on the first right high terrace of the Belaya River (Shkhaguashche), not far from the Maykop-Kamennomostsky highway, on the southern edge of the modern orchard. The megalith dates back to the 4th-3rd millennium BC. Dolmen "Khadzhokh-1" is well preserved, but the front portal slabs are destroyed, and a hole is punched in the back slab. The dolmen belongs to the tiled type. The hole in the front plate is slightly oval, cone-shaped, the floor is not traced, inside the chamber there is a layer of earth.

The lid of the dolmen is a single slab of slightly trapezoidal shape.

In front of the dolmen lies a stone mushroom-shaped bushing made of reddish-brown sandstone, which does not match the opening in the front slab in size. According to local residents, this bushing was brought to the dolmen from the territory of the famous Kozhzhokh dolmen group, located 600-700 m east of the dolmen. Probably, Khadzhokh-1 also belonged to the Kozhzhokhskaya dolmen group.

Dolmen "Azishsky-1"

Dolmen "Azishsky-1" was discovered in 1966. It is located on the 12th kilometer of the Hadzhokh-Lagonaki highway in the Maykop region. The megalith dates back to III-II millennia BC. Dolmen belongs to the tiled type of the portal version with a two-stage roof. In front of the portal platform, slabs are still visible, continuing it to the east. The side plates are broken into two parts. From the outside, the remains of buttresses are visible. On the upper side of the fragments of the portal roof there is a mass of cup depressions. A hole 30 cm in diameter was punched at the base of the front plate. Neat grooves for the end walls are carved into the side plates.

Under all four walls there are heel plates, in which grooves for the base of the walls are knocked out. Currently, the Azishsky-1 dolmen is destroyed and requires restoration.

Dolmen "Dudugush-1"

Dolmen "Dudugush-1" is located at an altitude of 1020 m above sea level, on a gentle spur of the western slope of the ridge surrounding the Khamyshinsky hollow. The building is quite clearly oriented from north to south. The portal is on the south side. The dolmen is built of yellow sandstone slabs. By design, it is composite, the chamber is ellipsoidal in shape.

The dolmen is partially destroyed. Dated to the middle of the II millennium BC.

On one of the slabs of the dolmen, a sign was found, which is a circle carved in sandstone, which is truncated in the western part by a straight line. The sign continues with two parallel straight lines that converge to the point of connection with the line truncating the circle. A hole is hollowed out between these lines. Inside the circle, along its diameter, two straight lines are cut, forming a cross. In the eastern part of the sign, parallel to the line truncating the circle, 7 more identical holes are hollowed out, arranged in 2 rows.

Solar symbols, found throughout the Caucasus on ancient monuments from the Stone Age to the Middle Ages, are associated with the cult of the sun.

Dolmen in the village of Khamyshki

The dolmen is located in the village of Khamyshki, on the first floodplain terrace on the left bank of the Belaya River (Shkhaguashche), not far from the Maykop-Guzeripl highway, at the foot of Mount Monakh.

The megalithic monument dates back to the second half of the 2nd millennium BC. The dolmen is a sandstone block more than 11 m long. In the middle, a trough-shaped depression 2.8 m long, 2.5 m wide, and 1.6 m deep is hollowed out. The walls of the chamber are vertical, the corners are rounded. On the facade wall, a stone was knocked out to a depth of 40-50 cm, and three pilasters were obtained in the reverse way. Two symmetrical ones form the portal of the dolmen, the third from the west forms an additional asymmetric niche up to 25 cm deep. A round spheroidal depression 20 cm in diameter and 7 cm deep is hollowed out on the floor of the chamber in the northeast corner. Petroglyphs are carved on the inner surface of the western wall of the chamber. The dolmen was covered with a sandstone slab, of which quite large parts have been preserved, scattered around it.

A hole in the front slab of a horizontally oval dolmen (46-30 cm) was punched in the southern wall. A mass of stone, chosen in the plane of the façade, formed a horizontal platform 80-100 cm wide. On the north side, under a fragment of a covering slab, a stele about 90 cm high was found with an intricate pattern carved on its lower part.

Not far from the Khamyshinsky semi-monolith dolmen, two menhirs carved from sandstone were found. One of them of a textbook form (altitude-pyramidal truncated) stood with its processed front side to the east. Its height is 120 cm, the base is square. Currently, both menhirs are installed on the eastern side of the Khamyshinsky dolmen.

Dolmens of the village of Guzeripl

Guzeripl dolmen No. 1 is one of the largest and most solid among the dolmens of Adygea. The megalithic monument is located on the territory of the Guzeriplsky cordon of the Caucasian State Natural Biosphere Reserve named after. G.H. Shaposhnikov. The megalith dates back to the 2nd millennium BC.

The dolmen was surrounded by stone pedestal-like blocks, which once outlined a cromlech-shaped fence with a diameter of 12 m. The building is quite clearly oriented from east to west, the portal is located on the western side. Belongs to the type of composite structures and is composed of sand slabs. The chamber has the shape of an oval in plan view, truncated in the front. The facade is decorated with a massive trapezoidal slab, the corners are slightly rounded. The plate is equipped with a rounded inlet.

The chamber of the dolmen is composed of large blocks in 2-4 rows. Of these, 4 rows of stones fall on the front of the dolmen and 2 on the back, due to which the chamber drops to the east. The stone blocks of the sides are beveled downwards and hang over each other, forming a kind of false vault. The dolmen is covered with two powerful slabs.

