Megaliths. Who and when created the megalithic civilization Megaliths of Mountain Shoria

In addition to . All photos were taken on the territory of the former USSR

Megaliths, huge structures made of massive stone blocks, are also found in our country. There are a lot of similar structures in Russia, but they are not known like the famous Stonehenge in Great Britain or
Ollantaytambo in Peru. We will get acquainted with the ancient megalithic structures found on the territory of Russia further.

First
where to start the journey is Mount Vottovaara - the highest point
West Karelian Upland - 417.3 m above sea level. Area
mountains 6 sq. km.
The place is just full of strange artifacts after which
you begin to think about ancient highly developed technologies for
stoneworking, let's take a better look at the photo.

Mount Vottovaara.
Scattered blocks of megaliths.

The middle block was cut at an angle of 90 degrees or a game of nature?

How
as if they had conducted a laser :) geologists believe that cracks and faults,
formed as a result of a strong earthquake about 9 thousand years
back. The smooth planes of the stones are the result of the properties of the local rock -
quartzite, the structure of which sets such even planes at
split.

So is it nature or man-made? Let's take a closer look.

More
it looks like perfectly sawn blocks tightly fitted to each other.
It is difficult to imagine an ancient ancestor with a copper chisel that is somewhere on
mountain grinds such even blocks.

Good angle, perfectly flat wall.

Who lost the ball?

Here, obviously, high technologies for stone processing could not have been done, or is it still a game of nature? :)

Ural. Ridge Kvarkush

Mount Pidan.
At first glance, it looks like an unremarkable pile of stones of a cracked rock.

But coming closer, it becomes more like a megalithic masonry.

Looking
between blocks, where the stones were less affected by erosion from
wind and rain, one can see man-made and how smooth edges have been preserved.

In the place where the junction of the blocks parted, you can see an even saw cut and the technology of laying these blocks opens before us.

Some blocks reach tens of tons in weight.

Despite the colossal destruction, many of the fragments are well enough preserved to be classified as building materials.

And this is all nature has created, as scientists say.

This is most likely a product of the natural processes of stone formation and its uneven erosion. Inclusions of different density can manifest themselves as a result of greater wear resistance.
More like flowing stone wax)

Stone town in the Perm region.
By
version of scientists, Stone City is the mouth of the river that flowed into the Perm
sea ​​millions of years ago, this explains it beautifully and evenly, under
right angles, carved stones, their neat laying and
perpendicular to each other "ducts" "mouths".

Stone city.

See what smooth sides of the megaliths, as if cut down.

Again, the old method is to look between the blocks inside the masonry, look at the far block in the center, an even cut along the entire length of the block.

They say somewhere on the Kola Peninsula there is this pool carved right into the rock.

In the south of Western Siberia, in the mountainous Shoria in the Mezhdurechensk region, there is a small geological settlement called Kameshki.
IN
Several educated talented geologists live in this village. This
Alexander Bespalov, Vyacheslav Pochetkin and others. These people all their lives
engaged in research of the mountain systems of Western Siberia. One day they
came across strange megalithic structures in the mountains, which, for
could not explain themselves. These were walls made of giant
stone blocks and strange buildings with vertically mounted
stone obelisks. On the Internet, they contacted Georgy Sidorov,
so the first expedition was assembled.

Mountain Shoria.
Some
the granite blocks below were made of red granite, crowned them
blocks of gray granite, and above lay a polygonal masonry of various
blocks, both red granite and gray.

Granite
in some places melted from exposure to enormous temperatures and
flow under the weight of the upper rows. Kungurov would say about this that it is
traces of melting from a thermonuclear explosion :)

The wall is composed of polygonal masonry of multi-colored blocks.

The size of the blocks is impressive, according to one version, the find is a man-made structure over 100 thousand years old.

On the
photo Georgy Sidorov, in his opinion, all this is a megalithic structure
may be the ruins of an ancient power plant or power plant,
which translated seismic energy into some other.

Again
looking inside the masonry where the blocks were less prone to erosion, one can see
smooth straight edges, see how the two blocks lie tightly, it's better here
visible handicraft.

Polygonal masonry.

Mountain Shoria. Huge blocks.
on the
Department of Radiophysics at Tomsk State University
showed pictures on the screen, talked about different types of
masonry, about stone castles that hold giant granite blocks together
and not a single learned physicist said that all this has a natural
origin. What surprised them most was how the ancients could raise
giant stone blocks to a height of more than 1000 meters and there
install them on a special platform.

Then
in the Tomsk branch of the Russian Geographical Society, photographs were studied by geologists and geographers. AND
both came to the conclusion that the presented artifacts are
man-made.

