ROUGH STONE MONUMENTS 



with the wonderful civilization which must have 

 been flourishing so near at hand in Crete and the 

 Mgean at the time when the megalithic temples 

 were built. The island seems to have been en- 

 tirely self-sufficing, except for the importation of 

 obsidian, probably from the neighbouring island 

 of Linosa. Of copper, which wide trade would 

 have introduced, there is no sign. 



Some writers, however, have argued the exist- 

 ence of extensive trade-relations from the occur- 

 rence of a peculiar kind of turquoise called callai's 

 in some of the megalithic monuments of France 

 and Portugal. The rarity of this stone has inclined 

 some archaeologists to attribute it to a single 

 source, while some have gone so far as to consider 

 it eastern in origin. For the last theory there is no 

 evidence whatsoever. No natural deposit of 

 callai's is known, but it is highly probable that the 

 sources of the megalithic examples lay in France 

 or Portugal. 



It would of course be foolish to suppose that 

 the megalithic people received none of the pro- 

 ducts of other countries, especially at a time when 

 the discovery of copper was giving a great impetus 

 to trade. No doubt they enjoyed the benefits of 

 that kind of slow filtering trade which a primitive 

 tribe, even if it had wished, could hardly have 

 avoided, but they were not a great trading nation 

 as were the Cretans of the Middle and Late 

 Minoan Periods, or the Egyptians of the Xllth 



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