others were content to have their monumental barrow or cairn raised within view of some fane of remarkable sanctity. Around Avebury, Stonehenge, and other circular temples, we can judge from remains, and learn from records, how extremely numerous were the tumuli. Every elevation within the very extensive circuit which the eye could reach from these centres of worship was studded with the cairns and barrows of the worshippers, who we may imagine hoped, from the sacred nature of the locality, to obtain a favourable metempsychosis. A late and careful writer,' in exploring the summits of Mount Hermon, believes that the foundations of a stone wall there enclosing a circular space, 180 feet in diameter, mark one of the "high-places" where the worship of Baal was particularly celebrated, and once contained an altar whence ascended the flames of sacred fires in his honour. "2 The earliest notice in history of unhewn columns forming part of an establishment dedicated to religious ceremonies is that of Mount Sinai, where Moses "builded an altar under the hill, and twelve pillars according to the twelve tribes of Israel." There he caused burnt-offerings to be offered, and peace-offerings to be sacrificed, and he himself sprinkled the blood on the altar and on the people. It has already been intimated that the altars were to be formed of unhewn stones, and were not to be ascended by steps. 1 Porter's Five Years in Damascus, pp. 293-295. See also Egyptian Sepulchres and Syrian Shrines, where the same facts are repeated, and St. Jerome is mentioned as testifying to the fact that a 3 temple of Baal existed on Mount Hermon, vol. ii. pp. 14, 15. 2 Exod. xxiv. 4. Exod. xx. 25, 26; Josh. viii. 31. This shows that there were steps to the altars of the Canaanites. MONUMENT AT GILGAL. 217 The next record of such a monument is that of Gilgal, where Joshua first encamped after crossing the Jordan. There he caused twelve stones to be "pitched," the number of the stones being "according to the number of the tribes." These stones were also unhewn, having been taken from the channel of the river, as must have been those of the altar which Joshua reared at the same place, and on which he offered sacrifice.2 In these, the earliest notices of rude stones employed for the erection of altars and to define places destined for religious ceremonies, we have four facts distinctly announced— First, That the stones were to be of their natural form, not in any way shaped by man. Second, That columnar stones ("pillars") were associated with the altar. Third, That these pillars set up were in number according to the number of tribes who were to be partakers in the intended sacrifice; and Fourth, That the altar was to be without steps. Another circumstance may, with much probability, be inferred from the meaning attributed to the word Gilgal by Hebrew scholars," as well as from the description of those places of sacrifice in the Bible and the historian Josephus-viz. that the consecrated area was circular. Under other heads reference is made to the monument of Gilgal, and here it is sufficient to notice that it was consecrated to divine worship-that the twelve stones were reared : 3 as a memorial'-that there justice was administered2-and that it was at Gilgal that the people assembled and made Saul king before the Lord. It may thus be seen that this place was used for devotional, judicial, and inaugural purposes; besides being originally distinguished, when it acquired that name, by stones of memorial. At a later period Gilgal, so long reverenced and consecrated to the worship of the true God, became notorious as a place for the heathen sacrifices. and other pagan abominations of the apostate Jews.* Notwithstanding the early period to which we are carried back by the history of these defined areas and rude stone altars erected at Sinai and Gilgal, it is very possible that the circular temple of Baal, lately discovered by Mr. Porter on the eastern summit of Mount Hermon, may have been erected long before the period of the exodus. In a separate article are noticed the various countries in which circular areas defined by pillars, and various other Cyclopean remains, have been discovered-extending from Central Asia through Northern Africa to Gaul and Britain. In now treating of these circles as places of worship it is only necessary, as regards other countries, to remark that this was the purpose to which such places were dedicated in Syria and Palestine; and that in India they are still formed, as well as occupied, for the practice of religious rites. In Britain there. is sufficient proof that these areas were places of worship to the heathen, and afterwards to the early Christian inhabitants ! Josh. iv. 7. 31 Sam. xi. 15. 4 Hosea iv. 15; ix. 15; xii. 11. |