6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 6 1 



same time by the same race, but the constructors of monoliths have 

 not necessarily a racial connection. 



It is believed that the unworked monolith was used far back in 

 human history for some religious purpose. While its erection as a 

 ci unmemorative object would seem to be secular and to have developed 

 from the habit of throwing together a heap of stones to mark some 

 event, a large stone has almost invariably acquired a religious mean- 

 ing. Worship of stones is universal ; ' the Greeks early worshipped a 

 shapeless stone, probably a meteorite, in Ephesus that was later 

 replaced by a beautiful statue representing Diana. The Kaaba of 

 Mecca, as is well known, antedates the Mohammedan era ; the 

 shrine of the Earth and Fire god of the Hopi Indians of Arizona is a 

 log of petrified wood." 



The following" interpretation of the structure of megaliths known as 

 cromlechs has been suggested by Herr W. Pastor. They present 

 three distinct regions: (i) a centrally placed altar; (2) one or 

 more concentric circles" of stone surrounding this altar: (3) an 

 entrance passing to the holy enclosure formed by rows of stones 

 cutting the concentric circles at right angles. 



Since monoliths from their very nature are commemorative they 

 early became the media on which pictographs were incised, and there 

 is an instructive connection between the origin of writing and the 

 construction of monoliths. Man first inscribed his ideas on the face 

 of cliffs, rocks, or boulders, and it is a significant fact that the races 

 that have invented writing have likewise been foremost in erecting 

 monoliths. The relation, however, is not necessarily one of cause and 

 effect. On Easter Island, for instance, where great colossi in 

 human form exist, we also find evidence of writing. The glyphs of 

 the Central American stelae are well known. The Egyptians who 

 excelled all people in the grandeur of their megalithic monuments, 

 have left the largest known corpus of hieroglyphic material. Irish 



1 My friend, Dr. I. M. Casanowicz, has called my attention to the fact that 

 Cyhele (Magna deum Idsea) "came from Phrygia to Rome in 204 B. C. and 

 was solemnly installed on the Palatine under the form of a hlack aerolite." 



2 Very many instances of stone worship among American Indians might be 

 mentioned; almost any strangely shaped stone is supposed to have magic 

 powers. 



3 Professor Lockyer finds in these circles of megaliths evidences of sun 

 worship; according to him the concentric lines of stones represent the course 

 of the Sun god. To Mr. Arthur Evans " it seems a universal rule that the stone 

 circle surrounds a central dolmen or stone cist containing the remains of the 

 dead." 



