It is difficult to explain[41] how the makers of this trilithon managed to transport, to work, and to place such masses in position.
In the same island is a trilithon consisting of a transverse bar resting on two pillars provided with mortises for its reception.
He adds that the memory of sacred spots dies very hard in Tonga, and that the natives do not believe the trilithon to have been a gateway.
In the first place the interval (ten or twelve feet) between the uprights of the Tongan trilithon appears to be much greater than the interval between the uprights of the trilithons at Stonehenge.
Forbes did not fail to note, the Tongan trilithon differs in some respects from those of Stonehenge.
Another possible explanation of the trilithon is, as Sir Basil Thomson points out, that it served as a gateway to some sacred spot inland.
It is natural to compare the trilithon of Tongataboo with the famous trilithons of Stonehenge, which it resembles in plan and to which it is comparable in size.
If it was indeed a memorial of a dead king, it might be thought to strengthen the view that the great trilithon was also set up as a monument to a deceased monarch or Tooitonga.
Guillemard concludes that some race, with a different, if not a higher civilisation preceded the Polynesian race in its present homes, and to this earlier race he would apparently refer the erection of the trilithon in Tongataboo.
In the second place, the cross-stone of the Tongan trilithon is mortised much more deeply into the uprights than are the cross-stones at Stonehenge.
It has a rectangular niche to the west containing a fine trilithon with a cover-slab nearly 10 feet long.
The southern niche contains an ordinary trilithon table (f): the northern niche is damaged, but apparently held a table like that of the western.
Here, too, as at Mnaidra, we find niches containing trilithon tables.
In the north-west angle of this triangle is fixed a trilithon table (c) of the usual type, 32 inches high; at a like height above the table is fixed another horizontal slab which serves as a roof to the corner.
Each has a short entrance avenue which narrows as it approaches the circle, and in the centre of each rises a trilithon of rough stones.
Wondering what they would do, the young shepherd left the hut, and doubled behind the belt of furze, intending to stand near the trilithon unperceived.
The boy remained in the hut, confronting the trilithonas if he expected yet more actors on the scene, but nobody else appeared.
But the trilithon stood up white as ever; and, crossing the intervening sward, the steward fancifully placed his mouth against the stone.
At the temple of Demeter in Arcadia, Pausanias mentions a trilithon called the Petroma, by which the Greeks swore, and under which they kept a certain sacred book, which was yearly read by a priest.
There is a rude circle of menhirs at the site, with a trilithon or dolmen on one side.
In some cases the top stone is raised only a foot from the ground, and in others the trilithon is so small that it would not serve as anything but a table or seat.
The second illustration gives a nearer view of the great trilithon gate in the upper court, at the head of the ramp.
One upright of the great Trilithon (raised and made secure in 1901) is erect.
Of this abundant ocular proof was forthcoming in 1901, when the foundations of the great Trilithon were laid bare, and the leaning upright restored to its original perpendicular position.
Luckily for the observer to-day the tenon on the remaining upright of the Great Trilithon is very strongly marked, and stands out boldly on its apex, thus affording a clue to those existing on other stones.
The master builder decided that the height of this central Trilithon should be the equivalent of twenty-one feet at the present day.
The building of the group was continuous and no gap separates the Trilithon from the foreign upright.
Before them a standing horseshoe of foreign stones, and in the front of the great Trilithon a flat slab or altar stone.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "trilithon" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
