How Did The ANCIENTS Build The DOLMEN OF MENGA?

[@bartcharlow9807]

I visited the extant dolmens at Antequera in 1971. Was astonished at the size of them, having visited megalithic monuments in several other European countries. None of those other dolmens were of this extraordinary interior scale, though one menhir that had fallen in Carnac was huge also. I thought I could have driven my VW bus inside! At least that was my initial impression. Nice to get all this new information on those. Thanks.

[@davidcreager1945]

What they accomplished is nothing short of Amazing ! Thanks for this awesome update !

[@billmiller4972]

The well is really something special. Imagine digging a shaft almost 20 meters deep with only stone age tools. I understand that wells in dolmens are very rare (cough, Sardinia, cough). Must have been some extraordinary background story. We definitely need a time machine.

[@newman653]

Some of these dolmen are mind boggling , the ancients were more capable then we give them credit for .

[@grahamboyce1719]

Thank you, brilliant precis.

[@DavidMaurand]

I look at these structures and cannot imagine the gruesome injuries many must have endured.

[@laurence7181]

Excellent. I was just reading some rather far-fetched things about this monument so I'm particularly glad to have so much real info. It sounds as if knowledge of what happened at the el Toro cave had permeated their memories, and someone, or ones, came up with a series of solutions to reassure the people. Must have been quite a job convincing everyone. But what do I know? It could have been a kit, with illustrated instructions, from the Martian Ikea.

[@floydriebe4755]

👽👽

[@julianhickman5874]

great video, thanks for posting

[@oxigenarian9763]

We must never underestimate the ingenuity of humans, even ancient ones!

[@deanfirnatine7814]

Especially ancient ones

[@bdhaliwal24]

I tend to look at it the other way around and wonder if we today are living up to our own full potentials given all the advantages we have over people living thousands of years ago.

[@AdalbertPtak]

To put it simply: No matter how long ago, the ancients were just as intelligent as we are. They too, could look at a problem to be solved, and find a solution.

[@AdalbertPtak]

The simple answer is: NO

[@oxigenarian9763]

@@bdhaliwal24 I agree - if they could do what they did without our modern technology, what could we accomplish with ours? The hidden issue is that, in the end, human nature dictates that trajectory...

[@barrywalser2384]

The thing that strikes me is that the dolman building seems to have begun when the cave had to be abandoned. It seems like they were trying to recreate the cave. Was the one photo of the Cromlech of Almendres, Portugal? It looked very much like it. Thanks Laura! Always wonderful information.

[@MegalithHunter]

Yes that was the one in Portugal. One of the most interesting in my opinion. There are some crazy dates flying around for that one so when I talk about Iberian megaliths I like to include it 😀

[@barrywalser2384]

@@MegalithHunter I was there last year. It’s an amazing place.

[@Autorange888]

Contrary to your belief in Spain some people inhabited caves in the middle ages, and even today it's not unusual. Dwellings carved out of rock are nice and cool in summer.

[@furerorban1488]

they were Neanderthals your ancestors White Man . Your real leader is Orbán Viktor and his depute Adderal Trump

[@dnavid]

I hope you have been there, although the industrial park that surrounds it is a tad unsettling. The orientation towards the human profile mountain makes it a very special, a very human as a opposed to solar place, as if they had had an "enlightenment" period and it's more an artistic statement than other structures oriented to the sun etc.

[@floydriebe4755]

hiya, Laura! was kayakin' the river, so missed this.....then, the blankety blank wifi decided to go on vacation for the weekend....Labor Day, ya know...still out😡 had to wait til i got to the clinic today, to watch.... sssooo, another great video, of course! and, some cool pics of an amazing ancient structure. those guys really had it going.....so big and built so well, i can, kinda, understand how some folks could think it was done with higher tech or help from aliens(note: i said KINDA) people back then were every bit as smart as we, just not as technologically blessed. their ability to create such magnificence is humbling.....i know i could NOT do so....even with modern tools! thoroughly enjoyable, Laura! thanks be to ye! forsooth! i go now to another vid i missed....til next we meet, m'lady⚔

[@vulpesvulpes5177]

Good to see Laura. Sorry I split from the live chat. The yaks decided that to jump the fence. So. Those guys had to know what they were doing. Too elaborate. Too complex. Even for such a simple structure. Fox out

[@JorgeStolfi]

