"Menhir" Quotes from Famous Books
... element in creation, the sun, light, fire, a torch, the phallus or lingam, an erect serpent, a tall straight tree, especially the palm or fir or pine, were adapted. Equally useful for symbolism were a tall upright stone (menhir), a cone, a pyramid, a thumb or finger pointed straight, a mask, a rod, a trident, a narrow bottle or amphora, a bow, an arrow, a lance, a horse, a bull, a lion, and many other animals conspicuous for masculine power. As symbols of the female, the passive ... — The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... insignificance, speedily bored them; and one day, when they had just seen the menhir at Passais, they were about to return from it when their guide led them into a beech wood, which was blocked up with masses of granite, like pedestals or monstrous tortoises. The most remarkable of them is hollowed like a basin. One of its sides rises, and at the further end two channels ... — Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... by two avenues of monoliths. Within the larger circle were two smaller ones, placed not in the axis of the great one but on its north-eastern side, each of which consisted of a double concentric ring of stones; the centre being in one case a menhir or pillar, in the other a dolmen or tablestone resting on two uprights. Few traces remain, as the monoliths have been largely broken up for building purposes. The circle is the largest specimen of primitive stone monuments in Britain, measuring on the average 1200 ... — Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... and bronze ages which followed it. The structures are usually, though not quite invariably, made of large blocks of unworked or slightly worked stone, and they conform to certain definite types. The best known of these types are as follows: Firstly, the menhir, which is a tall, rough pillar of stone with its base fixed into the earth. Secondly, the trilithon, which consists of a pair of tall stones set at a short distance apart supporting a third stone laid across the top. Thirdly, the dolmen, which is a single slab of stone ... — Rough Stone Monuments and Their Builders • T. Eric Peet |