La Pierre Turquaise
La Pierre Turquaise is the most impressive of the surviving monuments in the Forêt de Carnelle and the largest megalithic complex in the region around Paris . The forest area near Presles , north of Paris in the Oise valley , covers 975 hectares and takes its name from the Celtic word “carn”, which means stone or cairn.
La Pierre Turquaise is a gallery tomb with a length of about 12.0 m. The height of the ceiling plate is 1.70 m, the width of the system about 2.5 m. The system has an antenna-like porch, which consists of three side stones and a broken ceiling plate. The chamber consists of eleven lateral supporting stones, the end stone and four cap stones. The gallery is one of the most famous structures of the end-Neolithic Seine-Oise-Marne culture , (3100–2000 BC). The entrance to the gallery is a pierced plate with a so-called soul hole , which could be closed with a stone plug.
Surname
The name "Pierre Turquaise" (probably translatable as "Turk stone") was first mentioned in 1727. It is probably based on the equation of the Turks with pagans and means that it should be a "building of the pagans". As early as 1274, the conspicuous "Allée couverte" was mentioned in writing in a legal dispute between the Abbey of Saint-Denis and landowners in Presles.
Research history
The Prince de Conti , who owned the forest and owned a collection of art and curiosities , had a dig there in the middle of the 18th century. It is said, however, that he found nothing and then used the gallery as a shelter for his hunting dogs. After that it was used as a shelter for loggers. For the expansion of the city of Paris in the 19th century, many stone monuments in the area were removed and the stones were used to pave the streets. The French archaeologist Alexandre Hahn (1814–1861), the anthropologist Gustave Millescamps de Chaumontel (1827–1891) and the Abbé Jean-Baptiste Grimot examined and described the complex. The latter ensured that the megalithic monument was placed under protection in 1887, when around two-thirds of all systems in the forest had already been destroyed.
La Pierre Turquaise was the subject of an explosives attack in 1985. On the night of December 14th to 15th, the cover plates were lifted up by a violent explosion and broke several times when they fell back again. The trilith at the entrance to the main chamber was also damaged, but not the sculptures on the two supporting stones. The gallery was then restored and the foundations reinforced so that the structure did not sink further into the forest floor.
The goddess of the dead
A characteristic of this gallery is the "Déesse des Morts" (the goddess of the dead) depicted inside on both panels of the entrance to the main chamber. The goddess is recognized as a three-dimensional representation of two breasts and a necklace. Only seven other specimens of the goddess are known in France. It is represented in the facilities of Crec'h Quillé , Dampsmesnil , Kerguntuil , Mougau-Bihan , Prajou-Menhir and La Maison des Feins and Guiry en Vexin .
A duplicate of the plaster of paris monument is in the museum of Saint-Germain-en-Laye .
The menhir
The menhir of Saint-Martin-du-Tertre stands in the forest of Carnelle, about 200 m southeast of the dolmen. It is a cuboid sandstone block with a height of 1.30 m and a width of 1.9 m and a thickness of 0.50 m. An examination of his foot showed that it is 0.4 m deep.
Monuments in the Val d'Oise, near Presles
- Dolmen de la Pierre Plate , on the edge of the forest of L'Isle-Adam
- Allée couverte Le Blanc Val , on the plateau
- Coffre de Bellevue (Eng. "Suitcase from Bellevue"), was transferred to the park of Bellevue Palace
literature
- Michel Brezillon, Jacques Tarrête: Deux sculptures inédites de l'allée couverte de la Pierre Turquaise à Saint-Martin-du-Tertre (Val-d'Oise). In: Gallia préhistoire. Vol. 14, No. 2, 1971, ISSN 0016-4127 , pp. 263-266, doi : 10.3406 / galip.1971.1387 .
- Marija Gimbutas: The civilization of the goddess two thousand and one Frankfurt a / M 1996 p. 204
- Alexandre Hahn: Description of the monuments celtiques des environs de Paris. In: L'Investigateur, Journal de l'Institut historique. Ser. 3, Vol. 4 = Vol. 21, No. 153, 1854, ZDB -ID 280996-5 , pp. 153-155 .
- Paul de Mortillet: Silex taillés provenant du Dolmen de la Pierre Turquaise. In: Bulletin de la Société préhistorique de France. Vol. 5, No. 7, 1908, ISSN 0037-9514 , pp. 323-324, doi : 10.3406 / ex . 1908.11642 .
- Ph. Soulier: Restauration et sondages à l'allée couverte de la pierre Turquaise, Saint-Martin du Tertre (Val d'Oise). In: Bulletin de la Société préhistorique française. Vol. 85, No. 9, 1988, ISSN 0037-9514 , pp. 263-266, ( digitized version ).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Abbé Grimot was the correspondent of the Ministry of Public Instruction for Historical Works and a member of the Committee for Historical and Scientific Works, as well as Vice-President of the Departmental Commission for Antiques and Art of the Seine-et-Oise department.
Web links
- Dolmen dit Pierre Turquaise in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
Coordinates: 49 ° 6 ′ 21 ″ N , 2 ° 18 ′ 48.5 ″ E