PREHISTORIC
PART 1 – Ch.III
The prehistoric monuments of Dacia
The heroic Pelasgian tumuli [1]
[1. The funeral mounds have
different names with the Romanian people: morminte,
movile, gorgane, culmi, holumpuri, silitre, popine, gruie (grunie) and gruiete.
The word gorgan was used even in deep antiquity as a generic name for some
hills or mountains, not only in Europe, but also in different parts of Asia.
In Homer’s Iliad (VIII, 48; XIV, 152), the highest peak of mount Ida,
near Troy, was called Gargaron, and,
as results from the text of this poem, all the peaks of mount Ida, including
Gargaron, were not covered with trees. Another mountain in the southern parts
of Italy (Apulia) had the name Garganus
even in Roman antiquity (Virgil,
Aeneid, XI, 247; Horace, Od.II.987; Pliny, Hist nat. III. 11.11). We also
find the name gorgan applied in
Romania and Transylvania to an infinite number of knolls, hills and mountains.
In the medieval documents of Hungary, the word gorgan appears often with the form Kurchan and Korhan
(Cod.Andegav.II.636, 1332; Pesty,
Krasso.III.428, 1471).
From the data indicated in Homer’s
Iliad, as well as from the way in which this name is used by the Romanian people,
the fundamental meaning of this word seems to be: a height made of earth in the
shape of a dome, or in a conical shape, but of large size and not covered with
trees.
The geographical zone of the word gorgan, having the meaning of funeral mound is also very extensive.
In France, some sepulchral tumuli of
the Neolithic epoch have even today the name Kerougant, Kergonfals,
while a dolmen is called Kerkonno (Bertrand, La Gaule, p.124-142). In Ireland, the antique royal cemetery was
called Cruachan (Fergusson, Les monuments megalitique,
p.198-212). Even today, the word galgal
means in French a mound of stones and earth, and it is believed that these galgals were antique burial mounds
erected in memory of the Gaul and Roman soldiers fallen in wars (Littre; Bertrand, La Gaule, p.135).
So the origin of the word gorgan belongs to prehistoric times, or
the Pelasgian epoch.
In Transylvania, and especially in
Banat, the funeral mounds are also called gruie
or grunie, name which also goes back
to archaic times. On the territory of Eolia, on the shores of Asia Minor, where once existed countless Pelasgian
funeral mounds, we find the town called Grynium (Strabo,
XIII.e.5, 1,59). The same town appears with Herodotus (I. 149) in the plural Pelasgian form of Gryneia.
And Cornelius Nepos (Alcib.9)
mentions castrum Grunium in Phrygia,
probably identical with the town mentioned above. In Basarabia, the funeral mounds are also called culmi and in the parts of Bihor,
across the Carpathians, holumpuri].
The Neolithic
populations, especially the ancient Pelasgian current, people
whose public and private life was based on religion, had at the same time a
special cult for the deceased.
In the belief that
they had not completely died, but will go on living in an eternal world, happier
and more superior than the visible one, they interred the bodies of the
deceased, often in natural caves or artificial ones (crypts).
Apart from this
noble, religious feeling for the deceased, they had also a moral duty to ensure
that they will not be forgotten on this earth. Wishing the memory of their heroes to be transmitted to future
generations, they erected on their graves enormous earth tumuli, and on these
tumuli they placed a column made of rough stone, as a holy marker.
The funeral tumuli are therefore the most ancient type
of prehistoric monuments.
The inhumation in tumuli, or the erection of
gigantic mounds on the graves of heroes and famous people, starts in Neolithic
and continues also during the bronze age and until late in historic times.
In front of the
citadel of Troy, the poet Homer tells us, there was an isolated
high knoll, around which one could walk all the way, mound which the people
called Batiea, and the immortal gods
called the grave of the heroine Murina
(Ilias. II, 811). This grand mound, which formed on the plain of Pelasgian Troy
a whole hill, was, as we see, so ancient, that it had become mythical even in
Homer’s times. At the centre of this vast and fine plain of Troy, Homer still
tells us, there was the grandiose grave of Ilus,
Dardanos’ son, an illustrious old
man from ancient times, on which tumulus there was erected a stone column
(Iliad, XXIV, 349; XI, 166, 371; X, 415). Still on this memorable plain of
Troy, there was the tumulus or grave of one of the ancient Trojan leaders, old Aesyetes, on which tumulus had taken
position during the war Polites, Priam’s son, with his men, to observe
when the Greeks at the ships will try to make an offensive move against Troy
(Iliad, II, 793). So this funeral mound was so gigantic, that it stood between
the Schean gate and the sea as the highest observation point for the Trojans.
