Asota Megalithic Site: In a quiet place near the village of Shewa, there stand massive upright stones that ancient people put up long ago. Some experts believe these stones were used to study the stars and planets. This place is called the Asota Megalithic Site, and it’s one of the most exciting ancient sites in Pakistan.
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Ancient Stone Circle – Asota Megalithic Site
The Asota Megalithic Site is a bit broken down now, but it’s still one of the few stone circles left in South Asia. It used to have 32 tall stones, each about 3.5 meters high. They were placed in a circle with some gaps between them. The circle was about 7 meters wide. Even in their damaged state, these stones show us how impressive they must have been when they were first set up.
Stone Circles Around the World
Stone circles like this one have been made in many parts of the world throughout history. You might have heard of Stonehenge in the United Kingdom; it’s the most famous of them all. These kinds of stone circles are found in places like Europe, Africa, and Asia. Most of them are in Western Europe, especially in places like Ireland, Great Britain, and France. In fact, there are about 50,000 of them in total!
Big Tall Stones
These tall stones are called menhirs, and they come in different sizes and shapes. They’re usually pretty hard to figure out when they were made because they were created in different times by different ancient cultures. They can be found alone or in groups, and they often get narrower toward the top.
Megaliths in India and Pakistan
Researchers in India found four menhirs in the Pothamala hills near the border of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. In Pakistan, there are only two known places with stone circles: one in Balochistan and Asota Sharif in the Khyber Pashtunkwa province. To protect the Asota Megalithic Site, the KP Archaeological Department has put up a fence around it. The Asota megalithic site is thought to be around 4000 to 330 BCE, but no one has done any research to know its exact age.
Sacred Stones
For many non-Hindu tribes in India, megaliths like these are sacred. They believe in the power of these stone circles and still worship them today. It’s likely that the Asota megaliths were built as burial sites or memorials for people who lived in this area long ago.
Mysteries of Megaliths
When you see menhirs in groups with different shapes, they’re sometimes called megalithic monuments. People used these places for all sorts of things, like religious ceremonies, social gatherings, burials, and even observing the stars. But we’re not completely sure what they were used for, and people in the past didn’t have much information about them until the 19th century.
Stone Names
The word “menhir” comes from French and is made up of two Breton words: “maen” and “hir,” which mean “long stone.” In modern Welsh, they’re called “maenhir,” or “long stone.” In Germany and Scandinavia, they use “Bauta,” which sometimes becomes “Bauta stone” in English.
Ancient People
We don’t know much about the people who put up these menhirs. We don’t even know their language. But we do know they buried their dead, grew crops, made pottery, tools, and jewelry. These stones were connected to people living in Europe around 2800–1800 BC, but some researchers think they might be even older, possibly up to 7000 years old.
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