The megalithic culture of Indonesia Author:William James Perry Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. MEGALITHIC MONUMENTS. Megalithic monuments are usually defined as structures made of large stones, usually rough and unhewn, which conform to cer... more »tain well-marked types. Unfortunately, students do not always use the same names for these various types; so, before proceeding to a consideration of the presence of megalithic monuments in Indonesia, it will be necessary to define terms which are being used in widely different senses. I shall follow Mr. PeeL He includes among the typical megalithic monuments :— The menhir, a tall rough pillar with the base fixed into the earth ; the trilitf1on, a pair of tall stones set at a short distance apart supporting a third stone laid across the top ; the dolmen, a single slab of stone supported by several others arranged in such a way as to enclose a space or chamber beneath it; the corridor tomb, usually consisting of a chamber entered by a gallery or corridor. In cases where the chamber is no wider than, and hence indistinguishable from, the corridor, the tomb becomes a long rectangular gallery, and answers to the French allee couverte in the strict sense ; the alignment, a series of menhirs arranged in open line on some definite system; the cromlech, consisting of a number of menhirs arranged to enclose a space, circular, elliptical, or, in rare cases, rectangular; and the hunenbett, consisting of a rectangular (rarely oval or round) heap of earth covering a megalithic tomb—this is a simple elongated rectangle in shape made of upright blocks and roofed with two or more cover-slabs. Rock-cut tombs. It is also recognised that the practice of placing the dead in tombs cut out of the living rock is definitely to be associated with the presence of megalithic structures. It has long been a matter of common ...« less