Megalithic structures of the Ancient World. Dolmens of the Western Caucasus. Dolmens of the Western Caucasus: mysteries, myths, legends

Dolmens- These are tombs of the Middle Bronze Age, built by the bearers of the dolmen culture and consisting of megaliths. On at the moment scientists extend the time frame for the creation of these structures to the late Bronze Age, but there is little evidence for this, since a significant part of the dolmens has already been destroyed.

Where and when were dolmens built?

The geography of dolmen placement is determined by the following boundaries: from the cape Tuzla(Taman Peninsula), mountainous part of Adygea and Krasnodar region to the Abkhaz city Ochamchira in the south and the Laba River valley in the north. Traces of the existence of these structures remained in Stavropol and Zheleznovodsk.

A unique “corner” of dolmen-shaped crypts is Karachevo-Cherkessia (Kyafar River basin).

As a rule, dolmens are located 250-400 m above sea level (maximum height - 1 km) on the sunny side of the ridges, at the top on a flat area or on a river terrace. The orientation towards astronomical objects and down the solar slope can be traced.

The time of construction of the majestic buildings is approximately determined by the end of the 3rd - second half of the 2nd millennium BC. e. This dating applies to the largest megaliths (there are now ≈3000 of them, including those destroyed). While there are certain disagreements and problems in determining the time of construction of other buildings of this type (tombs under mounds, Karachevo-Cherkess crypts, small dolmens, underground parts of crypts in the form of wells, above-ground domes of tombs).

Who built the dolmens in the Caucasus?

The peoples of the Western Caucasus are not pioneers in the construction of stone tombs. More ancient parallels to the dolmen tradition can be traced throughout the world. The approximate distribution trajectory looks like this: Portugal - Sardinia - North Africa and Sicily - Jordan and Syria - Asia Minor and the Balkans - Western Caucasus. In addition, almost all Caucasian peoples used stone for burials.

What were they used for?

In addition to their direct purpose as burial places, there is indisputable evidence of the use of these structures as family sanctuaries, and some as common objects of worship (Psynako I mound in the Tuapse region, the Silver Mound in the Klady tract and the complex on the Zhane River).

Features of construction

The main material in the construction process was stone from the surrounding area (it was split using soaking wooden wedges, softer ones - with stone and even bronze tools). Suitable slabs were also used, both nearby and transported from several kilometers away. Various sand rocks served as connectors for stone parts. The surfaces were polished using stone trowels. The cover slabs were transported along an inclined embankment behind the dolmen.

Architectural specificity of dolmens

Basically, dolmens are houses consisting of slabs, the front openings in which are closed with stone plugs.

Depending on the design features, several types of dolmens are distinguished (classification by L. I. Lavrov): ordinary (consist of solid slabs), composite (have walls consisting of small slabs or stones), trough-shaped (carved into a huge stone or rock and a krishy slab or upside down), monoliths (made through the entrance to the rock, Volkonsky dolmen). This list does not include the later discovered Novosvobodnensky tombs.

Archaeologist A.D. Rezepkin proposed dividing dolmens into:

• rectangular,
• horseshoe tombs
• and the dolmens themselves.

The immediate predecessors of the dolmens of the Caucasus are the stone crypts of the Maykop culture, which did not yet have a foundation and thick slabs.

Almost each of the monoliths has some of its own design features that correspond to the time and customs.

Tile buildings can be rectangular, square or trapezoidal, while composite buildings can be round or completely round. Curved slabs can be installed straight or at an angle (often projecting like a canopy), connected (or not) by a groove. Often the side slabs, protruding forward, form a portal, which may have its own overlap.

There are also many differences in the design of the floor, side plates and other elements (for example, supports).

As a rule, there is an entrance hole of different shapes at the bottom. It may not exist (false portal dolmens), then the hole is located at the back or side. There may be remains of fastenings for a wooden shelf on the walls.

Often the portal of a building has the shape of a terrace, but more often it is a paved courtyard. It can be surrounded by fairly high (up to the level of the dolmen itself) slabs. In some cases, there may be a cromlech (stones dug into the ground around a structure) or a dromos (covered corridor). There have been cases when dolmens were completely covered with stones up to the roof.

The Karachay-Cherkessia tombs are distinguished by an order of magnitude higher level of craftsmanship.

Decoration of dolmens

The main ornaments of dolmens are engraved and convex. Few of them have survived, apparently due to erosion. Where the drawings have been preserved, they are located inside and along the portal. On the front plate there was a cross in a circle, a labyrinthine pattern with an outgoing zigzag, vertical zigzags, or a pattern of another portal and a convexity. There may be others geometric designs, denoting rivers, mountains, sun.

