Alignements du Moulin
The Alignements du Moulin near Saint-Just in the Ille-et-Vilaine department on the outskirts of Brittany in France consist of three rows of megalithic stones . The neighboring mill Le Moulin de Cojoux gave its name to the row of stones . In the Base Mérimée , the database of the French Ministry of Culture, in which the rows of stones are classified as historic monuments ( monument historique ), they are also referred to as Alignements de Cojoux .
description
The three separate rows consist of different rocks and therefore also show different colors. The rows of stones lie on the edge of a small mountain ridge and extend for about 400 m. The northern, 115 m long row is formed by 15 quartz blocks with crystallizations. It runs in an east-west direction. The 65 m long southern row, consisting of slate blocks, does not run exactly parallel to the northern row, but is also oriented east-west. A third row of five stones stands around 100 meters to the west and runs perpendicular to the other two. All three incomplete rows of up to three meters high menhirs could have met at one point in the west.
The site was already partially examined in the 19th century. In 1953, Pierre-Roland Giot (1919–2002) researched the facilities around Saint-Just and came to the conclusion that it was a Neolithic building. In 1976 the rows of stones were examined and restored by Maurice Gautier, Gilles Leroux and Yannick Lecerf. The fallen menhirs, some of which were covered with earth, were raised again.
Further excavations in the late 1980s and early 1990s, led by Maurice Gautier, Gilles Leroux and Jacques Briard , showed that there was a paved road with various post holes on its foundations, so that the rows of menhirs were complemented by wooden structures. Among them was an arrangement of four posts. Phases of use lay between 4600 and 3700 BC. During the Bronze Age , tombs were added, including a stone box with a circular border on the northern row. Back then, the people of the Bronze Age buried the ashes of a dead man in a large clay pot on the edge of the row of stones.
After a fire in September 2009, the smaller stones are no longer overgrown by the heather vegetation and are clearly visible.
The rows of stones belong to the Parc des Megalithes de Saint-Just , which also houses the megalithic complexes Château Bû , Croix Saint-Pierre , the Allée couverte Grotte des Fées de Tréal , Demoiselles Piquées , Four Sarrazin , Croix Madame (a complex of lying stones) and Le Tribunal are located.
See also
literature
- Pierre-Roland Giot: Menhirs et dolmens. Monuments mégalithiques de Bretagne. Editions d'art Jos Le Doaré, Châteaulin 1957.
- Charles-Tanguy Le Roux, Yannick Lecerf, Gautier Maurice: Les mégalithes de Saint-Just (Ille-et-Vilaine) et la fouille des alignements du Moulin de Cojou. In: Revue archéologique de l'Ouest. Vol. 6, 1989, ISSN 1775-3732 , pp. 5-29, doi : 10.3406 / rao.1989.931 .
- Jacques Briard : The Megaliths of Brittany . Gisserot, Paris 1991.
- Jacques Briard, Maurice Gautier, Gilles Leroux: Les mégalithes et les tumulus de Saint-Just. Ille-et-Vilaine. Évolution et acculturations d'un ensemble funéraire, 5000 à 1500 ans avant notre ère (= Documents préhistoriques. 8). Éditions du Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques, Paris 1995, ISBN 2-7355-0320-8 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Alignements de Cojoux in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (ministère de la Culture et de la Communication).
- ^ Pierre-Roland Giot: Menhirs et dolmens. Monuments mégalithiques de Bretagne. Editions d'art Jos Le Doaré, Châteaulin 1957.
- ^ Jacques Briard, Maurice Gautier, Gilles Leroux: Les mégalithes et les tumulus de Saint-Just. Ille-et-Vilaine. Évolution et acculturations d'un ensemble funéraire, 5000 à 1500 ans avant notre ère (= Documents préhistoriques. 8). Éditions du Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques, Paris 1995, ISBN 2-7355-0320-8 .
- ^ L'incendie pictures of the fire in the Parc des Megalithes de Saint-Just from September 2009.
Web links
Coordinates: 47 ° 45 ′ 54 " N , 1 ° 58 ′ 25" W.