We are breathtaking not only from the size but also from the age of some of the monuments of the ancient world. Our ancestors in ancient and medieval times, too, admired the huge buildings created in an era so distant from their own, that no knowledge of this has not survived, and also wondered who were their builders.
Ancient Greeks, builders themselves are not the last, were so amazed by the size of stone blocks in the walls of the ancient cities of Mycenae and Tirinth, that they called their builders "cyclops", one-eyed mythological giants. (Archaeologists still use the term "cyclopean" to describe the style of masonry made of large, roughly edged stone blocks.) Europeans came up with similar stories explaining the origin of prehistoric standing stones and stone tombs. Some linked their appearance to fairies or dwarves, but the list of magical builders was always headed by giants. In the Netherlands, megalithic tombs-corridors, sometimes as long as 60 feet long, are traditionally known as "giant beds" (Hunebedderi). In Germany, dolmens are huge stone structures consisting of stone slabs laid on two or three standing stones, called "graves of giants" (Hunengraben).
The 13th century historian Saxon Grammaric describes with special reverence the dolmens in his homeland, Denmark:
"The fact that the land of Denmark was once inhabited by a tribe of giants is confirmed by huge boulders, located next to ancient burial mounds and caves. If someone doubts and thinks that this is the work of human, let him think about the height of some of the mounds, and then explain if he can, who moved the huge boulders on their tops. Anyone who has witnessed this miracle will say that ordinary people could not lift such a weight to a higher height.
When European travellers first saw the huge stone structures built by the Indians of Central and South America, they returned to the idea of a missing race of giants to explain what they saw. According to the Spanish conquistadors, the mysterious ruins found in Tiawanaku on a secluded plateau in the mountains of Bolivia at an altitude of several thousand feet, were built by giants. The fortress of Incas Saxaihuaman which has become oppressed on mountain top above Cuzco, consists of huge stone blocks in weight to hundred tons. The construction is so complex, and the stone blocks are so tightly fitted to each other that about 1600 Garcilaso de l a Vega, in which the blood of the Incas flowed, did not spare the enthusiastic epithets to describe Saxayuaman:
"The greatest and most magnificent building, erected to demonstrate the power and valor of the Incas ... the true greatness of which may seem incredible to someone who has not seen it. And those who have seen and carefully examined it, may think and even believe that it was created with the help of witchcraft and is more the work of demons than people.
The idea that superhuman beings somehow had a hand in the construction of huge stone monuments of antiquity, revived in the 1940s in a slightly different form. The Swiss Erich von Daniken, the owner of the hotel, who decided to try his hand at writing, broke into the world of archeology in 1968 with a whirlwind after the publication of the famous book "The Chariots of the Gods". Although this was not the first book to claim that aliens played an active role in the past of human civilization, von Daniken caught the spirit of the time when the whole world was fascinated by the first human landing on the moon in 1969. His book immediately became a bestseller in Germany, then translated into English and appeared in America and Britain.
Unfortunately, some archaeologists and anthropologists themselves sometimes sin such a logic. For some reason, prehistoric architectural wonders have caused the worst manifestations of "diffusiónism", a school of thought whose basic principle is that independent or independent inventions are unlikely (or impossible) and that culture is always carried from one place to another by peaceful or violent means.
Subsequently, megalithic structures were discovered in East Asia, the Pacific Islands and the Americas. Could there be any connection between the monuments scattered all over the world, and if so, where was the center from which the megalithic construction spread? In the 1880s, archaeologists, shocked by the discoveries made in Egypt, mostly believed that the influence of Egyptian and Middle Eastern culture "civilized" prehistoric Europe.
Next, we will dive into the historical excursion in more detail.