e. Each of these represents a female lying on a rather low couch. In
the better preserved of the two she lies on her right side, her head on
a small uncomfortable-looking pillow. The upper part of her body is
naked, but from the waist downwards she is clad in a flounced skirt
which reaches to the ankles. The other figurine is very similar, but the
woman here is face downwards on the couch.

The bodies themselves were so damaged with damp that only ten skulls
could be saved whole. These, however, afford very valuable
anthropological evidence. They have been carefully measured by Dr.
Zammit, and they prove to belong to a long-headed (dolichocephalic) type
usual among the neolithic races of the Mediterranean.

We have still to discuss the purpose of this great complex of
underground chambers and passages. It is quite clear that its eventual
fate was to be used as a burial place for thousands of individuals, but
it is far from certain that this was the purpose for which it was built.
The existence of the central chamber, with its careful work and
laborious imitation of an open-air 'temple,' is against this
interpretation. It has therefore been suggested that the hypogeum was
meant for a burial place, and that the central chamber was the chapel or
sanctuary in which the funeral rites were performed, after which the
body was buried in one of the smaller rooms. This, however, does not
explain the presence of burials in the chapel itself, and it is far more
likely that it was only after Halsaflieni had ceased to be used for its
original purpose that it was seized upon as a convenient place for
burial.

The question of the date of the Maltese megalithic buildings is a
difficult one. It is true that no metal has been found in them, and that
we can therefore speak of them as belonging to the neolithic age. But
the neolithic age of Malta need not be parallel in date with that of
Crete for example. It is extremely probable that Malta lay outside the
main currents of civilization, and that flint continued to be used there
long after copper had been adopted by her more fortunate neighbours.

CHAPTER VIII

THE DOLMENS OF ASIA

In the south-east of Europe lie three groups of dolmens which are no
doubt in origin more closely connected with those of Asia than with
those of the rest of Europe. The first group lies in Bulgaria, where no
less than sixty dolmens have been fo