Grand menhir
The Grand Menhir also Grand Menhir Brisé ( grand : "large", maen : "stone", hir : "long") is the largest known menhir in the world. The Neolithic monument was recognized as a Monument historique back in 1889 .
location
The fallen stone lies within the 'Archaeological Zone' of Locmariaquer , a small community south of Auray , about 12 km from Carnac , on the Gulf of Morbihan in Brittany in France, which was established after the excavation work in the 1980s and 1990s .
Origin and dimensions
The Grand Menhir consists of granite-like, but easier to work with compared to real granite , orthogneiss rock and was brought here from the area around Auray (distance about 10 km) - probably on logs -, erected with the help of lever trunks and earth embankments and in a prepared hole in the ground about 2 m deep; Whether ropes have already been used in this process is an unresolved question.
The stone was originally about 20.60 m long and reached a height of about 18.50 m when erected. The outside and flat sides of the stone are rounded, which either - for reasons of weight saving - happened in the quarry and / or at the installation site. Its total weight is about 280 tons (according to another opinion 330 tons). A close look at the surface reveals traces of the workmanship of the stone; The surface was smoothed using stone hammers and other stone tools. This probably happened after the stone had been erected, because the base, which was embedded in the ground, shows no signs of processing.
Today the huge stone consists of four sections: three sections face south-west; the lower, slightly bulged section fell roughly across it. The largest section is approx. 7 m long (of which were about 2.30 m below ground level), the two middle sections each measure about 4.50 m and the upper section is still over 4.10 m long.
history
The stone was found around 4500 BC. Built as part of an alignment of 19 large stones, which led to a free-standing stele - the later main stone of the Table des Marchand . About 500 years after it was erected, the menhir was overturned by human hands for unknown reasons - it may have been intended to reuse sections as ceiling panels for one or more dolmens , as is the case with other buildings in the area (Table des Marchand, Er Grah , Gavrinis , Mané Rutual ) happened. When it overturned, it broke into four parts, creating almost straight breaking edges with largely flat surfaces - as if these breaking edges had been prepared by human hands through previous notches.
ornamentation
The depiction of a plow, possibly also a stone ax with a wooden handle, was carved into the upright stone or in the upper area of the second largest section, but it is severely eroded by wind and weather and is therefore hardly recognizable.
Surroundings
Another fallen menhir, the menhir couché from Bronso also Men-Bronso is located about 300 m south. It has also been recognized as a Monument historique since 1938 .
See also
literature
- Damien Bonniol, Serge Cassen: Corpus descriptif des stèles ou fragments de stèle en orthogneiss. In: Serge Cassen (ed.): Autour de la Table. Explorations archéologiques et discours savants sur des architectures néolithiques à Locmariaquer, Morbihan. Laboratoire de recherches archéologiques (LARA) - University of Nantes, Nantes 2009, ISBN 978-2-86939-228-1 , pp. 702–734 , here p. 705.
- Charles-Tanguy Le Roux , Éric Gaumé, Yannick Lecerf, Jean-Yves Tinevez: Monuments mégalithiques à Locmariaquer (Morbihan). Le long tumulus d'Er Grah dans son environnement (= Supplément à Gallia préhistoire. Supplément 38). CNRS éditions, Paris 2006, ISBN 2-2710-6490-2 .
- Chris Scarre : The Seventy Wonders of the World. The most mysterious structures of mankind and how they were built. 3. Edition. Frederking & Thaler, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-89405-524-0 .
Web links
- Grand Menhir - photos + brief information
- Grand menhir - Photos and information (Engl.)
- Megaliths in the Gulf of Morbihan (Engl.)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Grand Menhir de Men-er-Grah, Locmariaquer in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
- ↑ Menhir couché dit Men-Bronso, Locmariaquer in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
Coordinates: 47 ° 34 ′ 18 ″ N , 2 ° 57 ′ 0 ″ W.