Mané Lud

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Mané Lud is one of the largest and most important megaliths in Brittany ( France ). The tumulus was declared a monument historique in 1889 .

Mané Lud - interior view. The carving on the main stone of the chamber may show a blowing whale; the monolithic floor slab is carved in the shape of a stele. Both stones are likely fragments of reused menhirs .

location

The facility is located on the highest point of a peninsula on the northern outskirts of the small town of Locmariaquer near the Gulf of Morbihan .

tumulus

The huge tumulus of Mané Lud has an east-west oval shape and is about 80 m long, a maximum of 50 m wide and about 5 m high, in the middle was a stone grave with the remains of two skeletons and grave goods in the form of flint and Ceramic shards found. The tumulus consists essentially of earthfills and not of rubble stones, as they were common in the other hills in the area. A smaller original building was probably expanded several times; at its western end there is a freely accessible passage grave ( dolmen ).

Dolmen

construction

The Mané Lud dolmen consists of an approximately 10 m long corridor originally made up of more than 20 orthostats and an approximately 4 m × 3 m large chamber, consisting of about 7 bearing stones. The capstones are only preserved on the last 5 meters of the corridor and in the chamber. The head height of the corridor rises slightly from the entrance and reaches about 1.8 m in the chamber. The bottom of the chamber consists of a single large sheet of orthogneiss , which is probably a reused plate menhir. The shape of this large plate dictates the shape of the chamber.

Stones

Most of the stones in the corridor area are made of granite. The stones in the chamber, however, consist mainly of orthogneiss , which is easier to work and carved , and which comes from the Auray area (about 10 km north) and is often found in the older large menhirs in the area of ​​Locmariaquer, which were probably intentionally overturned in later times was used ( Grand Menhir- Brisé). The orthogneiss stones in the dolmen of Mané Lud are probably all recycled menhirs , as can be found in other buildings in the area ( Table des Marchand , Er Grah , Mané Rutual , Gavrinis ). The cover plate of the Mané Lud is 8.30 m long, 4 m wide and 0.5 m thick. Its top was probably exposed for several millennia because it is badly weathered. The underside is only partially visible because half of it is hidden above the chamber and half in the tumulus; it broke due to improper support. In Mané Lud, the chamber floor (as in Petit Mont 2) consists of a section of a fallen menhir, which has the shape of a pointed stele. A stele of roughly the same size but richly decorated with ornaments forms the main stone inside the chamber of the Table des Marchand.

ornamentation

The complex is mainly known for the numerous representations on the inner wall surfaces, whereby the granite stones remained undecorated and only the stones made of orthogneiss were provided with incised drawings. These were u. a. interpreted as axes, goddesses, snakes, rowboats and waves; some crooks ( báculos ) and rectangular shapes can also be seen.

The French megalithic researcher Serge Cassen now interprets the depiction on the main stone of the burial chamber as a blowing whale, depicted in a comparatively lifelike manner, as - in his opinion - can also be found in Gavrinis. In the north-west of Spain there are several representations of this type (albeit in a smaller and more abstract form) that have long been interpreted as whales (sectional drawings and photos see web links). The stele-shaped base plate of the chamber also contains extensive - albeit indistinct - incisions.

Dating

The recycling of older - probably overturned on purpose - menhirs as bearing stones or as floor slabs and ceiling stones possibly took place parallel to the other buildings in the area of ​​the Gulf of Morbihan and indicates that the dolmen was built between 4200 and 4000 BC. According to what we know so far, the tumulus was built for several centuries; as it partially covers the top plate of the dolmen, a more recent date can be assumed - at least in part.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tumulus avec Dolmen du Mané-Lud, Locmariaquer in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)

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 pp. 703–705.
  • Jean L'Helgouac'h: Les Idoles qu'on abat. In: Bulletin mensuel de la Société Polymatique du Morbihan. 110, 1983, ISSN  0767-9882 , pp. 57-68.

Web links

Coordinates: 47 ° 34 '26 "  N , 2 ° 57' 4"  W.