If at the word Thessaloniki you have associations with a foreign resort, then this stereotype must be urgently disposed of.

Yes, there is the Greek Thessaloniki - a port, resort and ancient city founded by the king of Macedonia in 315 BC. e.

But what do you know about your domestic Thessaloniki? A small resort on the Black Sea. It is better to get on the road Lazarevskoye - Sochi. After 2 km after the village of Thessaloniki, park in the car park and walk 300 meters along the path towards the sea. You will meet with a miracle - an incredible structure that has been haunting scientists for a hundred years. This is the Volkonsky dolmen: the only monolithic stone house in the world. We do not know which king ordered it to be built and why. It is not clear what civilization its builders belonged to, and whether they were people in our understanding. It is only known that this mystical house was carved into the rock at least 3000 BC. e. That is, he is already 5 thousand years old and he is the same age as the Egyptian pyramids. According to other sources, the age of this dolmen is 9.5 thousand years!

And what, you are still attracted by the banal Mediterranean resorts, built in just some three hundred years BC?

Difficulties in translation

Usually a dolmen is a monumental building made of vertically installed stone slabs, covered on top with another stone slab. A kind of stone box or house, the weight of which sometimes exceeds a hundred tons.

Volkonsky dolmen is not like that. It is carved into a stone boulder. Dolmens of this monolithic type are known to science. But this one is the only one that has survived.

The dimensions of the Volkonsky dolmen are 8 meters wide and 17 meters long. On the roof with a recess of 60 cm, a ritual bowl is carved, designed to collect rainwater. Many believe that the water from this cup is healing and has magical properties.

A dolmen is an artifact, that is, a structure about which little is known. No one built, no - why. The literal translation from Breton is "stone table" (dol - table, men - stone). That's what the Celts called it. Naturally, the word "dolmen" did not immediately take root in the Caucasus. Abkhazians call them houses of the soul. Adygs - houses for life in the afterlife, Mingrelians - houses of giants. The Cossacks called them heroic or devil's huts.

If there are so many of our own names, then why do we use foreign ones? And this is another mystery. However, there is one answer - so as not to quarrel with the locals.

In the Caucasus, about 2.5 thousand dolmens are known, of which about 200 are in the Greater Sochi region. So we are here.

bronze stones

But still: why did the ancients cut huge blocks and slabs in quarries and then selflessly drag them to the mountains or to the banks of rivers? The most popular theory is that a dolmen is a tomb or a temple. And they do find human remains. But if this is a tomb, then why are bones not found in every dolmen? And if it was a temple, then where did the priests live? Where did the pilgrims stay? Where are the objects of worship? Nothing of the kind was found there.

And most importantly: who and why gave the order to build thousands of dolmens in the Caucasus?

It can be assumed that some great king built a stone tomb for himself and all the smaller leaders began to imitate him. But in this case, the tomb-dolmen of variations should have a great variety. Simply because peoples have different beliefs, resources and construction technologies. But in fact, according to the construction technology, dolmens are divided into only four types: tiled, composite, trough-shaped and monolithic.

It seems that the builders of the Bronze Age, living in different parts of the world, had uniform GOSTs and SNIPs. As it is - mysticism.

Another world

The main highlight of the dolmen is understatement. There is room for imagination. For example, a dolmen reminds a military man of a pillbox from the times of the First or Second World War. True, a little strange: the defenders did not have the opportunity to leave their bastion: the exit is also a "loophole".

And what expanse in stone vaults for mystics! Many people after visiting the dolmen talk about a surge of spiritual and physical strength. Others, on the contrary, complain of a headache.

“When I first approached the dolmen, I felt dizzy,” Anna from Moscow describes the sensations. “And then there was some unusual lightness in my body. And there was a feeling that something was energizing me.”

The author of these lines was both in the Egyptian pyramid and in the dolmen. Feelings are certainly unusual, but one must be objective: touching antiquity, especially contact with an artifact, always contributes to a surge of emotions. It can not be in any other way.

There are legends that even women who have not been able to conceive for many years can conceive near the dolmen. However, it is hardly worth erecting cases of pregnancy into a cult. It is believed that half of the American population is conceived in the back seat of a car. But this does not speak of the mystical power of Ford or Chrysler.

Same with dolmens. Leisure trips always improve demographics. And what directly helped the lovers: the magical power of a stone artifact or the Sochi sea, the sun and the general state of positive - let it remain your personal secret.

Facts and myths

It is believed that the first dolmens were built on the Iberian Peninsula in 4000-3500 BC. BC e. Other researchers claim that the earlier center of construction is the Balearic Islands, Sardinia and Corsica.

The material of the dolmen plays a special role. They were built from quartz sandstone. Quartz crystals have the property of the piezoelectric effect: mechanical energy with their help can be converted into electrical energy, and vice versa.

70% of dolmens stand on faults in the earth's crust.

Some dolmens are considered "female". For example, in the area of ​​the Doguab River there are Maya and Tenderness dolmens, which, according to legend, help women in everything related to motherhood, children, keep them from unrequited love, and give happiness in marriage.

The territory of the Caucasus, where dolmens are found, is up to five hundred kilometers long and 30 to 75 km wide. Dolmens usually stand in groups and occupy flat areas on the flat tops of the spurs of mountains, along river basins, facing south or east with a portal.

