LOOKING SOUTH OVER THE PLATFORM FIELD AT LOTHAGAM.
| SITE STRUCTURE | COLLARED PLATFORM | CURBED PLATFORMS | SLAB PLATFORMS | CAIRNS | CERAMICS |

 

Notes on the Lothagam Pillar Site


LARGE PLATFORM FACED WITH SANDSTONE SLABS.		  


SLAB-FACED PLATFORMS

Looking east-southeast at the large platform with sides made of sandstone slabs. The vertical side-slabs have fallen in most places, spilling the platform rubble and creating a low mound. Since the height of the mound is about three times the height of the slabs, its original surface must also have been mounded when fully contained by the slabs.

Symbolically, the ring of slabs may also served as a ring of pillars.


PLATFORM WITH SANDSTONE CURB.		  

The curbed platform closest to the large slab-sided platform. The curb of this platform is made largely of small sandstone slabs, but the structure of the platform is like the others with curbs. It is elevated only a little and the fill is largely beach gravel.

 


CLOSE-UP OF THE WESTERN MARGIN OF THE LARGE SLAB PLATFORM.		  

Margin of the large, slab-sided platform showing some of the slabs still in place.

 


SMALL SLAB-FACED PLATFORM AT EASTERN MARGIN OF SITE.

The small, slab-sided platform. The slabs on this platform are much higher than the fill was within the platform. Also, the fill in the platform is dominated by beach gravel, unlike the large slab-sided platform, which was filled mostly with big blacks of sandstone.

 


It is tempting to see the small slab-sided platform, which is only about 2.5 meters in diameter and furthest from the collared platform, either as the last gasp of the burial tradition represented at this site, or the smallest and least powerful of the social groups using the cemetery.