PAGE DESCRIPTION
the Mandãla’s evolution, viewed from the evolution of architectural forms throughout history
EARLY RESONANCE [part 2] ≈12000BP to ≈4000BP
— Ancestor World —
the megalithic monuments of the Neolithic
RISE OF THE STONE MASTER
Around 12000BP, we sees the arrival of the architect, the ‘stone master’. “First comes the temple, then the city”: it seems to be the human sense of the sacred that actually gives rise to civilization itself rather than the other way around. The Neolithic revolution is initiated: a radical change, fraught with revolutionary consequence for the whole species. Altering the earth for the first time, the turning of place into
monuments is a major, irreversible act—one that must require the
overcoming of feelings of sacrilege.
THE FIRST MAN-MADE TEMPLES
EARLY SANCTUARIES [not presented]
ARCHITECTURAL MASTERY
If wood—soft and pliable—is good for the living, stone—cold, hard, ancient—is reserved for the dead. Rendered eternal, the monuments ensue spiritual survival for the group. The mastery of prehistoric quarrymen, who know about local geological variations and how to meet the demand of the ‘stone master’, is quite evident. The choice of rock is often very precise, dictated by the function of each stone. Careful and symbolic placement is given to quartz, a material holding magical and hypnotic qualities.
Stones are perfectly integrated in their surroundings, positioned either high up on a hillside or near water in a valley. Visible over a great distance, they occupy the center of a broad vista of land or sea. Monuments change and alter their character according to the weather, the light, the season. The precise astronomical orientation of important monuments mark and celebrate turning points in the solar and lunar cycles. Equinoxes, solstices, minor and major lunar stand-stills are recognized by highlighting the rising and setting points of sun and moon at those times. Thus the earth is linked with the heavens, the fate of the ancestors linked with the rhythms of the 2 great celestial bodies. The layout of space, the cycling of time, is better understood, mapped, organized. ANCESTOR STONES For the ancient mind, the ‘giving of ground’, the ‘giving of substance to’ that occurs when erecting a monument is nothing less than a rebuilding of the world. It is from and about that central point where one’s origins or one’s ground of being reside. By embodying the archetypal realm and the spirit of the ancestors, they help to 'stabilize the world', bringing psychological and physical security for both individual and community.
STANDING STONES These lonely sentinels punctuating the landscape must have been for the tribe an emphatic statement of spiritual and political identiy. Some may hold mundane functions: territorial markers, commemorative stones, symbols of prestige. With their obvious phallic associations, others are the focus of fertility rituals. With their inter-visibility over considerable distances, or in relation with features in the surrounding landscape, they can serve as astronomical markers.More significantly, standing stones are felt and seen as energetic devices joining earth and sky—not unlike acupuncture points that would be placed at Earth’s meridians. In a general way, they function as antennaes which can gather, concentrate, and focus magnetic and electromagnetic energies. Helped by the use of quartz material, they become batteries or memory banks recording the particular powers directed into them. Altar stones of ancestors and deities. Beyond the impulse of religious fervour or concern for social order, there will always be the intoxicating excitement of challenging the massive intractability of the rocks.
STONE CIRCLES Built at locales of strong geophysical energies, stone circles become the locus of important religious ceremonies. Secondarily, they may also serve as gathering place for political and trading events. BURIAL CHAMBERS AND PASSAGE MOUNDS The dolmen under tumulus is the dwelling place of ancestors, who for successive generations can be called upon for divine protection, as mediators between the living and the potent netherworld. With chambers generally oriented in the direction of the rising and setting sun, a link is made between those buried between the stones and the course of the great celestial body. Consider the etymology of the word ‘origin’(from the Latin oriri: ‘to rise as the sun’): beyond the foundational role they hold for the community, the dead keeps on nourishing the living, just like the rising of the sun at the origin of each day. Evolved from those simple chambers, passage mounds play a more collective role. They are built for long-term use and may have multiple chambers set in a cruciform layout. Large stone-cut offering bowls are sometimes found. It has been suggested that some sites may witness physical birth events. In the ‘Tumb of the womb’, the cyclic, ever-present, all-embracing arms of the goddess is directly felt, experienced, and learned. Beyond the symbols of the goddess and motifs of masculine power found carved in the chambers, it is abstract designs that are favored: processes (evolutive and involutive spirals), elements (earth, water, wind, fire), celestial bodies (sun, moon), serpentine designs, entoptic patterns (dots, arcs, zigzags, grids, lozenges, eye-patterns, cup and ring marks) and other images of shamanic trances. Passage mounds are often built and orientated so as to mark key points in the rising and setting of the sun and moon. Winter and summer solstice rising are often celebrated with dramatic light effects that appear in the depths of the chambers. To achieve this, the passage may slope upward or undulate from side to side; the use of light-boxes and stone portals may further allow or restrict the flow of light. Eventually, light entering a passage is narrowed into a focused beam of light that only penetrates the inner chamber for a few minutes at these key moments. In the chamber's surrounding gloom may suddenly appears the golden light display of a triple spiral, its vital force re-awakened or re-activated; a free-standing monolith may suddenly transforms into a laser-like shaft of light, a magical rising of potent life-force.
While the winter solstice offers a direct connection to the archetypal realm and the world of the gods, the summer solstice rules over the human realm. At winter stand-still, the newly emerging solar life-force penetrates the dark womb of the earth to regenerate life. At summer stand-still, it shines at the height of its power and the threshold of decline. Both are portals into the mysteries of life, death, and the cosmos.
RITUAL LANDSCAPES freely adapted from:
SOURCES Keith Critchlow, Time Stands Still Jean-Pierre Mohen, The World of Megaliths Paul Devereux, The Sacred Place Julian Richards [text], Magic Stones Myriam Philibert, La Caverne [internet sources — various] ![]() mound of the planetary mind an Earth-Mother temple for our Age |