The inside of the dolmens is decorated with a horizontal zigzag and a straight line or stripe, sometimes complemented by vertical zigzags. And also a lot of unsolved ornaments and plot drawings (a deer hunt and a fight between two twins).

The surface of dolmens in Karachay-Cherkessia is almost completely filled with various symbols and wavy grooves.

A characteristic feature of the dolmens’ ornamentation is the absence of colorful designs on the façade and in the chamber.

If you ask locals about dolmens, they will certainly tell you a 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 shelter during bad weather.

People inclined to esoteric explanations of the unknown believe that dolmens were established by the inhabitants 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. Today there are two versions. They could be either religious buildings of a tribe or a separated clan, or funerary ones. During excavations, burials of people who lived in different periods were found in many of them. historical eras, and next to them are various objects that could be useful to the deceased in the other world: from stone scrapers and shards of gray clay dishes to medieval weapons. Although later burials, naturally, were secondary.

2,300 dolmens were discovered and described in the Western Caucasus, most of them are located in the area of ​​Gelendzhik, Novorossiysk and Shapsugskaya. There are about 150 of them that are completely intact and not very damaged. But even this number of artifacts does not shed light on the history of their creation. Only the time of their construction is known exactly, which was determined on the basis of radiocarbon dating of organic remains extracted from the dolmen chambers. It was found that the Western Caucasian dolmens were built from 3500 to 1400 BC. e.

Ancient builders erected dolmens from blocks of quartz sandstone. On average, the weight of the structure ranges from 15 to 30 tons. This means that there should have been quarries in 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 huge blocks of stone delivered to the construction site in the absence of roads suitable for transporting heavy loads? AND main question: How did ancient architects calculate the parameters of slabs, the joints of which do not have a straight surface, and all the slabs clearly adjoin each other due to specially arranged grooves? The joints are so tight that it is impossible to insert even a knife blade between the plates. It also seems surprising that even the earliest buildings are not primitive, but complex structures. An example of the ideal work of engineering is the dolmens on Mount Nexis and on the Zhane River near Gelendzhik.

Modern man was unable to make such a precise adjustment of structural details. When reconstructing dolmens, it has not yet been possible to compose multi-ton slabs without errors. And in 2007, in the Gelendzhik Safari Park, they decided to assemble a dolmen from slabs of destroyed buildings, the processing and adjustment of which was decided to be carried out using ultra-precise power tools. However, this time too, the Bronze Age builders turned out to be head and shoulders above - there were gaps of several centimeters between the slabs of the newly assembled dolmen.

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

What are dolmens?

• Tiled dolmens usually include four walls, a lid and a floor consisting of one large or several smaller (heel) slabs. The chamber is rectangular or trapezoidal. The slabs have grooves, due to which all the slabs are tightly connected. The front slab, framed by side projections and an overhanging canopy, forms a portal.
• Composite dolmens are partially or completely assembled from individual small blocks. They have a complex geometric connection. The shape of the chamber is varied: rectangular, trapezoidal, horseshoe-shaped, round and multifaceted.
• Trough-shaped dolmens were carved into the thickness of the stone, and then covered with a slab on top.
• Dolmen-monoliths are entirely hewn out of one block of stone or into the rock. They are very rare.

Dolmen group Ust-Sakhray

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

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

From a large kilometer-long dolmen field between the Dakh and Sakhray rivers, two groups remained on the western and eastern edges of the village. On Bukreeva Polyana, in front of the western outskirts of Ust-Sakhrai, there are about fifty mounds. Under ten of them, portal and non-portal dolmens, two-chamber tombs, a stone box, burial platforms with a cromlech and a menhir were examined and studied. Behind 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-layered nature and structural and typological diversity. The megaliths of Ust-Sakhrai date back to the second half of the 4th millennium BC. - first half of the 3rd millennium BC. e.

Deguakskaya Polyana is located in the basin of the Belaya River (Shkhaguashche). It got its name from the Deguak stream, flowing in the northern part of the clearing. It is a vast basin, bounded from the north and east by the river bed, the distant ridge and the forested slopes of Mount Gut. From the south, the clearing wedges into the gorge of Mount Pisanoy, and from the west it gradually merges with the slopes of the Sibir and Skala mountains. The Deguak glade is known for a fairly large group of dolmens. There are more than 200 of them here. They occupy ridge-like and mound-like uplifts made of gravel and river pebbles. The megaliths of the Deguak-Dakhovskaya glade date back to the 4th-2nd millennia BC. Local dolmens are carved from slabs of sandstone and sandy limestone and shell rock.