Sklyarova
asked to comment on the find. And what did he say? What all
found artifacts are nothing but cracked at a right angle
rocks. That there is nothing man-made here. Just a game of nature, nothing more.
After these words, I am not surprised why LAI does not study Russian megaliths.

Between blocks.

For comparison, on the left is the megalith in Baalbek, on the right is the megalith in the mountain Shoria, it looks like the author is the same :)

Mount Shaman near the village. Nizhnetambovskoye, Khabarovsk Territory.

Ancient megalithic masonry.

Again, between the blocks, man-made and straight lines are better visible.

Big block megalith.

A large block of megaliths on small stones, this is done for better seismic resistance.

Megalithic masonry resembles Mountain Shoria.

Kabardino-Balkaria, a cave in the Baksan Gorge.
At first
you need to squeeze into a hole measuring 40 by 120 cm, then go down to
rope along a narrow vertical shaft. It is formed by two parallel
stone slabs. After 9 meters - the first "knee": the hole goes to the side and
immediately drops down again. Already here you will be covered by absolute silence -
no sound comes from outside. Another 23 meters deep - and new
"knee". To reach the bottom of the cave, you need to overcome more than 80 meters,
and it will take an hour. But, having passed the "bottleneck", you
you will find yourself in a huge room, which the researchers called the "flask".
Inside we will see processed walls made of tuff and granite, built of
different-sized, tightly fitted polished megaliths.

Descent into the cave.

The edges of the blocks and the seams between them are clearly visible.

The even masonry is striking and the seams are clearly adjusted to each other.

The trihedral blocks parted a little.

Barely visible block seams on the left crescent wall and on the wall behind it.

how do you like the seams?

Rotate the cave at an angle of 90 degrees. Two large megalithic blocks stand on top of each other.

Technology
stone processing is amazing, and even more amazing is the comment of the boss
section of the Kabardino-Balkarian geological exploration expedition Vera
Davidenko, but she is a realist and believes that nature is capable of doing everything
conclusion: “Tuff is an accumulation of ejection products of a volcano -
ash, lava fragments, volcanic glass and, to a small extent,
fragments of rocks that make up the walls of the crater. Ejection material at
accumulation was hot and therefore cracks formed during solidification
separately - that is, the entire tuff massif turned out to be, as it were, divided into
blocks. The depression discovered near the village of Zayukovo represents
is one of such gravitational separation cracks, for which
flat contact surfaces are characteristic, ”but this is the head
geological exploration expedition, she probably knows better.

Structure diagram.

A bit of fantasy for the finale) Arakul Shikhan, a strange structure in the middle of the forest. I have everything, kick :)

Fossilized litas with ripples along the banks of Rassokha.

Sayan megaliths. Kuturchinskoye Belogorye:

Does anyone need to explain that these are not remnants, but the REMAINS of structures of an ancient civilization unknown to us?

Hope you can see for yourself. No need to comment?

This,. of course it's difficult. It is hard to imagine what this structure looked like before, but you can imagine how thousands, tens of thousands of years, day after day, skalfs were sharpened by wind, sand, water, temperature changes, lighting changes, glaciers, earthquakes (the area is seismically active, there are even dormant volcano). Sharp corners were ground down, straight edges were smoothed out, and now we see what we see.

The climate in these places is very harsh, in such a climate, Machu Picchu would have remained the same as in this photo, I have no doubt about it.

Complete mentally this arch, and imagine over your head vaulted ceiling. Are the dimensions of the "corridor" impressive?

Built absolutely in accordance with the technology of seismic resistance, which is used in Mesoamerican megalithic structures, and in the "temple" in the Middle East: Small blocks at the base, larger ones are laid on them, and it doesn't matter on top. Small ones work like a shock absorber, and polygonal masonry is the best invention of masons of all time. It can be destroyed only by chipping off piece by piece, or by a powerful explosion, after which a kurumnik appears in place of the monolith - a stone river of debris.

These structures are also so poorly identified as "man-made" because they have been subjected to powerful influences from changes in the landscape itself. Mountains "breathe", constantly changing heights and deviations from the horizontal.

Pay attention to the sun... yes! The same "Megandavid", which is considered to be a symbol of Judaism!

Only the supporting pillars have been preserved.

The term "megaliths" (English - megaliths) comes from the Greek words μέγας - large, λίθος - stone. Megaliths are structures made of stone blocks or blocks, from different rocks, of various modifications, sizes and shapes, combined and installed in such an order that these blocks / blocks represent a single monumental structure.

Stone blocks in megalithic structures weigh from a few kilograms to hundreds and even thousands of tons. Individual structures are so huge and unique that it is not at all clear how they were built. Also in the scientific world there is no consensus regarding the technologies of the ancient builders.

