Megalithic entrance

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Entrances to simple dolmens
Dolmen entrances and passage grave plan
port-hole

A megalithic entrance is an

cultic structure in such a way that it is possible to gain access to the interior again, even after a long time, in order to perform rituals. To that end, the practitioners of Nordic megalith architecture, the Wartberg culture and Horgen culture, used several variants, that are also found in other megalithic regions
in identical or slightly modified form.

As the solutions were refined in detail, they all had in common the aim of sealing the structure that its re-opening was possible under difficult but manageable conditions by the tribal community.

In general the following forms of entrance may be differentiated:

Simple dolmens (upper image)

  • 1. no entrance
  • 2. entrance on the top
  • 3. half-height entrance sealed with a closure stone
  • 4. full height half-width stone (with passage)

Dolmens (except No. 4)

  • 5. squared entrance (eingewinkelter Zugang)
  • 6. additional entrance to the external passage

Passage graves (lower image)

  • 7. triangular entrance
  • 8. portal entrance (with lintel)
  • 9. low passage entrance in front of a portal

stone cists

Variation 7 has its focus in the Swedish Bohuslän (Dolmen of Haga). The stones forming the entrance were so selected or fashioned that together they form a triangular entrance (top left). This special form, which effectively replaces the lintel, is also found in the region of Languedoc-Roussillon, e.g. at the dolmen of Banelle, which lies near Saint-Hippolyte-du-Fort in the southern French department of Gard.

The portal entrance used a lintel, a horizontal block placed over two lower supporting stones in order to level out the distance to the capstone. This enabled access, usually only by crawling, through a trilithon opening (top centre), and may be seen across the whole area where Nordic megalithic architecture occurs.

In portal-like openings in the chamber wall, which, for example, have been made by leaving out a supporting stone, (bottom image: above right and below right), a passage in front of the chamber allows the cross-section of the entrance to be reduced. An example of this type of construction is the

portal tombs form a sub-group of megalithic tombs on the British Isles
but structurally have nothing in common with the sites in the province of Drenthe.

Variation 7 is not dissimilar to the so-called

Iberian Peninsula, similar openings are found, that are also narrow, but nearer the ground, and apse
-like, (recess-shaped) with embedded closure stones.

Another feature of ground-level entrances is a so-called

portal tomb
it is so high that it forms a half-height front stone, enabling access above it, and is thus part of the wall of the chamber.

See also

Footnotes and references

  1. ^ The German for this is Seelenloch i.e. "spirit hole".

Literature

  • Jürgen E. Walkowitz: Das Megalithsyndrom. Europäische Kultplätze der Steinzeit. Beier & Beran, Langenweißbach 2003,
    ISBN 3-930036-70-3
    (Beiträge zur Ur- und Frühgeschichte Mitteleuropas. 36).
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