Rings of stone pillars surrounding ancient burial sites. As usual, it is not clear who, when and how made multi-ton pillars of laterite. Two groups of such rings are located in Senegal, two in the Gambia. We chose to visit a group near the village of Vassu in the Gambia, the Senegalese circles would have been more difficult to reach. And so at the same time we looked at the eastern part of the Gambia. There are 11 rings in the Vassu group and the tallest of the pillars is 2.5 meters. One of the local rings is depicted on the 50 dalasi bill. The guide said that during his childhood, a strange glow was often seen near the pillars, he himself also saw it, so people are still afraid to spend the night in this place.
Quote from the UNESCO website: "The object is composed of four large groups of rings of stones. Four groups - Sine Ngaene, Vannar, Vassa and Kerbatch, include 93 such rings, as well as a significant number of tumuli burial mounds, some of which have been excavated to obtain material that allowed them to be attributed to the period from the 3rd century BC to the 16th century AD The rings of laterite pillars and the burial mounds associated with them constitute a vast sacred landscape that has developed over more than 1500 years. organized and long-lived society.The stones were quarried with metal tools and carefully turned into almost regular cylindrical or polyhedral pillars weighing 7 tons and about 2 meters high.Each ring contains from 8 to 14 stones and has a diameter of 4 to 6 meters All of them are located near burial mounds.This outstanding object is only part of a vast archaeological area, including more than 1000 megalithic monuments. ikov. It stretches for 350 km along the Gambia River, with a width of 100 km, and has no analogues in the world in terms of its size, richness and complexity. Beautifully crafted pillars, testifying to the high skill of their creators, give a special grandeur to the whole landscape."