Some megaliths seemed to be carved (processed) with some tools, some objects seemed to be cast from liquid materials, and some objects have traces of clearly artificial processing of unknown technologies.

Megalithic culture is represented in absolutely all countries of the world, on land and under water (and…probably not only on our planet..). The age of megaliths is different, the main period of megalithic construction is determined from the 8th to the 1st millennium BC, although some objects have a much more ancient origin, which is often denied by official science. Megalithic monuments of a later period - 1-2 millennium AD are also widely represented.

Classification and types of megaliths

According to their classification, megaliths are divided into separate categories:

• megalithic complexes (ancient cities, settlements, temples, fortress-forts, ancient
• observatories, palaces, towers, walls, etc.);
• pyramids and pyramidal mountain complexes;
• mounds, ziggurats, kofuns, cairns, tumuluses, tombs, galleries, chambers, etc.;
• dolmens, triliths, etc.;
• menhirs (standing stones, stone alleys, statues, etc.);
• seids, blue stones, tracker stones, cup stones, altar stones, etc.;
• stones / rocks with ancient images - petroglyphs;
• rock, cave and underground structures;
• stone labyrinths (surads);
• geoglyphs;
• and etc.

There are many hypotheses about the purpose of megaliths, however, there are some features that are characteristic of many megaliths of the world, regardless of their classification, modification, size, etc. - this is their external similarity, location (geolocation), geophysical characteristics and belonging to some highly developed civilizations. The study of (sites of) megaliths by methods of geophysics and dowsing began in the 20th century. During the study, it was absolutely precisely established that the places for the construction of megaliths were not chosen by chance, very often megaliths are located on the sites (near) dowsing anomalies (in geopathogenic zones of different frequencies - near or on a tectonic fault in the earth's crust).

Thus, it can be assumed that the generator of these waves of different frequencies are tectonic faults, and stone structures in this case play the role of multifunctional acoustic devices that resonate with this frequency.

It turns out that megaliths can influence human bioenergetics! This allows you to effectively correct the human biofield by influencing both its energy points of the body and individual systems.

In ancient times, dedicated priests were engaged in such practices, and this was practiced with the help of various rites and rituals.

With the help of stones, ancient priests, shamans, healers communicated with the spirits of departed ancestors, with the gods, received the answers they were interested in, treated illnesses, etc., and also made offerings-requirements (not sacrifices, which appeared later and most likely not by the creators of megaliths). Knowledge about this was first distorted, then completely erased.

Almost everywhere near the megaliths there was or is water (any reservoir, stream, spring, etc.)! Often the orientation of megaliths is just directed towards the water, this is especially clearly seen in the example of most of the dolmens Krasnodar Territory, which in turn, not without reason, are the standard in the dolmen structure.

It is also worth mentioning the orientation of many megaliths to the cardinal points, taking into account some astronomical features.

Often, when studying megaliths, one gets the impression that over time the builders somehow lost the ability to erect stone buildings and over time the megaliths became like only distant copies of the original structures.

Perhaps, for some reason, the ancients lost that knowledge and technology, and most importantly, the need for megalith building was also lost over time.

However, despite the time, megalith building in the world continues to exist. Even today in Sumatra (Indonesia), people continue to create funerary stone monuments outwardly similar to ancient megaliths, thus preserving the memory and customs of their ancestors.

In many places of the world, traditions, legends and stories have been preserved that many megaliths are associated with the reincarnations of dead people.

Many megaliths are closely related to astrology, in connection with this, a new direction of researchers of antiquities has arisen - archaeoastronomy. It is archaeoastronomers who are engaged in the study of the astronomical aspect in megalithic construction. It was archaeoastronomers who proved many hypotheses regarding the purpose of many ancient stone structures.

Some megalithic structures were created to determine the major solar and lunar cycles of the year. These objects served as calendars and observatories for observing celestial bodies.

Megaliths - a legacy of ancient civilizations

Unfortunately, in our time, in all corners of the world, for various reasons, the trend of destroying ancient monuments continues, but all over the world, new finds of ancient structures also continue to be discovered.

Many studies and the objects themselves are stubbornly hushed up by official departments, or dates are deliberately incorrectly determined and the reports and conclusions of scientists are falsified, because. many objects simply do not fit into the generally accepted chronology of our civilization.

Megaliths are the very objects that connect us with the distant past, with the deep past, and it can definitely be argued that they have not yet revealed all their secrets to people ...

People have been seeing these huge stones for thousands of years, but already for the Greeks and Romans, who mastered western coasts mediterranean sea and the Atlantic seashores of Europe, they were monuments of hoary antiquity, about which local barbarians told various fables. At the end of the 19th century, an opinion was established in European science, which did not waver until the mid-1960s, that megaliths were inspired by the mortuary complexes of the great civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Asia Minor and Canaan.