During the war of
the Trojans with the Greeks, the old king Priam,
as Homer tells us, laid the ashes of his son Hector, the first among Trojan heroes, in a gold urn, which he then
covered with a purple cloth, and put it in the grave dug in the earth, after
which the Trojans laid large stone slabs on it and on top of it erected a high
earth tumulus (Iliad, XXIV, 798). Homer’s Odyssey tells us also that the Greeks,
or better said the Myrmidons, after burning the body of the hero Achilles, killed in the Trojan war by
Paris, Priam’s son, laid his bones in a gold amphora together with the urn of
his friend Patroclus, and erected on
top of them an enormous tumulus on the shores of the Hellespont, so that this
grave will be seen from far out in the sea by the people who lived at that
time, as well as by those who will live in the future (Odyss. XXIV, 80; Iliad,
XXIII, 126). Andromaca, the fine
wife of Hector (Iliad, VI, 418), guessing and mourning at the same time her
future fate, in the event of her husband falling on the battlefield, says the
following about her Pelasgian father, Etion of holy Thebes, who had been killed
by Achilles.
Achilles, says she,
had not taken from my father his weapons, but had burnt them together with his
body, and over his ashes had erected a mound, while the mountain nymphs had
planted elm trees around his grave
[2].
[2. The custom of planting elm trees
near funeral mounds had once also existed in the parts of Dacia. So, in a
Romanian ballad, the hero Toma Alimos,
feeling that his death is near, tells his horse to take him to the grave with five elms trees ].
In Arcadia, the
most ancient Pelasgian territory in the Peloponnesus, there were near the city Orchomenos, as Pausanias (Graeciae Descriptio, lib VIII, 13, 3) tells us, several
mounds built of stones, tumuli that had been erected in honor of men fallen in
war, but without any inscription, so that the inhabitants had no tradition with
whom this war had been fought.
Near the ancient
city of Delphi, close to the
Parnassus, as Pausanias also tells us (Graeciae Descriptio, lib.X, 5,4), there
could be seen even in his time the mounds of stones in which had been interred Laios, the legendary king of Thebes and
his servant, both killed by Oedipus.
The same religious
rite of erecting giant tumuli on the graves of kings and of heroes, was also
continued by Pelasgian tribes after they passed on into Italy.
With our ancestors,
writes Servius (ad. Aen. X, 849),
there was the custom that the nobles be buried under high mountains (great mounds), or in the heart of the mountains. The grandiose earth grave of the
ancient king Dercenus from Laurent,
formed, as Virgil (Aeneid, XI, v.
849) tells us, a high mountain covered with shady oaks. On the plain between
Alba and Rome, the historian Livy
(Hist. Rom. Lib.I.25) tells us, the mounds in which had been buried the
brothers Curiates and Horaces could be seen even in his time.
And south of Rome, near Porta Ostiensis, the traveler sees even today the
grandiose pyramid of Cestius, one of
the most important monuments of Rome, which has been preserved whole until this
day. This pyramid consists of an enormous pointed tumulus, 155 feet high, and
has four faces, lined with squared slabs of white marble. But the most
magnificent funeral mound of Rome was the Mausoleum
of the emperor Augustus, who considered himself a descendant of the ancient
Trojan families. This imposing grave, built in 2ad was, as Strabo (Geographica, V, 3.8) tells us, an enormous tumulus of
earth, erected on the Field of Mars, near the bank of the Tiber. There was a
vault of white stone underneath, and above it was covered with green trees to
the top. On top of this funeral mound rose the bronze statue of Augustus, and
under it there were laid his remains, and the remains of his relatives and of
his retinue.
The principal
characteristic of Pelasgian heroic tumuli was their enormous size (Virgil, Aeneid, lib.III, 62).
The Pelasgians appear in traditions and monuments, as
people avid of glory (Iliad, VII, 86-91). Their ambition was to have colossal graves and their memory to be
celebrated in songs, for the benefit
of future generations (Iliad, VI, 358). To know that after death your people
sing you praises, was the greatest happiness for a hero of the Pelasgian epoch
(Odyssey, V, 311).
In Pelasgian tumuli
the bodies of famous heroes were laid in gold urns and near them were deposited
their weapons and a great many other precious gifts, real treasures.
