Abstract
A STATUE-MENHIR FROM TRAMIN, SOUTH TYROL.—Dr. O. Menghin of Vienna describes in Man for April a sculptured stone, now in the Ferdinandeum Museum at Innsbruck, which is from the Tyrol, but unique in that region. It is of sandstone, 181-5 cm. high, 57-6 cm. broad, and 25-77 cm- thick, and is shaped like a column, with square section and triangular top. It is worked superficially to represent a human figure -an armed man, but the face is not indicated. It recalls the statue-menhirs of southern France and upper Italy. The Tyrol example is linked to the Italian group by the occurrence on each of daggers with triangular blades, narrow handles, and circular pommels. The daggers which occur rarely on the French statues are of different type. Similarity to a dagger in the wall painting of Pena-Tu in Spain, usually attributed to the Bronze Age, and the age assigned to the Fivizzano monuments of Italy, suggests a similar date for the Tyrolean menhir. Typologically it is intermediate between the French and Italian types, and is therefore to be connected with the West European culture cycle. It is suggested further that the statue-menhir may represent not a god or goddess of death, but may be the image of persons buried originally at the foot of the monument.
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Research Items. Nature 115, 687–688 (1925). https://doi.org/10.1038/115687a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/115687a0