From the Eastern Mediterranean, such monuments gradually spread to the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa, and then, in the II millennium BC. reached the British Isles and French Brittany. In the I millennium BC. they were adopted by the inhabitants of southern Scandinavia, northern Germany and Jutland.

Initially, scientists thought, small rock tombs were built, where there were not enough caves, the tombs were completed from rough stone slabs, and only much later did the Europeans master complex structures like Stonehenge or Newgrange, temples of the Maltese type.

It was only in 1963 that the brilliant expert on megaliths, Glyn Daniel, expressed the opinion that the tombs of Italy and Sardinia were younger than the megalithic complexes of Atlantic Europe, and, consequently, the megalithic culture of Western Europe did not come from the Mediterranean, but arose independently. The use of improved methods of radiocarbon analysis not only confirmed this hypothesis of Daniel, but also found that the main ensembles of Brittany and the north of the Iberian Peninsula, as well as the burial mounds of Ireland, were erected in the VI-IV millennium BC, while the Mediterranean ensembles - in IV - III millennia.

It also turned out that all the main types of megalithic monuments were created simultaneously, with some complex cromlechs and temple complexes(Alapriaya near Lisbon), were erected earlier than simpler structures.

The significance of this discovery is enormous. The megalithic civilization turned out to be not borrowed from the "Fertile Crescent", but independently emerged in the extreme west of Europe in the 4th-5th millennia BC. Something prompted the poor farmers and fishermen of the Atlantic coasts to abandon the old, fairly simple forms of religious life and all forces to begin to build huge complexes of giant stones.

It is so difficult for us to believe that a spiritual upheaval can take place in a people that it is always easier to explain a sharp change in the order of life by borrowing or invading foreigners. But just as the industrial revolution of the 17th century took place in Europe due to the development of the internal properties of the European peoples themselves, so the “megalithic religious revolution” was not, as it is now seen, the result of the reception of cult forms, but turned out to be a manifestation of the potentialities inherent in the Atlantean peoples themselves.

Who was the builder of megalithic complexes? “On the Atlantic coast, in Northern and Central Portugal, cyclopean stone tombs were built, there is no doubt about it, by wealthy peasants,” points out J. Maringer. Careful archaeological and paleoeconomic analysis of recent decades, in particular the research of Colin Renfrew, has shown that natural conditions the main megalithic regions of Western Europe were harsh, and the laboriousness of even the simple reproduction of food was high. Although the climate of Europe was warmer than the present seven thousand years ago, the very nature of the soils testifies to the low fertility of the coastal valleys.

The lack of bread was partly compensated by fishing and hunting, but it would be a very big exaggeration to consider the Neolithic farmers of Ireland or Brittany rich. Moreover, barter trade, which in those centuries already flourished in the Middle East, was hardly developed here. The north-west of Europe did not produce anything exceptional, valuable for other lands, and was very far from the main centers of wealth.

The work of scientists on the Scottish island of Arran, rich in megalithic gallery tombs, and in Southern Sweden revealed that the builders of megaliths lived in farms organized into territorial communities, uniting from 50 to 500 people. Located at the convergence of several plots of arable land, the tombs were most likely a collective burial ground of the neighboring community. The inhabitants of Arran and other Atlantic regions of Europe were not united at that time by any formation of the state type. These were precisely the farm neighboring communities that were engaged in subsistence farming.

Colin Renfrew calculated that with Neolithic technology, 10,000 man-hours were expended to build the most modest gallery tomb. Larger structures serving several communities required a tenfold increase in effort, and such ensembles as Stonehenge or Newgrange cost Neolithic farmers 30 million man-hours each.

Although the cromlechs of England, the mounds of Ireland, and the Breton "menhir alleys" were created over centuries, if not millennia, they still required the combined efforts of tens of thousands of people. And since there was no state capable of directing the forces of its subjects in the right direction, there was some kind of mechanism of social self-organization. Apparently, Stonehenge and Newgrange were so important to hundreds of English or Irish neighboring communities that they voluntarily participated in their construction, certainly to the detriment of their everyday well-being.

After all, we sometimes forget, living in a vast impersonal state, that at that distant time, labor and the product of labor were visibly combined. I spent an extra day plowing the field - I raised more land and harvested more. He went out to sea again - filled a couple of barrels with salted fish. When the builders of megaliths, to the detriment of their food supplies, preferred to plowing fields and fishing, hauling multi-ton granite blocks and digging ditches of the sanctuary, often hundreds of kilometers away from their homes, they made a difficult, but very characterizing choice.