Local residents of the Western Caucasus prefer a mythical explanation of the origin of dolmens. The legend says that in ancient times only two tribes lived here: giants and dwarfs. The giants lived in the river valleys and hunted, and the dwarfs lived high in the mountains and practiced witchcraft. By cunning, the dwarfs managed to subdue the stupid giants and ordered them to build comfortable dwellings. The giants everywhere built stone huts with small round holes through which only dwarfs could get inside.

Dolmens are located not only in deserted areas, but also in villages. For example, in the village of Shkhafit (Lazarevsky district), a dolmen stands in the courtyard of a private house. The owners freely let everyone to the dolmen.

By the number of dolmens on the territory of Sochi - the world record holder. There are about 200 of them here. This is because the dolmens on the Black Sea coast are located in a narrow strip from Anapa to Abkhazia, and Sochi is a very long city.

The shape of the dolmen makes it an acoustic device. Reflecting from stone walls, sound vibrations are superimposed on each other, resonate and amplify.

Which of the contemporaries discovered the dolmens is unknown. But the first descriptions were made by foreigners. In 1794, the German Peter Simon Pallas visited Taman and described the discovered stone houses. In 1818, the Frenchman Thebu de Marigny, a sailor in the Russian service, recorded in writing a group of 6 dolmens on the Pshada River. And during the Caucasian War in 1839, the English intelligence officer James Bell, who lived among the Shapsugs, made picturesque sketches of the highlanders against the backdrop of dolmens.

Dolmen culture was spread all over the earth. It changed in accordance with the level of mentality of its bearers, leaving a memory of itself in its various manifestations. On the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus, several types of monuments of the mysterious people have been preserved. Archaeologists divided dolmens according to the type of structure into solid, trough-shaped, tiled, and also composite.
We studied dolmens with the help of the methodology that distributed the dolmens according to the level of tasks that they had to perform. All dolmens were conditionally divided into 4 types, each of which covered a certain period of life of the builders.

The very first dolmens were solid. They were built at a time when creatures from another planet came to earth and began to master it. Dolmens helped them keep in touch with their planet, get the necessary energy and information for their successful assimilation into earthly conditions. But their main task was to scan the interior of the earth and look for life there. The builders found special places in which, among other conditions, there were deep rocky rocks that came to the surface in the form of huge boulders. Thus, the structure made it possible to keep a strong connection with the bowels, to study the underworld, its possibilities, to hear the voice of the womb of the earth and decipher its terrible omens. It was assumed that life exists underground, and the aliens tried to find it for subsequent experiments. Over time, the colonialists completed their task. However, they could not go back. They landed, and their descendants lost their knowledge and extraterrestrial abilities. Research carried out with the help of dolmens in those days helped them to use knowledge for cultivating the land, growing fruits, mining, etc.

Help came to the newly minted earthlings. Relatives arrived from their home planet and pushed the development of earthly civilization. They themselves were moving to another level of existence, so they came to establish a connection of a new level. Differences in their relations were reflected in the principle of building dolmens. If the first dolmens had a rock at their base and a wider lower part, which made it possible to strengthen the connection with the earth, then the second level or type of dolmens was supposed to strengthen the connection with the sky and capture the signals of the ether. Previously built dolmens were rebuilt. Architecturally, the lower part of the base was narrowed, and the upper part was smoothed or a rectangular slab was installed separately. A trough-shaped type of dolmens appeared. These were second-level buildings, and they were installed by people who by that time had acquired a complete set of terrestrial biological code. Such dolmens performed a different task - they helped to communicate with relatives who mastered the fifth dimension and sought to maintain contact with earthlings. During this period, beliefs, states, and sciences related to space began to develop.

In the future, people began to build other dolmens: tiled. An important distinguishing feature of them from the previous ones was the bottom plate, which was installed at the bottom and cut off, extinguished the vibrations of the earth. This constructive technique was used to amplify the vibrations coming from space. Such architectonics indicated a change in people's plans and the development of a stronger interest in space and other sciences, which allowed people to move to a higher level of straight-knowledge. During this period, superhumans appeared with extraordinary abilities. By that time, people came to the conclusion that the planet Earth would disappear, and further stay on it would be impossible.

That part of the people who have adopted new abilities have transformed into a different form of life and now live in a parallel world. The rest underwent degradation and continued the human race, which exists to this day.

Composite dolmens, which represent the fourth type, are also a reflection of a certain period of the way of life of human existence. They were installed by people who wanted to show their belonging to the elite, but lost their real ability to do this. Therefore, composite dolmens more carry the meaning of imitation, but do not have the power that was encrypted in the three previous types.

Many Caucasian scientists tried to find out the question of the origin of local dolmens. However, among the antiquities of the basin of the Kuban River and the Black Sea region, including Abkhazia, no such monuments have yet been found that would be structurally close to them and at the same time preceded them. We can talk about large structures such as stone boxes. So archaeologists call the lining of the grave pit, when all its sides are closed with flagstone placed on the edge. However, in the outlined territory, such burials are unknown for the first half of the 3rd millennium BC, and only from them could dolmen buildings appear through transformation - complication of the “box” structures. Not immediately, but the idea arose that the dolmens were brought to the Caucasus from outside. But where? It is clear that not from the side of the mountains, since it has long been noted that the dolmens not only of the Caucasus, but of the whole world are confined to coastal parts. True, there are private opinions that Jacques de Morgan expressed: "... it is not at all necessary to be influenced by distant centers in order to erect large stones and cover them with a roof." Alas, he is wrong, he did not want to see grooves, heel stones and all that makes the dolmens of the Western Caucasus and some other countries the forerunners of high architecture.

