Megalithic entrance

Access to megalithic construction is an architectural feature that breaks down to in the wording. The Megalithic the eastern Funnel Beaker Culture ( TBK ) and related cultures in central and northern Europe no inputs (they are not walked on) but approaches that are to be overcome only by crawling in the rule.

The access design has the purpose of the cult building to be closed so that the access to the interior even after a long time is possible ( in order to perform rituals ). These used the Bauschulen the Nordic Megalitharchitektur, the Wartberg culture ( Western Funnel Beaker Culture ) and the Horgen culture some variations that so little has changed or can also be found in the international Megalithgebiet.

How sophisticated solutions in detail were, all had in common the desire to be able to close the plant so that the re-opening under difficult but manageable by the user community conditions was possible.

Types of Access

It can be essentially the following forms are distinguished: in Urdolmen (upper panel )

At Dolmen ( except No. 4)

• 5 of eingewinkelte access
• 6 additionally each of the pre-built gear

With passage tombs (lower panel )

• 7 of the acute-angled passage
• 8 of the lintel
• 9 the set before a so-called portal (lower ) gear

At Galerie tombs and stone cists

The version 7 has its focus in the Swedish Bohuslän ( Dolmen Haga ). The access forming stones were chosen or approved works, that together they form a triangular access ( top left). This special, the lintel replaced form can also be found in the Languedoc- Roussillon region, eg the Dolmen of Rascassols, which is at Saint- Hippolyte- du-Fort in the southern French département of Gard.

The lintel, in which a recumbent About two lower sidestones the distance to the ceiling plate compensates, and a Trilithons passage allows mostly just creeping access ( top center ), takes in the entire area of the Nordic Megalitharchitektur used.

In portal-like openings in the chamber wall, caused by the omission of a supporting stone (lower picture above and below right), makes a boss gear for the reduction of the cross-section access. An example of this type of construction are the seven stone houses. Such " chambers without ( detected ) transition " are also found in the Netherlands and Schleswig -Holstein. It decides ultimately the access side or the size if a passage grave or a dolmen is assumed (J. Ross ). In the Netherlands ( Drenthe), where this form is often encountered, is referred to seamless systems as a portal tombs, otherwise as a portal tomb, a subspecies of the Megalthik in the British Isles form and structurally have nothing in common with the plants in the Drenthe.

The version 7 is the so-called soul hole near (bottom left), which creates peck through the front panel or as indicated by two plates in the picture a round access. The plates were thereby made ​​of a material that permits machining with timely means / methods. This variant is used in Central Europe in the plants of the Wartberg culture and Horgen Culture in Baden- Württemberg and Switzerland before ( Dolmen type Schworstadt ). Some Swedish so-called megalithic stone cists have also soul holes. The name arose from the mistaken assumption the holes would have been incurred with the intention to let out the soul of the deceased ( in the imagination of the builder ). In Bronze Age and Iron Age plant in Sardinia and the Iberian Peninsula also a similar close, but here close to the ground, and apsidenartige, ( shoulder-like ) opening can be found with sunken closure plate.

Another feature is that there is a so-called threshold stone in the field of ground-level entrances. It separates the mundane passage of the sacred space. In some cases, it serves to support the closure device ( plate ). Otherwise, opposite, is introduced between the supporting stones of the corridor, instead of the intermediate masonry, stone door (English jamb stones ) ( if provided ) holding the cover plate. In make, probably early closure of the plants from rolling or boulders existed. In some depressed Urdolmen and the Irish portal tomb he is so high that it. Than half of high end stone, one lying above allows access and thus is part of the chamber jacket

Access design

• The transition width between the beginning and the inlet to the chamber rarely larger Abweichungungen. Most of the gear is equally wide, in some cases, the mouth is narrow, while the transition to the chamber a little wider is out. In Swedish passage graves can be next to the equally wide aisle sporadically find graves, where access is narrower than the rest of the gear. Danish passage graves have both the same massive as wide funnel-shaped ducts.
• The pitch is often low at the mouth was as the transition to the chamber where they can achieve almost the chamber height. This observation was made in particular in other passage tombs, where the carrying stones for the passage mouth were gradually lower. When Gillhög, there is a height difference of about half a meter between the first and the last couplet of the Ganges. In Carlshögen missing in the last 2 pairs of stone over Lieger and Ramshög in the outer half of the corridor is unfunded. It is a known phenomenon that the outermost pair of stone of the corridor has no capstone.
• Closure devices were also commonly observed. Sometimes you met inside the chamber on limestone slabs. which may have served as such. In systems whose transitions were used as chamber enlargement and therefore paved, can be found at both ends of the aisle (sometimes in between ) door jamb stones and emerging stones. In the passage grave Särslöv No. 4, they found a whole door frame with pole stones, opposing stone slab and stone threshold. According to G. Rosenberg door jamb stones are in passage tombs While on the Danish islands more common than in Jutland, but they come just like in Skåne in plants of different form.

Orientation

The main gear alignment of Schleswig-Holstein in dolmens and passage graves consist of approximately a half-circle. It begins around the southwest and passes over the south, southeast and east into something decreasing sequence in passage tombs, and increasing at Dolmen, to 56.5 ° not quite reached the Northeast.