For a long time, scientists studying megalithic civilization could not solve such a mystery - where the builders of cromlechs and dolmens lived. Nothing even remotely reminiscent of the grandiosity of these religious buildings and intended for housing could not be found. If people were so skillful in building stone tombs, then where are the stone foundations of their houses, cattle pens, haysheds? Archaeologists have not found anything like this to this day and, most likely, they will never find it.

But careful research of the last decades with the use of advanced technology has nevertheless made it possible to find housing for the creators of the “big stones” culture. This housing turned out to be extremely miserable. In Southern Scandinavia, Strömberg in 1971 found in Hagestad (Sken) traces of piles charred in swampy soil. These were the only remnants of the miserable piled huts in which the builders of the megaliths huddled. The dwellings of the fishermen of Arran turned out to be no more solid. Farms or villages around the Breton "alleys of menhirs" seem to have not yet been found.

And about the creators of the Maltese megalithic sanctuaries, J. Maringer wrote: “The most surprising thing about these Neolithic islanders was, it seems, the strength of their faith. Although they themselves no doubt huddled in miserable huts of woven mats, which soon collapsed and disappeared without a trace, they erected huge temples, the cyclopean walls of which have survived to this day. Maringer would have been even more surprised when he learned that the Maltese temples were built thousands of two years earlier than he and all his colleagues thought in the 1950s, and, moreover, neither Egypt nor Sumer, where there was anything then, had any influence on their construction. this has not yet been built.

“Even simple dolmens,” he writes elsewhere in his research, “display the expenditure of forces and materials, far exceeding everything necessary in relation to the dead. Such costs cannot be convincingly explained from the fact that these dolmens, gallery and domed tombs were communal crypts. It is impossible to explain them with the rarest exceptions and the exorbitant ambition of certain wealthy families. It is striking that, while erecting majestic dwellings for their dead, they did not even think of building anything like this for the needs of the living.

But who and when convincingly explained what costs for the dead it is reasonable to make alive? The clergyman George Barry, who wrote a history of the Orkney Islands, located to the north of Scotland and also rich in megalithic monuments, at the beginning of the 19th century, believed that the creators of these structures were "almost to madness were inflamed by the bizarre spirit of their religion." But, probably, from the point of view of the builders of stonehenges, modern Europeans, their distant descendants, would seem to them no less crazy when they put all the strength of their hands and will into the arrangement of a temporary, earthly existence, trying to completely forget about the inevitability of death and pinching off for the dead only a pitiful fraction of those funds that are spent on the whims of the living.

“In the megalithic cultures of Mediterranean and Western Europe,” writes Mircea Eliade, “settlements did not exceed the size of a village. Megalithic "cities" (the cities) in the West were actually built for the dead - they were necropolises.

To understand the religion of the megalith, we must imagine a system of consciousness very dissimilar to the current one. People from the deepest antiquity have been looking for a connection with God and ways of victory over death, but here, on the Atlantic coasts of Europe, six or seven thousand years ago, for reasons incomprehensible to us, they suddenly realized with particular clarity how difficult this task is. They questioned the usual rituals and sacrifices.

For some reason, they considered that what had been done before was completely insufficient for confidence in a good afterlife. They realized that the labors for eternity should be multiplied many times over, neglecting the comforts of this life. It is unlikely that we will ever know for sure what caused this spiritual revolution, but it quickly covered the vast expanses of the Atlantic coasts of Europe, Northwest Africa, first the Western and then the Eastern Mediterranean, the Black Sea coast.

Judging by the fact that the range of everyday archaeological finds varies greatly in certain parts of this megalithic world, it can be assumed with a high degree of confidence that in this case we are not dealing with the colonization by one people - the "builder of megaliths" of the vast expanses of the Old World, but with the spread sums of religious ideas among many tribes and cultures.

Originating somewhere in the west of Europe, beliefs associated with a sharp increase in the complexity of religious, especially funeral rituals, spread over a very large territory. This process is comparable to the movement of ideas of world religions.

If an archaeologist of the distant future would unearth ancient Novgorod, Cologne and York, he would everywhere encounter a similar picture - one huge stone complex, of course, of a religious purpose, a number of similar, but smaller complexes, and a sea of ​​short-lived and unsightly residential buildings. He would be mistaken if he considered all these ensembles the work of one people, but he would be absolutely right when he decided that the people who erected them were inspired by ideas found from a single source, and that they equally preferred efforts in the religious sphere to worldly labors.

If such an archaeologist had to dig up modern Chicago, St. Petersburg or Milan, he would certainly find buildings of "cult purpose" here, but they would be completely lost among multi-storey buildings, luxury villas, stadiums and theaters. And the scientist of the future will be absolutely right if he concludes that 600-800 years after Novgorod and York, the ideas of Europeans underwent profound changes and now, carefully guarding their religious monuments, they directed their main forces to the arrangement of this “this-worldly” life.

