ROUGH STONE MONUMENTS 



of the island which show some affinity to mega- 

 lithic work. Two of these were found by Orsi at 

 Monteracello. They were rectangular chambers 

 built of squared slabs of limestone set on edge. At 

 one end of the finer of the two was a small opening 

 or window cut in the upright slab. This same 

 grave contained a skeleton lying on the right side 

 with the legs slightly contracted. These two 

 tombs can hardly be described as dolmens ; they 

 seem to have had no cover-slabs, and the blocks, 

 which were small, were let into the earth, scarcely 

 appearing above the surface. Taken by themselves 

 the Monteracello tombs would hardly prove the 

 presence of the megalithic civilization in Sicily. 

 However, in the valley called Cava Lazzaro there 

 is a rock-hewn tomb where the vertical face of 

 the rock in which the tomb is cut has been shaped 

 into a curved facade, a very usual feature of 

 megalithic architecture. This is ornamented on 

 each side of the entrance of the tomb with four 

 pilasters cut in relief in the solid rock, each pair 

 being connected by a semicircular arch also in 

 relief. On the pilasters is incised a pattern of 

 circles and V-shaped signs. A somewhat similar 

 arrangement of pilasters is seen in two rock-tombs 

 at Cava Lavinaro in the same district. This work 

 forcibly recalls the work of the megalithic builders 

 in the hypogeum of Halsaflieni in Malta (see 

 Chap. VII), and on the facades of the Giants' 

 Tombs in Sardinia (see below). It affords, at any 



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