MEGALITHIC VILLAGE IN ALGERIA.

Thames Star, Volume XXVI, Issue 8082, 29 June 1895, Page 3

MEGALITHIC VILLAGE IN ALGERIA.

In his new report on Algeria Sir Lambert Payfair describes a visit which he. made to the phosphate mine 3 of Djebel Dyr, near Tebessa, in the course of wtr.ch, he says, he says he saw a wonderful megalitbic village. At about a kilometer from the house of lue manager of the mines, the mine tramway runs aloog the base of a cliffe of shell limestone about 240 feat high. Below is a grassy slope covered with Btone? and boulders which have been detached from the hill above. Some of them pre of great size, being 11 or 12 metres in circumference, and they have been hollowed out into Chambers about two metres square At

the base. A ledge of 30 centimetres square has been left oo all the four side.", and the centre has been further excavated to n depth of about 10 centimetres. Windows havo been cut in the sides, and one can cleaily see the groove hit» which a door was fitted. The .interior hfi;ht of the chambers is about two metres. The boulders are of shell limestone not very difficult to cut, but still, so hard that the pick marks in the inside are as sharp as when first made. On the summit of the hill above are megalithio tombs of the ordinary type —large Blabs supported by upright stones. Sir Lambert cannot quite make up his 1 mind whether these excavated boulders are habitations or tombs like the others. The fact tbafc undoubted tombs exist in the immediate vicinity at what would naturally be considered the proper distance for the cemetery of a village induces the belief that the boulders may be habitations. They ! are provided wih windows, and the groove for the door only exists to half its height, leaving the upper half of the aperture to be shut by a curtain or hanging of some kiod. Some of the windows are rudely made. One was a nearly perfect ellipse placed high in ) the wall, so as to serve also as a chimney. The interior dim ensions are not much less than many of the native huts at the present day. The balance of evidence appears to him in favor.of their having been intended as habitations.