DOLMENS

What is a Dolmen? Basically two large upright huge stones with a third horizontal stone covering it - like a giant table, depicting a rectangle or trapeze. Sometimes more than two vertical stones support the capstone. 
Dolmens can be found all over the world - in Europe, the Middle east and in Korea. 

They are called in German Huenengrab, Huene, meaning "giant", which in itself could be interesting to research.
There is a bit of disagreement about the origins of the word dolmen. It seems to be of Celtic/Bretonic roots, "men", meaning stone and "tol", which could mean "table", but also "hole". There is not much knowledge of the purpose of these megalithic structures. Ritual facilities? Prehistoric tombs? Astronomical grounds? Spiritual places?

Here in Israel hundreds of dolmens have been found in the Golan Heights. Many have collapsed but a lot of them can be seen exactly the way they were erected about up to 4000 years ago, starting roughly at the Bronze Age through the Neolithic and Iron Age.

At the Golan the dolmens are built from local large slabs of basalt stones and they are thought to have covered burial chambers for nomadic tribes that wandered the region, although no skeletal remains were evident. Some of them are encircled by rocks, others are covered by piles of earth and stones (tumuli), most of them stand free.

There are several clusters of dolmens throughout the Golan. We visited yesterday the one east of ancient Gamla. Between the Wadi Gamla  and the Wadi Daliyot more than 150 Dolmens can be seen on both sides of the road.

Dolmens have a very mystical flair about them and they attract not only scientists and historians, but also spiritual people...
Photos by Uri Eshkar. 

I did explain the barren ground in the region around Gamla at comments, have a look.