When we explore civilizations of the distant past that left no written evidence, the stones themselves sometimes convincingly say what their builders believed in and how they lived. The "large stones" of the megalith, of course, argue that the most powerful religious upsurge took place in Europe and the lands adjacent to it in the 6th-4th millennia BC.

Meanwhile, the process of this religious upsurge did not capture all the peoples of Europe. For some reason, it did not spread well inland. The inhabitants of Central Germany, the inhabitants of the piled buildings of the Swiss lakes, the farmers of the Danubian plains remained indifferent to him. Sometimes, even in a small space, it is possible to fix the boundaries of the zone of distribution of the megalithic culture.

So, in Southern Sweden, on the islands and the Baltic coast of Jutland, cyclopean buildings were erected from glacial boulders, and nearby, in Western and Central Jutland, they continued to bury "the old fashioned way" in ordinary dug graves, not at all considering it necessary to multiply the labors for their own and their fellow tribesmen of a reliable posthumous existence.

But what was the essence of this "new faith"? Why, having sacrificed part of the harvest and successful hunts, having lost, it seems, any interest in arranging their earthly life, did the Europeans begin to move multi-ton blocks of granite and limestone?

Huge structures made of blocks of stones are called megaliths. They are considered the most mysterious among other mysteries of nature. Despite the fact that the megaliths of Russia are a heritage ancient civilization, they have been little studied by Russian scientists. Most of them were found on the territory of Kamchatka and Siberia.

For example, about 200 kilometers from the village of Tigil (Kamchatka), travelers accidentally stumbled upon amazing cylindrical boulders. After their signal about the incredible find, a group of archaeologists soon went here to study.

According to one of the members of the expedition team, Yu. Golubev, archaeologists at first could not understand what they saw in front of them. It seemed that the cylindrical stones with jagged edges were part of an incredible single structure. It was not possible to determine their age by the state of the blocks, as if they had appeared quite recently.

Crowds of curious spectators soon began to arrive at the scene. The result of the study was simply amazing. The age of this structure was about 400 million years! It turns out that such megaliths of Russia represented the legacy of an ancient civilization that existed in prehistoric times.

Another expedition was organized in 2005. It was called "Baikal 2005". She acted as the first part of a grandiose Russian project. The purpose of the study was to analyze the origin of structures made of stones, which were called the "Russian version of Stonehenge".

The first area where the scientists went was a mountain called Yord in the Angi valley. These places are considered sacred by the local shamans. Amazingly, Yord is artificially formed. Such conclusions are made on the basis of its ideal form, which could not be the result of natural metamorphoses. There is a possibility that the mountain is made of boulders, which over many centuries have been completely overgrown with grass.

In the village of Akhunovo, a Chelyabinsk expedition in 1996 immediately discovered a group of menhirs - vertical megaliths. The design combined 13 structures. Their height varied from 70 cm to two meters. According to archaeologists, this building was once sundial or an ancient calendar. The researchers also found a mass of fragments of ceramics and animal bones.

Researchers are reluctant to talk about their discoveries, which relate to mysterious phenomena ancient civilizations. What is it connected with? Perhaps they are simply forbidden to do so? It is impossible even to imagine that the area is a huge area, climatic conditions which is comparable to southern territories Russia, remained untouched for more than one millennium.

No less mysterious structures are two well-known pyramidal structures in the city of Nakhodka, which are called Brother and Sister. The second, of course, arose naturally. With regard to Brother, the question of origin still remains unanswered. According to research, the height of this pyramid was once more than 300 meters.

In our time, it is characterized by a balanced shape with a sharp end, which is not typical for natural structures. Upon careful examination of Brat, signs were found that once construction work was carried out here. Also found traces of plaster.

Near the settlement of Rzhavchik on the Amur River, an equally mysterious heap of stones was found, which are the ruins of some ancient building. Large stone slabs are so tightly adjacent to one another that there is a distance of less than a millimeter between them.

Mysterious steps leading to nowhere - a building in the south of Kamchatka. Maybe once they were part of a majestic castle. Such conjectures are caused by their careful research. The outlines of the stones are clear. The structure of the structure, according to geologists, has no analogues in nature. Even today's architects cannot recreate such a technique in contemporary work. How great were the knowledge, skills and abilities of the ancient peoples!

Most of the megalithic structures of Kamchatka and Siberia are one to one with similar structures in the Andes. According to one version, the ancient peoples of Kolyma and the Indians North America are distant relatives. In the Andes, as in Kolyma, there are the richest deposits of gold ore. Probably, in ancient times precious metal was mined here.

