  A large amount of work has been dedicated to studying general relativity
coupled to non-Abelian Yang-Mills type theories. It has been shown that the
magnetic monopole, a solution of the Yang-Mills-Higgs equations can be coupled
to gravitation. For a low Higgs mass there are regular solutions, and for a
sufficiently massive monopole the system develops an extremal magnetic
Reissner-Nordstrom quasi-horizon. These solutions, called quasi-black holes,
although non-singular, are arbitrarily close to having a horizon. However, at
the critical value the quasi-black hole turns into a degenerate spacetime. On
the other hand, for a high Higgs mass, a sufficiently massive monopole develops
also a quasi-black hole, but it turns into an extremal true horizon, with
matter fields outside. One can also put a small Schwarzschild black hole inside
the magnetic monopole, an example of a non-Abelian black hole. Surprisingly,
Majumdar-Papapetrou systems, Abelian systems constructed from extremal dust,
also show a resembling behavior. Previously, we have reported that one can find
Majumdar-Papapetrou solutions which can be arbitrarily close of being a black
hole, displaying quasi-black hole behavior. With the aim of better
understanding the similarities between gravitational monopoles and
Majumdar-Papapetrou systems, we study a system composed of two extremal
electrically charged spherical shells (or stars, generically) in the
Einstein--Maxwell--Majumdar-Papapetrou theory. We review the gravitational
properties of the monopoles, and compare with the properties of the double
extremal electric shell system. These quasi-black holes can help in the
understanding of true black holes, and can give insight into the nature of the
entropy of black holes in the form of entanglement.