They also thought that the dolmens of the Caucasus arose from grottoes, caves, as an imitation of them. And this disappears, although it was supported by such Caucasian scholars as D. N. Anuchin and M. M. Ivashchenko. Then why do trough-shaped buildings, really similar in shape to grottoes, have a portal (facade) and on it, knocked out of a whole stone, protruding side slabs, a heel support or just a niche in front of the manhole are imitated? After all, this is a complete imitation of dolmens made of slabs, when, quite naturally, long side walls and protruding ceilings form a portal in front of the manhole. No, the "cave theory" for the West Caucasian dolmens is clearly not suitable, it does not explain anything.

So, again the sea. The "idea" of such a structure as a dolmen could only come from the sea. So thought B. A. Kuftin, L. I. Lavrov. The latter generally thought that the "ideas" of the dolmen were widespread, there could even be an "ethnic (blood) relationship" between their builders. Putting in an inseparable line all the dolmens of the world, including the Far East, he believed that such buildings appear "with the development of commercial and military navigation among the coastal peoples in the Neolithic and the Bronze Age", when Caucasians could see dolmens in other countries and start building them at home .

L.N. Solovyov, the same archaeologist with whom I consulted on how to dig ancient buildings, imagined that dolmens in the Caucasus first appeared in Abkhazia (“southern dolmen culture”), then spread more widely, and all this happened under the influence of "kashki" - the Asia Minor, rather mobile population, known from cuneiform sources. But there is a discrepancy here - dolmens did not build “porridge”, and they were not found in Asia Minor.

Almost every theory has its supporters, there are traffic police and L. N. Solovyov.

So, the situation with the origin is very complicated. With the beginning of our expeditionary work and with the appearance of the first publications, the matter became even more complicated. The relative similarity of the vessels of the late stage of the Maikop culture, found in the dolmens of the village of Novosvobodnaya, with the ceramics of the Western European culture of "spherical amphorae" led to another opinion: the dolmens of the Western Caucasus are the result of an invasion of the bearers of this culture to the East. This opinion is supported more than others by V. A. Safronov and N. A. Nikolaeva. We will not delve into its justification and criticism. Firstly, the territory of culture with "amphoras" did not go so deep - to the Caucasus - did not go. Secondly, the materials found in the tombs of Novosvobodnaya are not typical for dolmens, they were brought into them, and why they nevertheless ended up in them is still unknown, this still needs to be sorted out. And if we are talking about the comparison of antiquities, then it should go along the line of the cult of "spherical amphoras" - the Maikop culture, and dolmens only sideways entered this route.

Until now, no one has ever compared the dolmens of the world with each other, walking between them with a tape measure, a compass and at least a sapper shovel as a trenching tool, this would take the life of any long-term researcher.

Publications of the monuments of the world that interest us can be found in magazines, books, but they are all written with a different approach, from different scientific positions, and the ancient buildings are depicted in different drawing style and examined under a different critical eye - so figure it out for yourself what is important in these ruins, and what is secondary. I tried to do this kind of office work by lining my desk with books and even piling them up on the floor. I will not repeat here what is typical for the dolmens of a particular country. It's already been done. The closest features of the West Caucasian dolmens, it seems to me, can be found in the ancient buildings of the Iberian Peninsula (Portugal, Spain), in Corsica and on the nearest islands of the Mediterranean, in North Africa, Palestine. Dolmens are especially similar in the territory of prehistoric Thrace (Lalapash). They have attached portal plates and, perhaps, the same proportions. Involuntarily, a theory arose that buildings close to the Caucasian dolmens are located along sea currents, and they go from Gibraltar along the northern coast of Africa in the Mediterranean Sea and turn counterclockwise into the Black Sea, washing first the Caucasian coast, and then its opposite side. And everywhere, except for Asia Minor, along the line of currents there are dolmens, more or less similar to those in the Caucasus. Sea currents are strong, and their currents could help the movement of ancient ships. Looking through the literature on the history of shipbuilding, one can find information about sea voyages that took place in the III-II millennia BC, not only on multi-oared ships, but also on ships equipped with sails. Drawings of such ships are known on vessels, stone reliefs, seals, even their models have been found (Anatolia, Crete, the Cyclades, Egypt). So, ships in such ancient times as the time of the appearance of the first dolmen buildings in the Caucasus was already built, and they could sail along the coast, using not only a fair wind, but also currents. And of course, the builders of dolmens, setting off on a voyage, did not even know that the Caucasus existed somewhere, they accidentally landed on its shores and settled here. Speaking about migration (resettlement) to the Caucasus, I wrote in 1974: “One can only assume that sea voyages were not simultaneous, they were conducted from different territories, but the most ancient dolmen monuments of the Caucasus find analogies in the western part of the Iberian Peninsula (modern Portugal) and on the island of Sardinia. It seemed to me that an accidental visit to the Caucasus was then replaced by repeated visits.

