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One of the most effective and lasting ways to leave one’s mark on the prehistoric landscape was to reposition extraordinarily large stones for some intended but often unrecoverable purpose. Large standing stones, or megaliths, such as viewed here are found throughout the world. Standing as silent monuments to ancient human culture, these structures appear stark and otherworldly to the modern eye. In fact, in this part of the world, a megalith forming an enclosure is commonly referred to as a beit al-ghoul, or house of the ghost.

The most common form of megalith is known as a dolmen, a Celtic word meaning “stone table,” which for obvious reasons has been applied to the phenomenon universally. Dutch expert Gajus Scheltema defines a dolmen as “. . . a construction made out of two or more large standing stones, with one or several covering slabs, creating a box-like structure.” Such structures may be found in solitary or, more commonly in dolmen fields such as the one here at Damiyah, which likely date to the Early Bronze Period, roughly 4,200 to 5,300 years ago.

A number of archaeologists in the Syro-Palestinian region have tried to produce detailed typologies of dolmens identifying several different types. The more common types include:

The trilithon, which consists of two facing standing stones capped by a third.
Four or more upright stones, also capped.
Resting stones stacked in tiers and capped.
Three vertical stones capped with one long stone, forming two chambers.
Two vertical stones capped and spanned midway up by a stone shelf.
A carved-out boulder covered with a stone cap, also called a “pseudo dolmen.”

These types are not exhaustive. For example, surveyors at Showbak record a type of dolmen characterized by double, even triple rows of stones. There are also “demi-dolmens,” dolmens that rely upon existing natural rock for support. Roughly 90% of the dolmens surveyed fit the trilithon type, but it is also the case that the simpler ones originally may have belonged to a more complicated category. Other variations exist, such as dolmens having a square or rectangular hole carved in the “door” slab--a feature, which seems to be characteristic of southern dolmen, for we are aware of no examples in the northern areas on either side of the Jordan River.