During Markovin’s study of the group of dolmens of the Deguaksko-Dakhovskaya glade, fragments of black clay and gray clay vessels with ornaments, bone items, carnelian beads, and bronze objects were discovered.

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

Kozhokh dolmen group

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

In the Kozhokhskaya dolmen group there are 27 mounds, 16 of which contain dolmen ruins. Megaliths of this group date back to the 4th-3rd millennium BC. The study revealed gray clay and black clay vessels, fragments of molded pots and flat-bottomed bowls, bronze arrowheads, a bronze pin, flint flakes, and animal bones.

In the journal of excavations of dolmens of the Kozhokhsky group, Felitsyn described dolmen No. 20, located on a high mound. Dolmens of this type are rarely found in the Western Caucasus and are currently not preserved in Adygea.

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

The dolmen cover is a solid slab with a slightly trapezoidal shape.

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

Dolmen "Azishsky-1"

The Azishsky-1 dolmen was discovered in 1966. It is located on the 12th kilometer of the Khadzhokh-Lagonaki highway, Maikop district. The megalith dates back to the 3rd-2nd millennia BC. The dolmen belongs to the tiled portal type with a two-stage roof. In front of the portal platform, the slabs that continue it to the east are still visible. The side plates are broken into two parts. The remains of buttresses are visible from the outside. On the upper side of the portal roof fragments there is a mass of cup-shaped recesses. A hole with a diameter of 30 cm was made at the base of the front slab. Neat grooves for the end walls are carved into the side slabs.

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

Dolmen "Dudugush-1"

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

The dolmen is partially destroyed. It dates back to the middle of the 2nd millennium BC.

A sign was found on one of the dolmen slabs, representing a circle carved in sandstone, which is truncated by a straight line in the western part. The sign continues with two parallel straight lines that converge to a point of connection with a 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

In the Caucasus Mountains, somewhere between the cities of Gelendzhik, Tuapse, Novorossiysk and Sochi, there are hundreds of megalithic monuments, which are called dolmens. Age of all these megalithic dolmens dates back approximately 10,000 - 25,000 years, and what they were intended for is debated today by both Russian and Western archaeologists.

There is no single point of view regarding dolmens in the Caucasus - some archaeologists believe that the age of these megalithic structures is actually from 4000 to 6000 years. Thousands of prehistoric megalithic monuments are known all over the world, but those located on the territory of the former Soviet Union(including in the Caucasus) are little known in the West.

Dolmens are mainly located in the Western Caucasus (Russia and Abkhazia) on both sides of the mountain range, covering an area of ​​approximately 12,000 square kilometers. Caucasian dolmens are a unique type of prehistoric architecture - structures created from perfectly fitted cyclopean stone blocks. For example, there are stones in the shape of a bull “G”, which were used on the corners of dolmens, or stones in the shape of a perfect circle.

Although such “fragments ancient era» generally unknown in Western Europe, these Russian megaliths are no less significant for science than the megaliths discovered in Europe - both in terms of age and in terms of the quality of architecture. And the most amazing thing is that their origin is still unknown. Scientists note that despite the diversity of Caucasian stone structures, they show striking similarities with megaliths from different parts of Europe and Asia (Iberian Peninsula, France, Great Britain, Ireland, Holland, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Israel and India).

A number of hypotheses have been put forward to explain such similarities, as well as guesses about the purpose of the construction of megaliths, but for now all this remains a mystery. At the moment, approximately 3,000 such megalithic monuments are known in the Western Caucasus, but new megaliths continue to be found constantly. At the same time, unfortunately, many of the Caucasian monoliths are in an extremely neglected state and will be completely lost if they are not protected from vandals and natural destruction.

Most of the megaliths, dolmens and stone labyrinths that are found in the Caucasus Mountains (but they are little studied) look like rectangular structures made of stone slabs or carved into the rocks with round holes as an entrance. However, not all dolmens look like this. In fact, you can find very diverse examples of architecture here: multi-story stone buildings, square, trapezoidal, rectangular and round.

What is noteworthy is that in all such buildings there is a hole on the façade leading inside. Most often it is round, but occasionally square ones are found. Also often stone “plugs” are found in dolmens, which were used to close the entrance hole. Sometimes such stone plugs have a phallic shape. Inside the dolmen there is most often a round platform onto which light falls through a round hole. Scientists believe that some kind of rituals may have been carried out at such sites. Such a site was surrounded by large stone walls, sometimes more than a meter high.