In my opinion, this hypothesis explains the appearance of dolmens in the Caucasus, acquiring incidental pictures: the advance of builders from the coast deep into the mountains, the emergence of their ties - military and more peaceful - with the tribes of the Maikop culture already living on the occupied lands, etc. In all details It was difficult to figure out the migrations right away, but I proceeded from a dry and businesslike premise - the “idea” of a dolmen without people who saw and built them could not penetrate the Caucasus. They brought her.

Further developments concerned the very mechanics of migration. How could they pass, what was their cause, the role of sea routes in this process, could migrations be spontaneous?

In October 1979, in the small Bulgarian town of Sozopol, an international symposium called "Trakia - Pontika I" was held. Already deep autumn touched this fertile land. The Black Sea raged, and in unison with it, rain clouds ran in gusts. Representatives of fourteen European countries met in a cozy hall, sitting at a large table decorated with flowers. The prim coldness of the first day was then replaced by a friendly atmosphere, and the reports were lively, followed by excursions and conversations in the park. Three speeches were devoted to dolmens - P. Deleva, I. Vankova and mine. The first two speakers spoke about the study of Bulgarian megaliths, and I, having introduced the audience to the architecture and contents of our Caucasian dolmens, focused most of all on those doubts that arise in connection with the hypothesis of the migration of their first builders to the Caucasus from foreign countries. Indeed, briefly retold thoughts about the origin of dolmens are far from the final opinion. Lots of obscurity. The study of migration processes of the recent past, caused by the economic factor (primarily population growth while lagging behind economic growth), when people in search of their daily bread are forced to look for new habitats where they could put their hands and energy, shows the complexity of such “outflows” population. Migration is primarily dominated by a strong, middle-aged male population. The appearance of not always welcome aliens in new places leads to military skirmishes, the fight against the population living here for a long time. To this we must add the need to adapt to a new climate for migrants, food, to get sick with diseases unknown to them, etc. And only with the second, third migration wave, older people and women usually arrived in new places. The winners in such a complex process as migrations were the strongest - it could be the more ancient local population or aliens: after all, martial arts were not for life, but for death. Often the defeated population "dissolved" among the victors. So it was during the Spanish conquest in Central America, during the period of the Arab conquests or during the Crusades. All this takes place in modern migration processes, but in a more relaxed, ennobled form, unless they turn into open war, when the surplus population in the form of hired troops seeks to seize foreign territories. There are many examples of this.

The report in Sozopol caused a noisy debate. Probably, not everyone agreed with his provisions, although no one came out with a denial of the possible connections of the ancient buildings of the Caucasus with the Mediterranean megaliths as their fundamental principle. There is another line of connections between the Caucasus and the Pyrenees, which confirms this opinion. I mean Basque. This people, who now live mainly in Spain and in the southern regions of France adjacent to it, are quite close to the Caucasian peoples in language and culture. Another well-known scientist of the 19th century, P.K. Uslar, noting linguistic features, could not say anything about the origin of this people, finding it mysterious and lost "in the darkness of centuries." Archaeologists (P. Bosch-Gimpera and others) attribute to him a special Basque-Catalan megalithic culture, among the monuments of which there are trapezoidal dolmens. Modern linguists trace the chain of languages ​​related to Basque and Caucasian, leading it from Spain to the Caucasus itself. Academician N. Ya. Marr, for example, being carried away, outlined the paths along which the Basques (Japhetids) could penetrate into the Caucasus. It turned out that during their movement they could use both land routes, overcoming small water spaces, and sea routes. Their route went along the islands and peninsulas of the Mediterranean Sea, through Asia Minor and along the Black Sea coast.

As you can see, the dispute about the origin of the dolmens of the Western Caucasus leads to the world of linguistics, complex grammatical and phonetic comparisons, again associated with migrations. The noise of the sea in all purely theoretical and somewhat abstract constructions still sounds, crushing with heavy blows the unsteady partitions between the past and the noisily pulsating present ...

The small hospitable Sozopol and the fabulously beautiful island city of Nessebar were left behind the plane, and the dolmen problem is overgrown with shells of conjectures, theories and opinions.

Archaeologists almost always set themselves the task of linking certain antiquities with some ethnic group, that is, they seek to trace: is it possible to compare them with the culture of any particular people. B. A. Kuftin, for example, using "semantic bundles", was ready to consider dolmens the product of many living and dead peoples. He mentions Ligurs, Cimmers, Pelasgians, Etruscans, and along with them - Chans, Adygs, Dagestanis. Another researcher of dolmens - L. I. Lavrov, an excellent linguist, ethnographer and archaeologist, connected the culture of dolmens only with the ancestors of the Abkhaz-Adygs. The same opinion was expressed by L. N. Solovyov, Sh. D. Inal-Ipa. In contrast to them, Ya. A. Fedorov believed that only the ancestors of the Abkhazians could leave dolmens. It seems to me that it is most correct to attribute their construction to the ancient Abkhaz-Adyghe population, especially since the separation of their common proto-language could occur, judging by the studies of linguists, at a later time, when dolmens were no longer erected. There is another interesting fact here. The Basque language, when compared with the languages ​​of the peoples of the Caucasus, is closest to the population of the Black Sea regions, and as it moves away from Checheno-Ingushetia and Dagestan, it finds fewer and fewer parallels. Thus, the pra-Basks, like the pra-Adygs, could well have contacts.