The Pelasgians are the wealthiest people of the ancient
world (Iliad, V, 710). They have enormous quantities of gold and copper
(Iliad, II, 230) and at the same time they have countless flocks of sheep
(Iliad, II, 605,705; IV, 476), herds of giant oxen (Iliad, I, 154; V, 313),
magnificent horses (Iliad, II, 230; III, 130). The Pelasgians can ransom a war
prisoner at any price, no matter how high (liad, I, 372). The city Mycenae of the Pelasgians of the
Peloponnesus is the richest city in gold (Iliad, VII, 180). Pelasgian Troy was in the eyes of
everybody, rich in gold and copper (Iliad, XVIII, 289; X, 315) and the Greeks
hoped that after its conquest they will return home with all their ships full
of gold and copper (Iliad, IX, 137). Dardanos,
the patriarch of the Trojans and Romans, was, according to legends, the richest
man among all the mortals of his world (Iliad, XX, 220). In the ruins of
Pelasgian citadels and graves, the archaeologists find today the most precious
vases and ornaments of gold and silver, which arouse in us astonishment at the
opulence of this people. Another particular characteristic of the ancient Pelasgian tumuli was that they
had to be made of earth (Iliad, VI, 464), a rite which as we see, was tightly
connected to their old religious belief that the progenitors of the Pelasgian
race were born straight from the earth. On top of Pelasgian funeral mounds is
usually erected a stone column (stele). This, says Homer, is the honor of the dead (Iliad, XI, 371;
XVI, 457, 674).
The same custom of
honoring the memory of the deceased heroes with enormous earth tumuli had also
existed in a remote epoch in the countries of ancient Dacia. Almost in every
district of Romania there are one or several funeral mounds, of colossal
dimensions, which bear the name “Movila mare” or “Magura mare” (TN – the big
Mound or the big Knoll) [3].
[3. One of the most gigantic funeral
mounds and the most ancient at the same time is the artificial mound called “Rabaia” on the territory of the village
Rasesci, in Falciu district, situated on the right bank of the river Prut (Dimitrie Cantemir, Descriptio
Moldaviae, PI, c,4). This mound, 18-23m high, is said, according to other
traditions, to have been made during the time of “Poedia”, the multitude of people, and to be the grave either of a
king’s daughter, or of a heroine fallen on that plain”. Herodotus also speaks
about an archaic mound near the river Nistru. Grigore Urechia also mentions a large mound near the river Siret
“And there, above Siret, at the large
mound of Tecuci, Stephen the Great rested”].
These mounds,
situated by Pelasgian custom on plains, along roads or on top of hills, can be
generally seen from great distances, exactly as they were in Trojan times, with
the purpose to be seen from far away, by either the people who lived then, or
those who will live in the future.
Most of these
grandiose mounds of our countries have contained, according to traditions of
the Romanian people, precious treasures. Some of them still bear the names
“Movila comoarei” or “Movila sapata” (TN – the Mount of the treasure, or the
dug-out Mound). Today though, this multitude of funeral mounds from our
countries, are only silent monuments of some remote times [4].
[4. Romania is one of the richest countries in funeral tumuli. Cesar Bolliac (Trompeta Carpatilor,
Nr.846, 1870) writes that this country is full of bigger or smaller mounds,
from the banks of the Danube to the top of the Carpathians, and they can be
counted in tens, hundreds and thousands,
and all contain bones of one or more people. The archaeologist Romer of Hungary also says: if there is
a country rich in such monuments (tumuli), this certainly it should be Hungary (Movement archeologique,
p.104). It is indisputable that not all tumuli of our countries belong to the
same epoch. As in all the countries of Europe, some of our funeral mounds
belong without doubt to the Stone Age, while others to later times, prehistoric
or historic. So, C. Bolliac
(Trompeta Carpatilor, Nr.939) tells us that in two mounds which he had dug, he
had found the corpse sitting with its spine vertical, which characterizes the
Neolithic epoch. There are also Neolithic tumuli in Bukovina at the village Horodnicul-de–jos (Kaindl, Geschichte der Bukowina, I, 1896, p.5). We can say
generally that those funeral mounds characterized by their considerable
dimensions, by their conical shape, by their placement in lines more or less
straight along the roads, belong to prehistoric times. In these prehistoric
tumuli, the bones or the urn with the ashes of the deceased are often laid in a
coffin made of rough stone slabs (usually four), which is covered by another
slab, as a lid. Apart from the urn with ashes, there are found also in these
cysts pieces of flint or marble, shaped as a chisel, and shards of rough
pottery. We are told about such burials found at the village Borlesci in Neamtu
district and the village Satanga in Dambovita district (Romer). In Transylvania, funeral tumuli are to be
found in different regions, but they appear in a considerable number in
counties near the river Tisa, Ung, Zabolti, Bereg, Bihor, Beches, Ciongrad,
Cenode, Heves, Arad and Timisoara (Romer,
Mouvement archaeologique, p.150). To these mounds near Tisa refers a fragment
of a folk heroic song from Transylvania. In Basarabia, the number of funeral mounds is also considerable and we
find in our heroic poetry a memory, certainly very old, about these tumuli.
