Page:Primevalantiquit00wors.djvu/147

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TOMBS IN OTHER COUNTRIES.
107

nature, new memorials of antiquity also meet us. Instead of wide, extended, and fertile plains, we see only rocks, which are either altogether unproductive, or grown over with scanty trees, and with them innumerable masses of stones which have rolled down. This abundance of stone, and consequent deficiency of loose earth, cannot have been without its effect on the external arrangement of the barrows. Barrows composed of mounds of earth are henceforth considerably lower than in Denmark, while those which chiefly consist of stone are the most prevalent. An object almost unknown among us is the cairn (steenrör), as it is called, which frequently lies on the highest rocks, and by which are indicated barrows which are destitute of any covering of earth, and are composed of a heap of stones piled together, on the floor of which an oval stone cist is usually found. They are occasionally of very considerable size, for instance more than twenty feet in height and fifty paces in diameter. The other barrows, which are somewhat more numerous, and are partly mixed with earth, are considerably smaller, since they are constructed of very small stones heaped together, and hence they but seldom rise more than from three to five feet above the surrounding surface. Great variety is observable in their form. Usually they are either circular or oval, and enclosed by a circle of stones, in which the single stones are close to each other; occasionally they are quadrangular, and often with a larger stone at each corner; and again they occur of a triangular shape. The last mentioned, which in general have sides much bent inwards, are often adorned with an erect and somewhat lofty stone in the centre, where the grave itself is placed, and with a similar one at each of the three ends. Yet there are also circular and quadrangular enclosures of stone which do not surround heaps of stone mixed with earth, but merely a level surface. These have been named places of justice, (Tingsteder,) or of sacrifice and worship, (Offersteder,) or of contest, (Kampkredse.) That they also, at least in general, are graves, is evident from the circum-