However, Professor Otar Mikhailovich Japaridze considers it possible to connect the culture of dolmens with the ancestors of the Georgians (Kartvelian tribes). Without opposing his opinion, I would like to note that the third change of the burial rite, when, along with the sitting bones, traces of secondary burials begin to appear in them, that is, heaps of bones without any anatomical order, may be an indicator of the appearance on the territory of the dolmens of the ancestors of the Kartvelian population. Typically, such burials are accompanied by things of the protocolkhid culture, which are not described in this book, since most likely at that time the construction of dolmens had already stopped, but was only used for inlet burials. It seems to me that such finds can be linked with the ancient Georgian culture. But this opinion is fluent, it still requires a more complete argumentation.

There are other views as well. So, individual archaeologists are ready to declare any building, even remotely similar to a dolmen, a megalith, regardless of the nature of the masonry, the manner of stone processing, etc. They are looking for dolmens in the mountains of Ossetia, Checheno-Ingushetia and Dagestan, forgetting about their connection with a certain ethnic group, and even if not an ethnic group (so be it), then even digressing from the inventory that is characteristic only for them and described here, which leads to confusion of the very concept of dolmens and interferes with the already difficult understanding of these already mysterious buildings.

Probably, scientists will be interested in dolmens for many years to come, giving rise to new opinions about the culture of the population that left them, their way of life and beliefs. Perhaps the time will come when scientists with drawings in their hands will be able to compare all the megaliths of the world with each other, regardless of the difficulties of long journeys and language barriers. Dream... Any dream sometimes becomes a reality.

A short story about dolmens is completed. Perhaps he did not fully satisfy the curiosity of many readers. After all, it contains more assumptions than answers to questions. It's like that. Science does not stand still, it develops and expands the horizons it sees from day to day. What now causes bewilderment in us, in ten years, you see, will be easily deciphered and known. There are already forecasts that the age of ceramics will soon be determined, there is hope that the degree of rock destruction along the weathering crust will also provide material for dating, and the expeditions themselves will be organized with the involvement of various specialists, whose efforts will be reduced to solving a common problem - a full-fledged comprehension of a certain monument. Such expeditions are already beginning to work.

The dolmens of the Western Caucasus are still waiting for a new galaxy of their researchers, but I would like them to master the technique of drawing and sketching - that depth of material fixation that preserves a crumbling monument for centuries. And dolmens are becoming more and more rare every day. There are no dolmens of the Kozhzhok group for a long time, the buildings of the Deguakskaya glade began to be demolished. Dolmens disappear for various reasons - because of their own antiquity (the natural time limit allotted for their stamina has been exhausted), ignorance and self-interest of people (they break them into stone), because of the need to free up the areas they occupy.

The modern legislation “On the protection and use of historical and cultural monuments”, adopted in our country on October 29, 1976, requires a respectful and careful attitude towards them.

Probably, the implementation of the articles of this law is mandatory not only for special persons, but for all people, regardless of their profession, degree of knowledge of national history and breadth of outlook. The entire local population should join in the protection of dolmens, remembering at least that their design, content and even location on the ground hide answers to many historical questions that are important on an international scale. And if this book aroused interest in dolmens even to a small extent, then we can assume that they will be preserved, and, therefore, my work was also not useless.

What do historians say about dolmens? With this question, we turned to ancient history, captured in the sailing directions of ancient Greek sailors. And here's what we dug up in them.
A long time ago, the land in these places was covered with thick fogs. High bare rocks interspersed with deep crevices. Smoke and gas bubbled up from the underground depths. The earth breathed. At the foot of the rocks splashed the waves of a deep salt lake.
From the cold valley, in search of warmth, small, evil pygmies came here. During the day they climbed high mountains, and at night they climbed into deep caves. It was warm underground there, and most importantly, hot golden rivers flowed. It was possible to boil bird eggs in molten gold and eat them.
Life in the dungeon delayed the development of this people. They were small, black, cruel and very bloodthirsty. This people had a hard life. One day they saw white giants. They were kind and hardworking creatures. They were constantly building something. They looked at the little pygmies, how they shivered from the cold into the cold, how the hot sun burned down on them and took pity on them. The giants built huge stone houses and allowed the dwarfs to live in them. The houses were so big that the dwarfs couldn't even get into them. Then the giants taught the dwarfs how to tame hares. The dwarfs sat on the hares and made them jump into the houses through a small hole.
This is the only information about dolmens that comes from the depths of centuries. They cast a magical fog on strange structures, through which it is almost impossible to see time, let alone the builders themselves. Who were these mysterious giants - the builders of dolmens?
Gradually the lake rose and turned into a huge sea. It connected with the Mediterranean Bosporus. The highly developed civilization of the ancient Greeks rushed in search of new lands.
For a long time, the ships of the Argonauts - the first navigators - crashed on the wandering rocks of Plankta, which were located at the exit from the Bosporus to the Black Sea. One day, a wise captain took on his ship a soothsayer named Phineus. He sent a dove ahead of the ship. The bird flew between the rocks. They dispersed, stopped in place and never closed again.
Since then, the history of the Black Sea coast began to be written. “A dead place, completely covered with fogs. Huge black birds are found here - griffins, capable of pecking a person; Amazon women who kill any man who steps ashore; barbarian tribes live in the rocks. They either sacrifice any alien to their gods or eat them, and the skulls serve as goblets for them, ”the civilized Greeks described the Black Sea coast in this way. "A place in hell," they said.