Regarding the tumuli of southern Russia, Ouvaroff (Recherches sur les antiquites de la Russie meridionale,
Paris, 1855, p. 6, 7, 37) writes: “in the southern parts, on the shores of the
Black Sea, the tumuli had…a lot to suffer from the cupidity of the foreigners.
The Genovese and the Venetians have dug in Crimea many a tumulus, and have
appropriated the treasures which they have discovered. It is said that most of
the tumuli of Russia go back to the Scythes and the Greeks…The tumuli are to be
found in abundance in the vicinity of the principal towns of ancient
Russia…Almost all of them are made of rectangular
stones, formed of great calcareous slabs.
In Bulgaria, Kanitz (Donau-Bulgarien,
I, p.62, 149) tells us, there are
tumuli on both sides of the Balkans, especially in the valleys of the rivers Osma, Iantra and Tundza.
Especially memorable are the tumuli placed at regular intervals on the bank of
the Danube, between Sistov and Nicopol. From Rusciuk to Samovoda, in
the pass of Iantra, Kanitz had counted about 40 tumuli on both sides of the
road. And about the tumuli of Macedonia and Thessaly we find the following
notes with Boue (La Turquie
d’Europe, II, p.352): There are mounds in southern
Macedonia, especially near ancient Pella and Salonique…It could be said
that these mounds were aligned along a road, and not placed without symmetry,
like those of Sophia and Philipppopoli. These
Macedonian mounds are of the
greatest dimensions and resemble at the same time those of Troy…Close to Larissa in Thessaly
there is a good number of tumuli…there are also near Armyros and Velestina…
in Beotia and close to Tyrinth, in Morea.
By examining the geographical
distribution and direction of the funeral mounds in the eastern parts of Dacia,
we ascertain the positive fact that the
principal line of these prehistoric monuments, stretched from southern
Russia towards Dacia, across Basarabia, Moldova, Valahia, across the eastern
part of the Balkan peninsula, as well as across the western shores of Asia
Minor; while another smaller branch of
this line of tumuli departs from the Nistru and crosses towards Bukovina and
east Galitia (Cf. Archiv. D. Vereines fur siebenburgische Landeskunde N.F. XIV.
150)].
We know neither the
name of the heroes whose ashes or bones were laid in these archaic graves, nor
the events to which they participated. These tumuli tell us only that most of
them belong to the Pelasgian funerary and honoring ceremonies for the dead, and
that these lands were once, in a remote time, the country of the Pelasgian
people, who alone distinguished themselves by this type of monuments.
Even today, some of
these imposing earth monuments of our countries bear the ethnic name of the Tursani or Pelasgians, while others are
considered, according to the different ideas and traditions of the local
inhabitants, as graves of giants,
meaning a powerful race of men who supposedly have dwelt in these countries
(especially in the districts Roman, Neamtu and Dorohoi) in prehistoric times
[5].
[5. A mound on the territory of the
village Marotinul-de-jos, in Romanati district, is called Grindul Tursanului (An. Soc. Acad. Tom X, Sect.
II, p.333). Another one on the territory of the village Balteni in Valcea
district, where are found shards of clay vases of ancient manufacture, is
called Turtsan (Densusianu’s
“Historic questionnaire”). In the county Solnoc-Dobaca across the Carpathians,
the folk tradition is that the stone
implements were left by the giants (Archaeologiai Ertesito. Uj foly.
XV.p388)].
The Pelasgians were the people to whom the
traditions and the poets have attributed the name of giants even during Greek antiquity. The gigantic tumuli and the
titanic constructions of enormous blocks of stone belong to them.
Achilles, one of the dukes of the Pelasgians from
the northern parts of Greece, is called by Homer a giant (pelorios). His spear was so big that no Achaean could vibrate. Hector, the Trojan Pelasgian hero, also
bears the epithet pelorios. Aeneas,
the duke of the Dardans, in his fight with Achilles, catches and lifts with his
hand a stone rock which two men could not carry. Mars, the Pelasgian god, protector of the Trojans, and whose
residence was in the countries from the Lower Danube, has with Homer the name
giant (pelorios). When this god of the northern countries clamors, his
voice sounds like the voice of ten thousand men at war, and when he falls to
the earth, hit with a stone by the goddess Athena, his body covers 100 fathoms
[6].
