The World of Megaliths

Jean-Pierre Mohen

Published by Cassell , hardcover with dustjacket, illustrated
29 x 21 cm


Throughout history, the mystery of standing stones, dolmens, stone circles and subterranean tombs has exerted a strong fascination, and their construction has been attributed to gods, giants, priests and sorcerers. Thought to be sacrificial altars, steles to the glory of idols, sun-dials, or primitive computers, these vast stones have yielded a powerful mythology, but little explanation. Putting aside these extravagant theories, archeologist Jean-Pierre Mohen returns here to the monuments themselves to piece together at last the history of these remarkable stones and the people who built them.

The use of massive stones (from the Greek mega, great and lithos, stone), dating from approximately 5000 B.C. to 1000 B.C., can be found on every continent. From their earliest use in the Neolithic period as simple cave shelters and ditches for burial, tombs multiplied and new monuments were added to existing structures; the great site of Stonehenge was continually developed for more than a thousand years.

Chapter by chapter, Jean-Pierre Mohen charts the genesis, development and distribution of this form of architectural expression. In his careful examination of hundreds of sites he also raises searching questions about the societies that built them. What kinds of people were they? What were the organizational problems? How were such stones, some weighing over three hundred and fifty tonnes, excavated and hauled distances of one hundred kilometres or more, sometimes by sea as well as by land. A re-creation of the excavation of these massive stones by the author at Bougon in France, with helpers using ropes and tree trunks, has provided answers to some of these questions.

Progressively, the great sites were abandoned by this pre-metalworking civilization, but their imposing remains – documented here with over 200 full colour illustrations and fully indexed by geographical region – have stood for centuries, an impressive challenge to the forces of gravity, matter and time.