It was in this area that archaeologists found Bronze and Iron Age pottery that helped date these burials, as well as human remains, bronze tools and jewelry made from silver, gold and semi-precious stones. Typically, the repertoire of decorations for such graves is not particularly diverse. The most common types of carvings found on stone blocks are vertical and horizontal zigzags, triangles and concentric circles.

One of the most interesting megalithic complexes is a group of three dolmens, which is located on a hill above the Zhane River on the Black Sea coast in Krasnodar region near Russian Gelendzhik. This area has perhaps the largest concentration of all types of megalithic objects, including settlements and dolmens.

Photo: thelivingmoon.com
Based on materials from ewao.com

General information about dolmens(from published sources)

Dolmens (from Brett. taol maen - stone table) - ancient funeral and places of worship belonging to the category of megaliths. Name"dolmens" comes from appearance structures common in Europe - a slab raised on stone supports, resembling a table.
In the first archaeological works the term"dolmens" used as a collective name for megalithic chamber tombs.In English-language archaeological literature this the term is obsolete and applies to tombs whose original design cannot be determined, or non-standard types that do not fall into the category of gallery or corridor tombs. In French term"dolmens" still popular. In Portugal, dolmens are usually called "anta", in Scandinavia - "röse"; these words are part of the names of local dolmens.In Russia, dolmens are traditionally called Western Caucasian (now also Ural) stone tiled, composite and monolithic tombs. This Name extends to similar structures in other regions of the world.
Dolmens are located mostly in North Africa (in Roknia), Western, Northern and Southern Europe.The largest number of dolmens(at least 30,000) discovered in Korea.In Russia, Western Caucasus there are also many dolmens Dolmens were built in different times people of different cultures. In Western Europe, active construction was carried out by the population belonging to the “Funnel Beaker” culture, which received its name from the characteristic vessels it used. Stone for dolmens in Western Europe was often not cut down, but erratic boulders transported over time were used. ice age from Scandinavia.
Caucasian dolmens were created during the Early and Middle Bronze Age from the 3rd-2nd millennium BC and were used until the 1st millennium BC. e. during the existence dolmen culture (see below) .
In its simplest form dolmen - it is one stone placed on several others (sometimes on one). The stones are large in size and mass. The most popular option is 3 stones placed in the shape of the letter P (Stonehenge is built from many of just such elements).In its most architecturally complete form (which is inherent in dolmens of the North Caucasus), the dolmen consists of five or six stone slabs and is a closed stone box: a fifth lies on four slabs placed vertically; optionally, the sixth plate is the bottom. In the front transverse slab, as a rule, there is a hole - round (most often), oval, arched, subtriangular or square, which is closed with a stone plug - but it may not exist (false portal dolmen): in this case, the hole may be at the back or from the side. The slabs are often connected in a groove, there are practically no gaps. Side walls and roof dolmens can protrude in front of the portal or facade, forming a portal niche, which was covered by a common roof or had a ceiling made of a separate slab.
A dolmen could be built on the surface of the earth and a mound was poured over it, which subsequently often fell down and was destroyed; or on top of the mound. Sometimes dolmens took on a more complex shape: for example, they were connected to a narrower corridor of standing slabs, or arranged in the form of a large rectangular chamber, in one of the longitudinal sides of which an entrance with a corridor was made (so that the entire structure took the form of the letter T), or, finally , the dolmen turned into a series of longitudinal chambers following one after another, sometimes expanding more and more and going deeper into the ground. The material from which dolmens were made varies depending on the area: granite, sandstone, limestone.
The main function for dolmens of all types is burial, which is confirmed by archaeological research.Fragments of pottery, flint axes, arrowheads, amber beads were found in the dolmens, but only a few human remains - they were poorly preserved in the sandy soil. Sometimes, judging by the shards found, the number of ceramic vessels reached 600. If we assume that there were two or three vessels with food for each deceased, then quite a lot of people were probably buried in some graves.

The orientation of dolmens on the ground is different, but, as a rule, it fits into the arc of sunrise-sunset and the culmination of the celestial bodies northeast-south-northwest. Only single monuments are directed to the north... observations at individual monuments (the Psynako-1 complex, a dolmen with a cromlech of the “Wolf Gate” group, a dolmen with a visor “Mamedova Gap”) showed that they mark the points of sunrise and sunset on the days of solstices and equinoxes(M. Kudin "Dolmens and Ritual". Sochi local historian, issue 4. Sochi, 1999.). Such observations may be indirect confirmation of the assumption that the builders of dolmens were not alien to the solar cult.