Grottoes near Arles
In the south of France lies a group of rock chamber tombs ( French Hypogées de Fontvieille ). The fairy grotto ( French Grotte des Fées or Hypogée de la Montagne des Cordes ), about four kilometers northeast of Arles , near the small town of Fontvieille is best known. It is not to be confused with a natural cave of the same name in Tharaux , Gard . Systems of this type have been assigned to the Arles-Fontvieille Group by Glyn Daniel . Even Jean Clottes does not include them in his setting up the dolmen and menhirs of the Midi .
The fairy grotto
The Montagne de Cordes is a 65 m high hill. It is typical of natural or artificial hills that were used anciently and are found more often in France and England . He was 2500 BC When the rock chamber construction started roughly here, it was the highest of three Rhone islands . Near the highest point of the concave surface of the hill a staircase leads down 3.4 m into a long, cigar-shaped antechamber with two opposite side niches. It narrows slightly towards the end and then, with a lateral widening, merges into another trapezoid main chamber that narrows towards the end, which is approximately 24 m long and 2.7 m wide. The artificial ceiling of the main chamber is lowered by the height of the cap stones compared to the natural one in the antechamber. Its walls are still 3.4 m high. The ceiling is formed by seven capstones and is covered with a round tumulus of earth. Because of its shape, the grotto is also called "Roland's Sword" (French Epée de Roland).
The smaller rock tombs
The smaller rock tombs of this group are on other nearby hills. They have no side niches. The Hypogée du Castelet is located on the north side of the road in an oval artificial hill. Here a ramp goes down to a covered room. The Hypogée de Bounias, the Hypogée de La Source and the Hypogée de Cordes (or Cave of the Féen), whose outdoor counterpart is the Dolmen de Gallardet , and the Dolmen de Coutignargues are located in low hills south of the road.
Finds
The Grotto des Fées has been known for centuries, but so far no excavations have taken place. The Arnaud-Castelet cave has been explored. Despite being used as a forge for almost 400 years, the remains of over 100 human skeletons have been found. Axes, arrowheads, bone artifacts, callaï pearls , steatite, shells and even gold were also found. The pottery consisted of earlier, undecorated goods as well as later bell-beaker ceramics .
In the other rock chambers there were human remains and objects as well as a copper pearl and a pendant made of rock crystal. The Grotte de la-Quelle has rock carvings on its surface, but these have been covered with earth for protection.
context
It appears that the plants date from around 2500 BC. BC until the bell beaker period (until about 2000 BC) were used. This type of artificial cave is unique to the Arles area. Artificial rock chambers are also found in other parts of southern France (and on the Marne) as well as in Sardinia, Sicily, Malta and the Balearic Islands. The Majorcan Cuevas with their side niches largely correspond to the fairy grotto of Arles in that they have side niches that have the same shape.
literature
- Alastair Service, Jean Bradbery: The Standing Stones of Europe. A Guide to the great Megalithic Monuments . Dent, London 1993, ISBN 0-460-86115-8 .
- Jean Guilaine, Jean-Claude Golvin, et al .: Les Hypogées protohistoriques de la Méditerranée: Arles et Fontvieille 2015
- Jürgen E. Walkowitz: The megalithic syndrome. European cult sites of the Stone Age (= contributions to the prehistory and early history of Central Europe. Vol. 36). Beier & Beran, Langenweißbach 2003, ISBN 3-930036-70-3 pp. 193, 198, 254
Web links
Coordinates: 43 ° 42 '38.1 " N , 4 ° 41' 1.2" E