However, despite all the difficulties, ancient researchers found that in those places where high rocks were not yet covered with vegetation, right in the crevices one could see frozen rivers of real gold. The gold rush filled the sails of the desperate Greeks. The Odyssey describes the extraordinary dangers that accompany sailors. Cyclopes, sorcerers, sea passions - all this was here, on the shores of the Black, inhospitable sea.
I had to fight with local tribes - pygmies, who desperately defended their possessions. After all, golden rivers are the only source of heat in the deep underground, it was the source of their life. The Greeks called the Pygmies "Keepers of Gold".
The territory from Sochi to Novorossiysk has not been conquered for a long time. It was an ominous place, it brought only death and misfortune.
Gradually the rocks were covered with sand, earth and vegetation. The golden rivers have cooled down. And the pygmies have gone into oblivion. Maybe they live somewhere deep underground and protect their wealth, or maybe they have learned to survive on the surface of the earth. Greek written sources tell that for a long time wild tribes of barbarians lived here, first cannibals, then sea pirates, and later slave traders. They worshiped their gods by sacrificing people. Highly developed peoples did not like these places.
Hordes of Scythians roamed past, fought with the barbarians, but no one managed to penetrate the terrible, hermitic world of savages.
The bloodthirsty spirit of the most ancient tribes disappeared, scattered over the earth and left behind strange monuments.
Not a single ancient Greek written source, replete with fantastic details about the Black Sea coast, tells about dolmens. As if before and during the Greek colonization there were no stone structures here.

Scientists believe that the construction of dolmens took place in the era from 2400 to 1300 BC. e. in the Bronze Age. In those days, the peoples of the Zigs, Achaeans, Geniokhs stood out. These warlike tribes, following their more ancient ancestors, were engaged in piracy. They captured people and turned them into slaves. Later, the geniokhs became slave traders. On the sea coast Tuapse for a long time there was one of the largest slave markets. In the 4th century BC e. one of the kings of the Bosporus, Eumenes, entered into a war with the geniokhs and cleared the sea of ​​pirates.
The name "dolmen" itself comes from the Celtic words tol - table, men - stone: a stone table. In northern European countries, having massive ceilings, they resemble huge tables. By the middle of the 19th century, in scientific works, the word “dolmen” was assigned to the ancient buildings of the Western Caucasus, while the local population still continues to call them differently. Among the Adyghes and Abkhazians, these are “ispun” and “spyun” (houses of dwarfs, caves), among the Mingrelians - “keunezh” (houses of giants), the Cossack population calls them “heroic huts”.

The moment of discovery and the first mention of dolmens in scientific sources belong to the academician (Imperial Academy of Sciences) Peter Simon Pallas. When he first saw dolmens, he compared these structures with tombs, without thinking about their true purpose. This was in 1794.
Traveling around the Taman Peninsula, at dusk he saw stone structures that looked like tombs, and described them. Other studies were made in 1818 by Tebu de Marigny in the area of ​​the Pshada River. Pshad dolmens also described James Bell. After these studies, all sorts of speculations and theories were born.
Interest in dolmens increased every year. These shrines seem to fascinate a person, and their extraordinary shape makes them constantly unravel the mysterious belonging.

The systematization of the dolmens of the Caucasus was carried out L. I. Lavrov. In his work, 1139 buildings are indicated (1960).
From 1967 to 1976, the Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR created a special detachment for the study of dolmens under the leadership of Vladimir Ivanovich Markovin. A huge number of buildings were explored. In carefully recorded documents, there are 2308 dolmens. Markovin shares his impressions “... when dolmens began to line up before my eyes not as light houses of cards, but as massive masonry of slabs and stones, towering over my personal dimensions, then even at night, alone with my thoughts, I could not move away from the impression of their amazing grandiosity. Their silent combination with the masses of trees and majestic mountain distances seemed eerie.
No traces have been found showing the prehistory of the origin, development and complication of the design features of megaliths. Dolmens remain one of the most mysterious types of archaeological sites, according to scientists. The vast range of their distribution in time and space makes it difficult to recreate a complete picture.

