Pierre-aux-Fées (Reignier)

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Pierre-aux-Fées

The Pierre-aux-Fées ( German  "Feenstein" ) by Reignier is a capstone resting on three bearing stones and is often referred to as a stone table. The megalithic complex is located twelve kilometers southeast of the Swiss city ​​of Geneva in the Haute-Savoie department in France . The place is located in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in the arrondissement of Saint-Julien-en-Genevois . The stones are on the road between the village of L'Eculaz and the hill of Saint-Ange.

description

The Reignier stones form a dolmen . In France, dolmen is the generic term for megalithic structures of all kinds (see: French nomenclature ). A huge capstone (4.9 × 4.3 m) made of granite lies at head height on three supporting stones. Using 3D laser grammetry , a volume of slightly more than 15 cubic meters was calculated for the capstone, which corresponds to a weight of almost 40 tons with an average density of the rock of 2650 kg / m³. The underside of the plate has been machined and flattened. It shows grooves that are 30 to 50 centimeters wide and trapezoidal. They have a maximum depth of five centimeters. However, the top edges of the bearing stones do not fit perfectly into the grooves of the stone slab. This could indicate that the capstone was already in use on an older monument and was later reused on this complex. It is therefore not easy to determine the age, but the construction of the facility is scheduled for the period between 3200 and 2800 BC. Adopted.

The bearing stones are approximately 2 meters wide and have a height between 1.6 meters (western bearing stone) and 1.85 meters (north and south bearing stone) and a thickness between 0.35 and 0.85 meters. Other stones of the monument are scattered and probably used to form an entrance. The construction is reminiscent of the dolmens that can be found in Switzerland in the cantons of Vaud and Neuchâtel .

About 15.0 km away is the Chambre aux Fées near Saint-Cergues , also a large dolmen. There are several megalithic complexes known as "fairy stones" in France. B. the Pierre-aux-Fées (Villers-Saint-Sépulcre) in the valley of the Oise or the Menhir on the Champ-de-la-Pierre near the village of Janzé in Brittany .

The Pierre-aux-Fées was classified as a Monument historique on June 10, 1910 and placed under monument protection.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Pierre-Jérôme Rey, Olivier Veissière, Christophe Guffond: Nouveaux regards sur la Pierre-aux-Fées de Reignier. Nature et Patrimoine en Pays de Savoie, 2018, pp. 2–7, ( PDF French).
  2. Dolmen dit La-Pierre-aux-Fées in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)

literature

  • Marc-Rodolphe Sauter, Jean-Christian Spahni: Révision des dolmens de la Haute-Savoie (France), Archives suisses d'anthropologie générale, Vol. 14, 1949, pp. 151-167
  • Michael Schmidt: The old stones - journey to the megalithic culture in Europe . Hinstorff Verlag, Rostock 1998. ISBN 3-356-00796-3

Web links

Commons : Pierre-aux-Fées de Reignier  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 46 ° 7 ′ 46.8 ″  N , 6 ° 17 ′ 30.1 ″  E