120 MENTION OF STONE CIRCLES IN ANCIENT HISTORY. 



and in verse 51, "Laban said to Jacob, Behold this heap, 

 and behold this pillar, which I have cast between me and 

 thee. This heap is a witness, and this pillar is a witness, 

 that I will not pass over this heap to thee, and that thou 

 shalt not pass over this pillar to me, to do me harm/' etc. 

 At Mount Sinai, Moses erected twelve pillars.* And so, again, 

 when the children of Israel had crossed over Jordan, Joshua 

 took twelve stones and pitched them in Gilgal. "And he 

 spake unto the children of Israel, saying, When your children 

 shall ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean 

 these stones ? then ye shall let your children know, saying, 

 Israel came over this Jordan on dry land."-)* 



Achan and his whole family were stoned with stones and 

 burned with fire, after which we are told that Israel " raised 

 over him a great heap of stones unto this day. So the Lord 

 turned from the fierceness of his anger." Again, the king 

 of Ai was buried under a great heap of stones ; and so also 

 was Absalom, of whom likewise we are told that he " reared 

 up for himself a pillar, which is in the King's Dale ; for he 

 said, I have no son to keep my name in remembrance, and he 

 called the pillar after his own name, and it is called unto this 

 day Absalom's Place." 



In one of the ancient Babylonian records, Izdubar is re- 

 corded to have erected a memorial mound, j 



According to Diodorus, Semiramis, the widow of Ninus, 

 buried her husband within the precincts of the palace, and 

 raised over him a great mound of earth. Pausanias mentions 

 that stones were collected together, and heaped up over the 

 tomb of Laius, the father of CEdipus. In the time of the 

 Trojan war, Tydeus and Lycus are mentioned as having been 

 buried under two earthen barrows. " Hector's barrow was 

 of stone and earth. Achilles erected a tumulus, upwards of 

 an hundred feet in diameter, over the remains of his friend 



* Ex. xxiv. 4. ^ Le Normant. Les Premieres 



t Joshua iv. 21, 22. Civilisations, vol. ii. p. 47. 



