Megalith of Guillay
The megalith of Guillay (or Pierre de Guillay ) is a menhir of the Bahus group in Larrivière-Saint-Savin in the Landes department in France . It is on the D11 road to Eugénie-les-Bains .
The Neolithic menhir was found lying in a clearing in the extreme south of the municipality in 1967. It consists of Eocene sandstone , is 3.2 m high, 2.2 m wide and 1.0 m thick. Its weight is estimated at 20 tons. The municipality of Larrivière had it erected near the site where it was found. The broken upper part of the monolith was put back on.
On the south side it has flat primitive engravings at a distance of 0.50 m from the top, which have been preserved on the smoothed surface. Robert Arambourou (1914–1989) sees it as depicting a deer and a chariot with a wheel, axle and drawbar. It is unclear whether the engravings were made when the stone block was originally erected or at a later date at the beginning of the Bronze Age . For Alain Beyneix (* 1972) the long-horned four-legged friend could be a cattle reminiscent of Iberian examples. The schematic motifs remind him of patterns that are otherwise common in the Mercantour National Park in the Vallée des Merveilles on Mont Bégo and could represent cultivated fields.
It has been classified as a monument historique since 1978 as the only menhir in the department .
literature
- Beyneix Alain: Indices d'un art mégalithique en Aquitaine. In: Bulletin de la Société préhistorique française , Volume 104, No. 3, 2007. pp. 517-524. doi: 10.3406 / e.g. 2007.13589
- Jean-Claude Merlet: Le mégalithisme dans les Landes . In: Bulletin de la Société de Borda , 2009, No. 4, pp. 311–334. ( online )
Web links
- Pierre mégalithique dite de Guillay in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
Coordinates: 43 ° 43 ′ 41.8 " N , 0 ° 24 ′ 19.1" W.