Elaborate structures built over and around natural springs are known around the world. The nuraghi in Sardinia often have a well inside. The Osirion in Egypt seems to have been mainly a reservoir dug down to the water table under the Giza plateau. The "communal rooms" at Göbekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe look more like water cisterns than anything else. So, unless hard dating says otherwise, I would guess that the well was dug first, for the simple purpose of providing water all year round. That made it a focal point for people in a few km radius. The well would surely have some permanent cover to keep the water clean etc. Thus when those people decided to build the dolmen, for religious or whatever reasons, building it over the well was a natural decision

[@AWICKEDVIXEN1999]

Nobody would build a dolmen over a well

[@JorgeStolfi]

@@AWICKEDVIXEN1999 Why not? Is that more bizarre than digging a well inside a dolmen? Several nuraghi were clearly built over existing springs, some still yielding water today. For people who live far from a river or lake, a spring or well would have a much bigger role in their lives than the tomb of some forgotten chieftains.

[@AWICKEDVIXEN1999]

@JorgeStolfi most aren't. I'm sure they had a better use than anything we are thinking of like storing grain or like tombs. Most are pretty small and you can't get in

[@JorgeStolfi]

@@AWICKEDVIXEN1999 Sure, most (in fact, all) megalithic monuments that don't have a well or spring inside don't have a well or spring inside. The question is: for those few monuments that DO have a well or spring inside, which came first? For the nuraghi, the spring seems to have come first. Ditto for the Osirion, Karahan Tepe, ...

[@AWICKEDVIXEN1999]

@@JorgeStolfi how could anyone use the well if a dolmen was built over and just a little hole was in it and it was plugged up lol

[@Stonecutter334]

A more interesting question might be why are dolmens found literally around the world? Considering they’re so difficult to build , why did people around the world feel the need to create these? What was their purpose? Academics,predictably say tombs and just as predictably we never find ancient remains in them.

[@MegalithHunter]

Ancient remains have been found in some but not all. It’s quite strange.

[@Stonecutter334]

@@MegalithHunter can you tell me where remains have been found? How ancient are we talking about? Just curious

[@scottzema3103]

What else could they be besides tombs? Garages for chariots? There's a bit of that old conspiracy chestnut that ancient tombs are not what they appear to be but have some other purpose, when the purpose is pretty obvious.

[@LuisAldamiz]

They're clearly clannic tombs: "collective burials" used through many generations. Not all "collective tobms" are dolmens but all dolmens are "collective tombs", that's one of the core differences vs Indoeuropean tummuli or "kurgans", which are individualistic instead. Now, there are more "mega" megaliths and more "mini" megaliths. We see that since the beginnings of the phenomenon in Western Europe, with some areas deploying dolmens with corridor and other areas only simple dolmens, and we see that in Western France in the days of the great crisis that changed the demographics of most of Western Europe (possibly because of the Indoeuropean-introduced bubonic plague), when, especially in Brittany some of the most "mega" of all megalithisms was replaced by the most "mini" of all, as if the Artenacian expansion was driven by a "democratic" or "populist" slogan of "dolmens for everyone!" As for the rest of the world, the phenomenon clearly expanded from Western Europe ultimately. In the Bronze Age it spread through the Mediterranean all the way to West Asia (first Syria and some nearby areas, then the Caucasus and Yemen). Later, in the Iron Age already, reached as far as Dravidian India and Korea and maybe also SE Asia (unsure of the dating of the earliest dolmens in that region but they also follow the pattern achitecturally). Obviously the "mega" megaliths were not for everyone, so some chieftains, princely lineages or proto-druidic caste members may have been the ones buried in them. That also implies that some sort of early hierarchies were developing in many areas in spite of also evidence of great social equality (in other areas?)

[@Autorange888]

@@scottzema3103 The tomb theory failed the theorists of modern art to come to understand the meaning of the Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments. The great monuments have multi-functional meanings, as ritual monuments and working sundials, these people knew geometry and had a fair knowledge of astronomy.

[@lynnmitzy1643]

❤❤thank you Laura 🥀

[@dominicmcauley9318]

For once I'm not familiar with the subject of one of you videos so I'm quite looking forward to this.

[@d.t.4523]

Thank you, keep working.

