Basement in Brittany
There are around 200 basements in Brittany , which are primarily concentrated in the three western departments of Brittany , Côtes-d'Armor , Finistère and Morbihan . There are B. also in the département Ille-et-Vilaine ( Souterrain de la Ville es Peniaux in Cancale ) and in the Département Indre-et-Loire ( Souterrains of Antogny-le-Tillac ) in France .
The basement ( French souterrains-refuges - but also for earth stables in use) were, with a few early exceptions, in the final phase of the Hallstatt period , and in the La Tène period, ie between 600 and 100 BC. BC (due to ceramic as well as radiocarbon dating ). In British basements, a distinction is made between “rock-cut”, “earth-cut”, “stone built” and “mixed” basements. Recent discoveries have shown that wooden buildings ( French caves boisées ) of a similar appearance - are attested in Brittany. Most French basements are rock-cut . They form a series of chambers connected by narrow passages (slips). The most common number of chambers is six.
Slip
The bottleneck is called Katzenloch - ( French chatiere ). The inner space of the five-chamber basement of Lamphily in Finistère was connected to a room on the side by a hatch. The hatch is round in profile, with a maximum diameter of 0.4 m. Interestingly, the base of all slips in this basement was above the floor level of the chambers. If the difficulty of access was the only motivation, the builders could just as easily have lowered the ceiling level in the slip area. However, the ground level of the Litiez slip in Finistère was even lowered in relation to the two chambers. Similar barriers were discovered in Kermoysan in Finistère.
Accesses
The access to the basement can be in the form of a vertical shaft (in the basement of Kerveo in Finistère) or a ramp (in basement 2 of Rocher-Martin, Côtes-d'Armor). The shaft is the more common type. The shaft of the basement of Malabry, Côtes-d'Armor, had eight indentations 15 cm in diameter in its wall. Four of these were arranged in two staggered rows and therefore classified as steps. A basement with 11 chambers was registered in La Motte in Finistère. The average length of its chambers was only 1.2 m, the height rarely exceeded one meter. The basement had at least three entrances and a protruding dry stone bastion, which presumably acted as a barrier. A parallel was found in the basement of Keravel in Finistère, where a vertical rock slab stood at the junction of chambers II and IV. The plate was not connected to the wall of the basement, but stood 0.25–0.3 m in front of it. Archaeologists believe that three loose blocks near the column originally had the function of closing the gap. Since there was a step (upwards) in the floor of the basement at the connection point, this would support the interpretation of the column as part of a regulation. The Kerglanchard basement in Finistère contained four chambers. The slippage between chambers I and II as well as between II and III were restricted by the installation of dry stones. The better preserved example (chambers II and III) consisted of two stone blocks opposite one another. The entrance to Chamber III was only 0.4 m wide and 0.45 m high. The basement of La Motte contained a simple step that connected two chambers. More than one step was registered in the basement of Kermoysan in Finistère at the slip to room 11.
A basement of Kermeno in Morbihan is said to have had a pavement in one of the chambers (W2); however, it has not been proven that this is part of the primary equipment. Souterrains were certainly reused later and additional equipment must be treated with care. A short section of dry stone masonry was registered in basement 2 of Rocher-Martin, Côtes-d'Armor. It was very similar to the manholes in Ireland. One of the chambers was covered with a large floor tile. Another dry stone wall could have been in the Keravel basement in Finistère.
Most of the evidence of manhole access in the basement of Brittany came from Quinrouet and La Clôture, Côtes-d'Armor. In both basement two chambers connected by the usual hatches had entrances. In Quinrouet, the northeast corner of the western area showed a dry stone area. In the east area the dry stone area was in the northwest corner. In both areas the openings of the shafts were to the surface; similar to La Clôture, where short dry stone areas in two adjoining chambers give clear indications of access.
particularities
A wall niche was registered in the inner chamber of Lamphily in Finistère and interpreted as a storage space. The main chamber of the basement of Maner-Soul in Finistère had four irregularly shaped niches halfway up the wall.
Benches on the wall have also been found in Breton basements, for example in the basement of Keravel in Finistère, in room III. This basement also contained two additional platforms. They were located on the southwest corner of Chamber II, near the slip to Chamber I.
The entrances to several basements were closed on the outside by horizontal plates in Brittany. Examples are the plants in Cléguèrec, Lanouèe and Malestroit, all three in the Morbihan.
Room IV, the innermost room in the basement of Le Paou on the Côtes-d'Armor, contained an air opening that extended at an oblique angle from the roof of the chamber to the surface. It is 0.4 m in diameter and 2.5 m long.
function
There is no definitive theory of function, the most common being used as a shelter. The basement occurs mainly on residential areas. For many years the emphasis in the investigation of basement in Brittany has been on finding rather than interpreting their properties.
It should also be noted that the 1000 (plus x) basements in the other areas of France, although cut into the rock, are of medieval (12th / 13th century) origin and more likely to be classified as earth stables .
See also
literature
- Jean-Pierre Ducouret, Pierre-Roland Giot: Le souterrain de l'âge du fer de Kervéo-en-Plomelin (Finistère). In: Annales de Bretagne. Vol. 75, No. 1, 1968, pp. 101-116 .
- Pierre-Roland Giot: Les souterrains armoricains de l'âge du Fer. In: Annales de Bretagne. Vol. 76, No. 1, 1960, pp. 45-65 .
- Pierre-Roland Giot: The impact of radiocarbon dating on the establishment of the prehistoric chronology of Brittany. In: Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society. Vol. 37, No. 2, 1971, pp. 208-217, doi : 10.1017 / S0079497X00012639 .
- Yannick Lecerf, Pierre-Roland Giot: Fouille d'un souterrain de l'âge du fer près de Lamphily en Concarneau (Finistère). In: Annales de Bretagne. Vol. 78, No. 1, 1971, pp. 125-137 .
Web links
- Basement de la Ville es Peniaux in Cancale Ille-et-Vilaine French.
- Basement in the Vendee franz.
- Amorican basement french.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Giot 1971, p. 213; Giot 1973, p. 57
- ^ Giot 1973, p. 51
- ↑ Giot 1990, p. 55
- ↑ Giot and Lecerf 1971a, p. 125
- ↑ Giot and Lecerf 1971b, p. 149
- ↑ Le Roux and Lecerf 1971, p. 161
- ↑ Giot and Ducouret 1968, p 104
- ↑ Le Creurer and Giot 1970, p. 83
- ↑ Giot 1990, p. 55
- ↑ Giot et al. 1976, p. 45
- ↑ Le Roux and Lecerf 1973, p. 79
- ^ Giot and Le Roux 1971, p. 139
- ↑ Giot et al. 1976, p. 108
- ↑ Le Roux and Lecerf 1973, p. 83
- ↑ Le Roux and Lecerf 1971, p. 161
- ↑ Lecornec 1970, p. 57
- ↑ Le Creurer and Giot 1970, p. 73
- ^ Giot and Le Roux 1971, p. 139
- ↑ Giot et al. 1976, p. 39, p. 42
- ↑ Giot and Lecerf 1971a, p. 125
- ↑ Giot et al. 1976, p. 63
- ↑ Giot 1990, p. 55
- ^ Giot and Le Roux 1971, p. 139
- ↑ Giot 1960, pp. 54/55
- ↑ Giot et al. 1976, p. 20
- ↑ Giot 1973, p. 53
- ↑ Giot 1990, p. 55
- ↑ Piboule 1978; Lorenz 1973, p. 32