At the moment, the hypotheses that dolmens are ancient Adyghe burials have been rejected, otherwise they would not exist, for example, in India. The theory of burial tombs for leaders or priests has undergone serious criticism, since it has not been found in a sufficient amount of material evidence.
We have to assume that the principle and form of dolmens were given by someone once and for all. Dolmens stand in separate places around the world. They maintain the main ratios of sizes, despite the fact that they are located very far from each other.
It was suggested that the dolmens were built in 2 - 3 thousand BC. e. in the Bronze Age as tombs for noble and important people. However, sufficient evidence has not been found that the dolmens were indeed stone burials. In some dolmens, skeletons of people were found, but they were either in a sitting or in a crooked position. This suggests that people could hide in a dolmen from a serious danger and die suddenly. In others, dismembered and neatly stacked bones of people were found. Perhaps they were carefully laid down by the surviving tribesmen after a massacre or an epidemic of disease.
After the establishment of the Center, a group of our researchers collected a lot of material from personal intuitive research and testimonies of local residents who experienced the impact of dolmens.
Very curious conclusions were made, confirming the initial presence of serious scientific and technical knowledge among the builders of dolmens.
Dolmens capture waves, atmospheric vibrations, amplify them and distribute them to the surrounding space in such a way that the human brain is able to distinguish the sent information. Being well versed in the technical intricacies of stone instruments, ancient people used dolmens for various purposes. For example, placing a dolmen with a hole in a valley, river or just a body of water, they forced it to affect the psyche of the enemy, caused mortal horror, anxiety and a desire to move away from a strange place as quickly as possible. This arrangement of dolmens is just as dangerous now.
Very serious studies of dolmens were made by Ukrainian scientists Furdui and Shvaydak. It is known that dolmens were built exclusively from quartz-containing and granite-containing rocks (granitoids, sandstones). Quartz SiO2 generates an electric current and maintains a constant oscillation (frequency stabilization). This property is used in radio engineering. Under the influence of an electric current, quartz crystals generate ultrasound. When mechanically deformed, quartz is able to generate radio waves.
There are large, medium and smaller dolmens. The resonant frequency of such chambers is 23, 16 and 35 Hz.
Such frequencies are located at the lower threshold of human hearing, adjacent to the infrasonic range. Such acoustic vibrations have an adverse effect. For example, ultrasound from 15 to 40 Hz causes a sensation of drilling the skin with “gimlets”. And a powerful ultrasonic beam on the brain of animals causes physical oppression, turns off the irradiated areas of the brain.
The impact on the human brain of low-frequency oscillations with a frequency of 13 - 25 Hz leads to the resonance of various internal organs. Exposure to a frequency of 25 Hz for 30 minutes causes an epileptic seizure.
The resonant frequency of most Caucasian dolmens is close to this value. It is also known that the impact of low-frequency oscillations close to the natural frequencies of human organs, in particular the heart (6-12 Hz), can be harmful and even fatal.

It is assumed that dolmens at one time were a multifunctional instrument. They not only generated ultrasound, but also radiated it in a directed way in the form of a beam (projector effect), as evidenced by the design features of dolmens. They are a bell, expanding in the direction from the rear wall to the front. An important element of the design of dolmens is a hole in their front wall - "manhole". It is located on the center line of the front wall at a certain height from the floor. The diameter of the hole is usually 40 cm.
The holes in the dolmens were closed with special stone plugs - plugs. Their shape is similar to the ultrasonic emitters used in modern technology to focus the ultrasonic flow.
A dolmen installed in some strategically important place (gorge, pass) as a combat installation and “launched” at the right frequency at the right time did not allow the enemies to pass, causing them to feel “drilling gimlets”, and even loss of consciousness and death .

In France, women specially spent nights away near megaliths in order to be cured of infertility, to beg for a happy marriage, and so on. On the back wall of one of the French dolmens there is a relief in the form of a stylized human figure, consisting of parallel lines. Some of these lines resemble human acupuncture lines known to acupuncturists. But most of the lines go far beyond the contours of the human body and rather resemble the lines of his aura. The heart and the lower part of the spine, that is, the most energetically important organs, are especially highlighted in the relief. The drawing is applied "upside down".
Dolmens were used for psychogenic effects on humans. By tuning the dolmen to a certain frequency, it was possible to achieve that a person (priest) entered a special state of trance and began to utter prophecies, just as ancient Greek oracles or Eskimo shamans did.
It is assumed that dolmens were used for technological purposes, for example, for ultrasonic welding of jewelry, in particular, Celtic and Scythian, made, as experts suspect, using a completely incomprehensible technology for attaching small parts to a base, reminiscent of high-frequency or ultrasonic welding.
The West Caucasian dolmens, as suggested by Furduy and Shvaydak, were installed in seismically dangerous areas, along zones of active geological faults. As we already know, these scientists were almost at the truth, they approached the innermost secret of dolmens and went further, revealing another important function of them - signaling of an approaching earthquake. It is known that before a strong earthquake, stresses in rock blocks increase, and small shocks occur. The dolmen could pick up this sound and begin to "buzz", warning the priest and the population about upcoming events.
Studies have shown that the dolmens of the North Caucasus in the bulk adversely affect humans. Their vibrations have a destructive effect on the psyche and body, so it is necessary to communicate with them with extreme caution.
Dolmens were built all over the world: from Japan to the Iberian Peninsula, from India to the Caucasus and from North Africa to the northern regions of Western Europe. Similar monuments are known in South America - Peru, Bolivia. In Western Europe - in England, France, Germany. On the islands of the Mediterranean - Corsica, Sardinia, the Balearic Islands, Malta and the island of Mallorca. They are found in England (the famous Stonehenge), in France, in Germany, in Spain, even in Africa. The shape of the dolmens is different. These are simple high-standing stones, pointed upwards in the form of a pencil (menhirs), and two high-standing stones with a crossbar on top.
On the small Pacific island of Malekula, which is part of the New Hebrides archipelago, a few decades ago, local residents erected dolmens and menhirs, reminiscent of those that were built around the world millennia ago. These dolmens were shrines for all the islanders. It was believed that the leader of a secret religious union on the island on certain days listened to the voice of the spirit of great ancestors here and asked him for advice. At certain times of the day, the stone megalith emits a strong ultrasonic sound, hammering the squeak of bats.
Before sunrise, the stone monument emits pulses of ultrasound, which subside shortly after sunrise. Ultrasonic radiation is most intense and long lasting during the equinoxes, and minimal during the solstices. The individual stones that make up the structure have different sound cycles.