And although it seems incredible, the megaliths of Russia - the legacy of an ancient civilization, were created by man with the help of unimaginable devices. They can be found in all Russian territories. In particular, research near St. Petersburg remained secret to the public. One can only guess if the world will ever know about their sensational finds?

Stone structures dating back thousands of years are scattered all over the world. Many of them appeared even before the invention of writing, so there is no evidence left about the builders and the purposes of erecting these structures. However, despite the lack of written historical sources, the specific structure of ancient megaliths allows scientists to make fairly solid assumptions about the purpose for which these structures were built and what function they performed.

In the north-west of Ireland, near the town of Rafo, there is a simple-looking circle that in the past could perform a variety of functions - from ritual to scientific. Around the embankment, along a circle with a diameter of 45 meters, there are 64 stones, the average height of which is two meters. Scientists estimate that the stone circle was built around 1400-1800 BC. According to Oliver Davis, who explored the ancient site in the 1930s, there were signs in the stone circle area that someone tried to excavate in a makeshift way, but suddenly, perhaps out of fear, left this place.

Despite the study of the Beltani stone circle, its purpose has not yet been clarified. According to one version, the answer lies in the name of the megalith. The word Beltani is possibly associated with the name of the pagan festival Beltane, during which bonfires were lit on the top of the hill, symbolizing the renewal of the forces of the Sun. Other hypotheses link the Beltani stone circle to the circles at Carrowmore Cemetery, suggesting that the Beltani circle was used in burial rituals for the dead. Some believe that the whole complex of stones and the mound that they frame hides something like a tomb underneath, but no one has yet been able to find out what it really is.

Megaliths of the Bada Valley

In Indonesian, you can see interesting megaliths that resemble moai statues and are distinguished by high sculptural skill. Scientists cannot name either the exact age of the stone statues or their purpose. inquiries local residents did not help shed light on the mystery of megaliths, the natives claim that "they have always been here." However, a number of legends are associated with these stone statues among local residents.

Some argue that megaliths are installed on the sites of mass human sacrifices. Others say that stone statues guarding evil spirits. And there is also a belief that these statues are petrified villains, and some even believe that they are able to move. Confused and one more amazing fact associated with the Bud megaliths: the fact is that the statues are made of stone that is not mined in the area.

Spirit wheel

Rujm el-Khiri or "wheel of spirits", is a megalithic structure located on the territory Golan Heights on the border between Syria and Israel. The structure consists of four concentric circles and a central cairn. The largest outer diameter is 158 m (520 ft). The circles are made of basalt stones. The rings are interconnected by jumpers. There were suggestions that the place in the center was intended for burial, but when studying the building, no burial was found below. There is a version that in the distant past, jewels were kept here, which were looted by marauders.

Scientists believe that the stone wheel was not built as a fortress or a place where people could live. Judging by the structure of the structure and how the sunrise and solstice correlate with the “spokes” of the wheel, a version was put forward according to which this structure served as a calendar.

Some researchers believe that rituals were held in the circle for the liberation of the dead from everything carnal, involving the separation of flesh from bones. After the ritual, the bones were moved to another place, this can explain the absence of buried remains in the circle. However, no evidence of such activities at Rujm el-Hiri has been found. Whatever the purpose of the "wheel of spirits", it is clear that a lot of time and effort was spent on its construction, and this object was very important for the people who used it.

The Rudston Monolith is the tallest single stone in Britain. Such stone monoliths are called menhirs. This menhir is located in the church cemetery of the village of Radston and is 7.6 meters high. The age of the monolith is attributed to 1600 BC. Considering the size and venerable age of the monolith, there is nothing surprising in the fact that local people from generation to generation pass on traditions and legends associated with this stone. According to one of them, this stone used to be a spear that the devil threw at the church, but hit the ground of the church cemetery. Another story tells that a stone spear was thrown from above, aiming at the cemetery vandals.

Sir William Strickland dug up the whole area in search of any archaeological evidence of the stone's true history. According to him, half of the monolith is deep underground, respectively, its real height is twice as high as the known figure. The researcher also found many human skulls, hinting that this place could be used for human sacrifices and religious rituals. However, be that as it may, neither the skulls nor the local folklore shed light on what really happened at the stone in Radston.

Separate standing megalithic monuments in Cornwall are called Pipers and Merry Maidens. Pipers are two separate stones, and the Merry Maidens near Pipers form a stone circle of perfect shape. There is an entrance on the eastern side of the structure, which could theoretically indicate the use of megaliths for astronomical purposes. There are many burial grounds in the vicinity of the megalithic complex, which in turn allows scientists to assume that the stones were related to spiritual rituals or funeral rites. It is possible that the stones installed in a strict order performed several functions at once.