[@scottzema3103]

I've developed a theory of general megalithic design and for that matter ancient Neolithic building. And that is that these monuments as well as those in Southeastern Turkey and in non-literate cultures in general one sees an expected ad hoc system of measurements and constructions without necessarily evidence of apriori detailed planning before construction. In other words the products of Neolithic culture are not the precise products of scientific industry and design one might see in later cultures or in our own culture, but are less precise in character and the products of the skilled builder or craftsman rather than the architectural team. They are extremely impressive nevertheless but have a less developed feel relative to our own engineered monuments. So In the case of Gobekli Tepe for instance one sees almost hivelike and ad hoc agglomerations of residential units surrounding the main buildings. Dimensions are generally approximate and shapes and buildings happen with need or construction was done with an overall idea of the eventual product certainly but without the presence of plans or documents. It is also a characteristic of Native American cultural artifacts and structures. This to be sure did not reflect some form of incompetence and for any 'imprecision and approximation' one sees in the physical products of these cultures they have certainly important cultural viability and utility and impressive presence still, and of course limited tools such as stone tools inhibited easy construction and design. For architecture the change comes with literacy and the ability to make documents and plan out larger and more complex constructions. The architect and engineer supplemented the skilled builder. With that capability come the the more regular features of monumental architecture, for instance, with which we are familiar from later cultures and eras. The Egyptians for instance required papyrus, ink, and the ability to work out on paper precise mathematical calculations to plan and build structures such as complex pyramids. SZ

[@Autorange888]

That's total nonsense. You need to go farther back in time, when humans learned about hallucinogens, which made abstract thought possible. None of the great European Neolithic monuments could have been constructed without planning, measure and design, these people knew geometry and had a fair knowledge of astronomy, they were able to move large masses of earth and stone.

[@scottzema3103]

@@Autorange888 You've missed the point completely and said really nothing significant. None of the 'Great European Neolithic Monuments' came close to the complexity of a cathedral or Greek temple or Egyptian labyrinth. No architects I ever knew took hallucinogens to enhance their practices. SZ BA MA Art History and Architecture

[@Autorange888]

@@scottzema3103 You got yourself into a twist! So architecture and design began with the Egyptians and Greek temples and cathedrals? Hallucinogens got nothing to do with architecture. You are the joker at home.

[@scottzema3103]

@@Autorange888 Are you on hallucinogens now?

[@Autorange888]

@@scottzema3103 Another dumb theory of yours.

[@storkythepunk]

Unusual that the doorway doesn't point to sunrise, do you suppose that it was built at a time when the sun rose in a slightly different location, like maybe prior to a Polar shift, say more than 12000 years ago?

[@MegalithHunter]

No. Cause they’ve carried out very comprehensive dating which rules that out. I Imagine they really were fascinated by the landscape features. Or perhaps there’s a lunar phenomenon that hasn’t been taken in account in this alignment.

[@johnstringer5359]

Humbling to imagine that our Neolithic ancestors had many centuries of expertise in constructing megaliths before Stone Henge. I find it rather insulting to our ancestors that theorists claim that Stone Henge builders had the assistance of ice sheets to do their build!

[@dnavid]

the entrance is oriented towards and frames a remarkable and singular natural feature in the landscape that was only seen briefly in the video, the sun has not moved.

[@LuisAldamiz]

It's clear that the mountain must have been sacred to them. That's common in many cultures but, considering that the rock is now called "the lovers" and that Basque traditional religion at the core is one of perpetual reproduction in which the male and female gods (essentially a gender-binary monotheism) meet at the local holy mountain (in my area that would be Anboto, specifically in a cave near the summit) to beget their offspring (for example Odei: the storm cloud, which in turn fertilizes the soil with rain and occasionally "punishes wrongdoers" with hail maybe even a deadly lightning bolt), I'd say it had a similar cultural-religious meaning.

[@dnavid]

@@LuisAldamiz the dolmen is in Andalusia nowhere near the Basque/ El País Vasco. The lore surrounding the mountain is all modern history, gitanos, cristianos y moros which practically dictates a modern romantic name and legend. The fact is it looks like an enormous human profile staring at the stars may be a more profound reason for the dolmen's position.

[@antonyreyn]

Menga Jenga built by Doll men

[@Amenogoogle]

❤

[@johnarizona3820]

Queen cell as in Bee Queen Cell.

[@colinpyke4199]

They got giants to build them for them.

[@Autorange888]

Hello? Take some magic mushies and you might see the Entity.

[@cynthiarowley719]

Well, it came first, water first, the well came next, then everything else. Who controls the water controls civilizations.

[@louisgiokas2206]

Of course, the real answer to how these things came about is aliens. It's always aliens.

[@MegalithHunter]

Always

[@jesperandersson889]

they're stoned and have lasers with water levelling and stardom

[@fennynough6962]

Seriously, again no layering? Carbon Dating from the last fire that some campers left? Incapapility for any stone, Bronze, or any & all cultures to have created, then lost the Megolithic Megablock Masterpieces mystery of how, when & why?

[@lakrids-pibe]

Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!! ♫ ♬ I want you in my dolmen! ♪ ♫ ♬