Dolmen

a rude structure consisting usually of several standing stones capped by a flat stone. The name is from Brittany, meaning stone table. The deck or covering is ordinarily a single stone. A remarkable dolmen near Saumur, France, is 64 feet long, 14 feet wide, and 6 feet high. It is rectangular in shape. There are four pillars on each side, one at the middle of each end; and the deck is formed by four enormous slabs. The cover of a notable dolmen in Cornwall is a single stone 33 feet long. It is thought to weigh 750 tons. It rests on two stones. Dolmens are found throughout Great Britain and Ireland, France, Algeria, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, eastern Palestine, and India. It is uncertain whether the dolmen was a sacrificial table or a place of burial. It seems to shade off into the burial mound formed by heaping earth over the structure and into the underground stone chamber formed by excavating and lining with stones. The dolmen is inclosed not infrequently by a circle of standing stones. See Barrow; Stonehenge; Carnac