[6. Iliad XIX, 388; XI, 819; XX,286;
VII,208; V,859; XXI,407. According to the traditions of the Arcadians, Pelasg, the legendary patriarch of the
Pelasgian people, surpassed all other men with his size, force, physical
and spiritual beauty (Pausanias lib.VIII.1.4.].
Although even the traditions
about the great mounds of
Here were those
beautiful and happy places called ‘Elysion pedion (the Elysian plain),
where the heroes of the ancient world retired in their old age and where the
favorites of the gods lived a golden age and an eternal life.
Proteus says to Menelaos in the Odyssey (IV.v.561-568): “As for you, o, divine
Menelaos, your fate is that you will not
die in Argos, but the immortal gods will send you to the plain of Elysium, at the
ends of the earth, where people lead a very easy life, where there is
neither snow, nor hard winters, nor big rains and where the zephyrs murmur
continuously and revive the people. Hesiodus
also, in his epic poem Opera et Dies (v.159-173), mentions as a last echo of
former times, the divine generation of
heroes of ancient times, scattered on the whole immense surface of the
globe, some of whom had perished in the war of Thebes, while the others had
fallen at Troy, far away, across the sea, because of Helen. To these, says he,
Jove, Saturn’s son, destined dwellings in
the blessed islands from the ends of the earth, where they led a life
without worries, where the earth blossoms and produces sweet fruit three times
a year.
The ancients never
doubted the real terrestrial existence of the plain called Elysius.
Hesiodus, exactly
like Homer, also knew this happy, inhabited land, but he considered it to have
been only in the islands called the “blessed ones” – Makaron – situated at the
But which were the ends of the earth, spoken about by
Homer and Hesiodus?
They were the ends
of the Greek geographical horizon, as we will have many occasions to convince
ourselves during the course of this book. Even during the Homeric and Hesiodic
epoch, the territorial knowledge of the Greek authors stops at the north of
Even in Herodotus’ times, the geographical darkness starts
immediately northwards from the
A country occupied
by bees? [6]
[6. This historical tradition of
Herodotus has a real basis. Even until two hundred years ago, one of the most
important export article of the Romanian countries, to the Egyptians, Venetians
and Ragusans, was the bees wax (Cantemir – Moldaviae Descriptio.
Ed.1872 p.22, p.33). Cantemir, speaking at the same time about the extensive
apiculture of Moldova, adds that the inhabitants of this country could have
profited more from this branch of the economy, as in his time the fields were
full of the finest flowers, and on another hand the forests also offered an
abundant material for wax and honey, but it had been decreed by the laws of the
country, that no one should possess more beehives, than his land could support,
otherwise, by having too many beehives, one could upset one’s neighbors. Apart
from the normal honeycombs, the author tells us, the Moldavian bees produced
also a sort of blackish wax, but with a very pleasant smell, which they used
only to prevent the light from entering into the hive.
The Ragusan Raicevich also wrote in the past century that one of the most
precious and plentiful industry of the Romanian provinces was apiculture
(Osservazioni, 1788 p.87).
To complete these data we add that
several islands of the Danube, as well as villages, hamlets, isolated sites,
hills, peaks, tops of mountains and valleys from the territory of Romania, bear
even today the names of Albina (TN –
bee), Albinari, Prisaca (TN – apiary),
Prisacani, Prisaceni, Stupi (TN – beehive), Stuparia, Stupina, Stupine, Stiubeiu and Stiubeieni, traces of an extended
apiculture of our countries in ancient times (the Great Dictionary of Romania; Frundzescu, Topographical and
statistical dictionary of Romania). In Itinerarium Antonini Augusti (Ed.Parthey
et Pinder p.104) it is also mentioned a locality called Appiaria (or Stupini), situated eastwards of Transmarisca on the
right bank of the
Which is in total
accord actually with the Hesiodic tradition, of the place where the earth
blossoms and produces fruit three times a year. The fertility truly prodigious
of the Romanian countries was legendary until our days (Cantemir, Descriptio Moldaviae p.27-28; George de Reicherstorf, Moldaviae Horographia, Viennae 1541).
Here were the ends
of the earth, or better said of the
known world of Homer, here were the happy lands and the just people of the
Greek legends. Here was the holy burial place of the ante-Homeric Pelasgian
heroes. Here, finally, according to the old Pelasgo-Graeco traditions, had been
brought and buried the ashes of Achilles,
Patroclus, the two