Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/71

 Giants' Tombs, Cromlechs, or Dolmens. S3 hope of dreaming dreams, 1 which were accepted as oracles ; for in them were buried the sons of Heracles and of the Thespiades, to whom, with Iolaos, the first Greek colonies were due. 2 Therein Aristotle, and his commentator after him, erred ; inasmuch as Hellenic elements are entirely absent from these sepulchres, whose prototype must be sought among a nameless, pre-historic people without record in the world's annals. The sepulchral memorials of Sardinia are the development and perfection of the megalithic monuments met with in India, Palestine, North Africa, Figs. 39 and 40. — The Nao Nûragh. Plan and section. JO MS La Marmora. Atlas, Plate XXXIX. Western Europe, and singularly akin to the covered avenues of the Celts ; lacking, it is true, the lofty proportion of these, but, on the other hand, far better enclosed. The affinity is carried into some of the stelae details, namely, the small aperture which distinguishes the Celtic monuments known as " bored or holed dolmens." 3 The chief difference between covered avenues, dolmens, and 1 Aristotle, «zWiki} axpoo-ic, IV. xi. t. 2 Semplicius, en the above passage. 3 Alex. Bertrand, U Allée Couverte de Confions et les Dolmens troués (Arché- ologie Celtique and Gauloise, pp. 165-174, 1876.