Despite the fact that Pipers and the Merry Maidens stand apart from each other, these structures are invariably referred to in the same context. According to one of the local legends, two pipers played for the dancing girls on one Sunday, but since such behavior was forbidden on such a day, the musicians and cheerful dancers turned into stones. Sounds nice, but is it true?

In County Galway, in Ireland, everyone can admire the amazing stone, which at one time was placed in the area of ​​​​the Firvor ring fort. Later, the stone was moved to the vicinity of Turua's house. The stone has a rounded shape and is decorated with patterns made in the ancient Celtic technique “la tene”. The Turua stone is the most striking and well-preserved example of this decorative stonework in Europe.

But what purpose did this stone serve? Nobody knows the exact answer to this question. Given the characteristic, close to phallic, shape of the stone, some experts suggest that the stone was used in rituals aimed at increasing fertility in all its manifestations.

Another version connects the English spelling of the name Turua with the phrase "Cloch an Tuair Rua", which means "stone of the red wasteland". The presence of the word “red”, according to the researchers, may hint that sacrifices, including human sacrifices, were practiced near the stone. There is an opinion that this stone was originally located in France, and came to Ireland later.

On the territory of the highland plain in the center of the Iberian Peninsula, as well as in the north of Portugal and Galicia, you can find more than 400 granite, rather rough, but realistic sculptures of animals - most often, wild boars, which is why the Spaniards call them "verraco" (from Spanish verraco - wild boar ), as well as bears and bulls. Scientists date them to the IV-I centuries. BC e. It is assumed that the creators of the verraco were the Vettones - the ancient Celtic people of Spain.

The bulls of Guisando are perhaps the most famous of the verracos. This is a sculptural complex of 4 statues, dated around the 2nd century BC. e. It is believed that once these bulls had horns, but under the influence of precipitation and wind they collapsed. Some historians believe that the stone figures of bulls were made separately from each other, and were brought together much later.

Scientists are not sure about the true purpose of stone bulls, but it has been noticed that verraco are located in places where they are clearly visible to others. Perhaps the sculptors just wanted to draw attention to their work. The location of the bulls in a well-observed place could also be associated with some religious moments. Some believe that verraco protect villages and farms from evil spirits.

Gray Sheep is a unique megalithic structure. Its originality lies primarily in the fact that this structure consists of two circles located next to each other. There are 30 stones in each circle, the diameter of the stone circles is 33 meters. During the excavation of stone circles, a thin layer of charcoal was found, which may indicate extensive fires in this place. It is obvious that something was happening inside the circles, but what exactly is unknown.

There is a version that links circles to spiritual concepts. That is, one circle is connected with the world of the living, and the other represents those who have departed to another world. The rituals performed in the "circle of the living" were aimed at creating portals between the two worlds. Another theory does not emphasize the spiritual nature of the stone circles, but connects them with the gender of their visitors: one circle was intended for men, the other for women. There are those who believe that representatives of different tribes met in this place, here they traded, feasted and resolved pressing issues. And where does the sheep, you ask.

Local legend explains the name of the megaliths as follows: once a farmer came to Dartmoor and immediately began to criticize the quality of sheep in the local market. After a couple of glasses, the locals managed to convince the visiting farmer that they had a product that could satisfy his refined taste. The tipsy farmer was taken out to a field where, allegedly, sheep were grazing. The weather was foggy, and the farmer, seeing indistinct silhouettes in the fog, believed the sellers. Having paid, the next morning the poor fellow discovered that he had bought not real sheep, but stones standing in the field.

Locals call this megalithic complex "the altar of the Druids". Dromberg consists of 17 menhirs, the origin of which is unknown. But certain assumptions can be made about the purpose of these stones: one of the stones is oriented to the point of sunset during the winter solstice. Perhaps it was a calendar.

In addition, another interesting find was found in Dromberg: the remains of a cremated person were found in a broken vessel, and the vessel was intentionally broken during burial. The age of the burial dates back to 1100-800 BC. Archaeologists have established that people once lived in the vicinity of the stone circle, who for some reason came to Dromberg and were forced to stay there for a while.

In the north of Mongolia, you can see megaliths covered with amazing carvings, which were installed at the burial place of warriors or at the place of sacrifice, and served as a kind of monument to the buried. In total, 1,200 free-standing stones were found, the height of which ranges from one to five meters. They date back to the Late Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age.

Almost all the stones have images of deer, both realistic and fantastic. In addition to deer, there are images of horses, the sun, birds, weapons, and various geometric figures on the stones.

Some historians believe that such an interaction of natural elements - a deer, the sun and a bird, can symbolize the path that the soul takes when it passes into another world. The spirit leaves the earth (deer), goes to heaven (bird), and then to heaven, that is, to the next world (sun). Perhaps the images of deer on stone blocks provided protection from evil spirits.

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