Tumulus du Moulin de la Motte
The Tumulus du Moulin de la Motte in Pornic in the Loire-Atlantique department in France was originally a hill 126 m in diameter with 6 or 7 galleries . It is part of the even larger hill “La Noëveillard”, which probably also contained the tumulus of Mousseaux .
It was first excavated in 1840 by F. Verger. Around 1873 the baron Olivier de Wismes (1814-1887) excavated the southwestern part and finally in 1892 the "Pitre de Lisle du Dréneuc" (1846-1924) dug. Today three dolmens are still visible:
- Dolmen de la Croix - ( German cross dolmen )
- Dolmen des Trois Squelettes - ( German dolmen of the three skeletons )
- Dolmen Devant le Moulin - ( German Dolmen in front of the mill )
In France, dolmen is the generic term for megalithic structures of all kinds (see: French nomenclature ). The systems that have been abandoned or have hardly been investigated are called: Caveau Près le chêne, Caveau Près le puits and Caveau non fouillé. A seventh complex is only mentioned by Wismes under “Restes de Monuments”.
Dolmen de la Croix
The Dolmen de la Croix is a dolmen with side chambers , of which only the passage and two side chambers have been preserved. The rest was destroyed in the 19th century. A destroyed ceiling plate of the end chamber is also preserved. The west-facing corridor is about 4.3 meters long and 1.1 meters wide. It consists of three different pairs of orthostats . The front two form the opening and are made of white quartz . The next two are made of iron stone (French: grès ferrugineux) and the last two are made of grayish sandstone . Behind the passage area, the dolmen widens to the right and left into two rectangular side chambers.
A column in the left side chamber has several rock carvings : axes, a double angle and indefinite symbols. These are the only rock carvings in a dolmen with side chambers. The finds made by Wismes include a black and two very light-colored flint knives, as well as a number of tools in different types of flint, an egg-shaped plate made of iron stone with a hole for hanging, and many pottery shards.
Dolmen des Trois Squelettes
Pitre de Lisle du Dréneuc drew a comparison with a bottle for the chamber shape of the more than 4.0 m long dolmen. The chamber, open to the southeast, is formed by two quartz blocks and a third lintel . Four plates form the approximately 2.2 m long 1.15 m wide corridor that leads to the almost rectangular chamber. The excavator found the skeletons of a tall man, a short man or a woman and a child aged four to six. The three skeletons were arranged side by side at the bottom of the chamber, perpendicular to the central axis. Containers were arranged near the skulls.
Dolmen Devant le Moulin
According to Wismes and Pitre de Lisle du Dréneuc's reports, the dolmen in front of the mill is similar in shape and size to the Dolmen des Trois Squelettes. The ceiling rests on large stones. The interior height is 1.3 m.
Wismes discovered a large jagged vase there, which was decorated with a double row of small oval holes.
Caveau près le chêne
Pitre de Lisle du Dréneuc describes the north-east oriented dolmen as an egg-shaped chamber made of slender bearing stones with a 1.1 m long corridor. Wismes described its low form, which made it difficult to search. He found egg-shaped pottery, a small cup, an ax made of greenish diorite, and the fragment of a light-colored flint knife.
literature
- Pitre de Lisle du Dréneuc: Dictionnaire archéologique de la Loire-Inférieure (époques celtique, gauloise et gallo-romaine), Nantes, V. Forest and E. Grimaud, 1882, p. 313 pp.
- Baron de Wismes: Le tumulus des Trois Squelettes à Pornic (Loire-Inférieure) In: Bulletin de la Société archéologique de Nantes et du département de la Loire-inférieure, 1876, pp. 199-271
- J. L'Helgouach & H. Poulain: Le cairn des Mousseaux à Pornic et les tombes mégalithiques transeptées de l'estuaire de la Loire . Association pour la diffusion des recherches archéologiques dans l'Ouest de la France, Rennes 1984
Web links
Coordinates: 47 ° 6 ′ 56 " N , 2 ° 6 ′ 47" W.