ca. 3000 BCE: Stone - Between Life and Death
ABSTRACT
Between 5,000 and 2,500 BCE, Europe underwent a huge transformation as agro-pastoral cultures spread east to west, reaching Ireland around 4,000 BCE. Particularly impressive is the megalithic tradition of the Atlantic Coast cultures from Portugal to the tip of Scotland and into north Germany. Huge structures of stone and earth were made that served as secondary burial sites, ritual meeting sites and as celestial observations. I contrast this expansion with Egypt and its contraction around the Nile River. The Egyptian tradition took a new turn with Zoser’s pyramid, the first moment of a grand scale to be built of dressed stone.

KEY CONCEPTS
•	Megalithic Tradition
•	Ritual Landscape
•	Solstice
•	Menhir
•	Dolmen
•	Barrow
•	Cromlech
•	Portal tomb 
•	Tumulus
•	Cairn
•	Cist
•	Cursus (plural: cursi) 
•	Alignment
•	Secondary Burial
•	Sleeping Venus of Malta
•	Mastaba
•	Pyramic

KEY PLACES
•	Carnac Alignment, France (4,000 – 3,000 BCE)
•	Newgrange, Ireland, (3,500 BCE)
•	Stonehenge, temple and cursus (3,000- 2,400 BCE)
•	Ggantija Temple, Malta, (ca. 3,600 – 2,500 BCE)
•	Hypogeum of Ħal-Saflieni, Malta (ca. 3,000 BCE)
•	Mortuary Complex of Zoser (ca. 2600 BCE)

NOTES ON SELECT TERMS
Secondary Burial
At death, the body was buried, but some time later, perhaps a year or so later, the bones were gathered and reburied. It was the second burial that was usually considered the more important one and was the one associated with ancestor rituals. 
This created a difference between an individual’s death and the role that death played as part of clan cohesion. In that sense, these tombs were not graves in the modern sense, but better thought of as memory devices associated with the telling of stories and legends. They were also ancestor sites, the places where the ancestors would ‘return’ to find their kin, and in reverse a type of portal for the deceased into the realm of the ancestors.

Neolithic Europe
It might be useful to think of the these structures as a battery-driven magnets, for their job was to attract the good spirits related to ancestors as well as to repel any evil spirits. In this they were not static objects, but continually ‘active’ and indeed, like a battery, in need of being periodically ‘recharged’ through various rituals conducted by clan leaders and their followers.

Newgrange
The mound has a 19-meter long, stone-lined passage that leads to a three-lobed chamber. The passage was not straight, but designed with some slight twists. It also slopes gently upward and under a stone-lined, light box that allows a sliver of light to penetrate to the back of the chamber during solstice. The edge of the top stone of the light box is decorated with X-shaped motif. The rear chamber is small and not built for more than a few people, the priests who performed the sacred rites. It is a unique and daring design, for as one moves into the chamber, one does not see the light box, though certainly the priests knew about it. Many of the stones of the inner chamber are decorated with spirals, circles, and zigzags. Tests indicate that the chamber is well suited to male chanting, but what the rituals consisted of is unknown.

To understand the construction, one has to think backward. First the line of the sun had to be secured, which could only have taken place during the winter solstice. This line was somehow preserved during the years of construction with builders lifting and manipulating the heavy stones without being able to test the results of their effort. Meanwhile, work was underway on the mound, which was begun to the right and left of the structure, so that by the time the stones were set it was sitting in a type of valley. Once the stone work was done, the valley was mounded over with tons of stones and dirt to complete the hill. Since one of the main concerns was that that dirt could slip down the slope, the builders added several compact layers of clay. How long it took to complete is anyone’s guess, maybe ten or twenty years.

Cursus
Beginning around 3,800 BCE, in numerous places in England, yet another type of construction was begun that archaeologists call cursi (singular: cursus). Some are a hundred meters long, some several kilometers. How they were used in also not known. They were certainly not running places as their name suggests. In some cases, they seem to be a potential celestial observatory, but they could also have been places of initiation and of gatherings to honor the dead. 

Malta
The Maltese economy, in a sense, revolved around its identity as a spiritual landscape. Why else were there so many temples. One or two would have sufficed, but there were a dozen or so, on such a small island. People came from across the sea to come here and the locals received their goods and wealth. A little bit like a pilgrimage site today. But it something to impress upon oneself, for we tend to assume that in these ancient times, religion was a pre-eminently local event. But we forget the importance of sacred sites to the ancient sensibility. We today look out at the world and do not see much more than a pretty scene, but in the ancient world, landscapes were sacred for a host of reasons. Unusual formations, caves, peaks, trees, and in this case, so it seems an entire island. It was not an easy trip to Malta. 55 miles from Sicily across the Mediterranean.

Sed Festival 
This was the Egyptian ceremony that celebrated the continued rule of a pharaoh. The festival might, perhaps, have been instituted to replace a ritual of murdering a pharaoh who was unable to continue to rule effectively because of age or condition, possibly. Eventually, Sed festivals  became jubilees celebrated after a ruler had held the throne for thirty years and then every three (or four in one case) years after that. They were held to rejuvenate the pharaoh's strength and stamina while still sitting on the throne, celebrating the continued success of the pharaoh.