The Modern Antiquarian. Stone Circles, Ancient Sites, Neolithic Monuments, Ancient Monuments, Prehistoric Sites, Megalithic MysteriesThe Modern Antiquarian

 

Petit Dolmen de Ferrussac

Passage Grave

<b>Petit Dolmen de Ferrussac</b>Posted by MothImage © Tim Clark
Latitude:43° 47' 20.36" N
Longitude:   3° 28' 54.82" E

Added by Moth

Show  |  Hide
Web searches for Petit Dolmen de Ferrussac
Show map   (inline Google Map)

Images (click to view fullsize)

Add an image Add an image
<b>Petit Dolmen de Ferrussac</b>Posted by Moth <b>Petit Dolmen de Ferrussac</b>Posted by Moth <b>Petit Dolmen de Ferrussac</b>Posted by Moth <b>Petit Dolmen de Ferrussac</b>Posted by Moth <b>Petit Dolmen de Ferrussac</b>Posted by Moth <b>Petit Dolmen de Ferrussac</b>Posted by Moth

Fieldnotes

Add fieldnotes Add fieldnotes
About 300ms away from Le grand dolmen de Ferrusac, again just off the D130 road, is the Petit dolmen de Ferrusac. As the name suggests it's much smaller and not a double decker like its large sibling, but it still has a detectable passageway in front and plenty of rubble- and tell-tale black lying around.

This one is very sweet and so tiny!

Around Ferrusac there are other monuments including four good menhirs, made of white limestone.
Jane Posted by Jane
23rd September 2007ce
Edited 23rd September 2007ce

Access: Just visible through trees from the D130. For this one and many others very near by, leave the A75 at junction 52 and take the D25 through St Etienne-de-Gourgas and St Pierre-de-la-Fage. From St Pierre, continue for around 1.5km, taking a right fork south, to La Vacquerie(-et-St-Martin-de-Castries) on the D9.

Pass through the village and carry on for a short distance to the D130 left (east). Take this for around 2km, probably a bit less, keeping you eye out for a glimpse of a dolmen in the trees to the left (north) of the road. You may also spot a ruined tumulus. (We didn't, but I forgot to look for it.)

Visited Wednesday 5 September
Wow, what a dinky dolmen! I'd assumed it was just called that to distinguish it from the Grand Dolmen!

Standing in the remnants of its mound, this is a more 'standard-looking' structure than the Grand Dolmen just up the road. It appeared to us to have traces of a passage.

Actually, we would probably have missed it if not for an elderly French couple we met when we overshot to the Grand Dolmen, who managed clarify Bruno Marc's directions in Dolmens et Menhirs en Languedoc et Roussillon, despite our pidgin French and them not speaking any English....

And inside the tiny dolmen was an even tinier 'model' dolmen. We saw loads of these in the south of France, near real ones. Must be a local megalith-spotter hobby. I've only ever seen a couple in this country (& a tiny model stone circle on the path to a stone circle in County Cork).

In the area there is also a huge necropolis (at La Roque aka Laroque) and there are a couple of other more ruined dolmens very near St Pierre-de-la-Fage. The St Pierre dolmens are covered in the Bruno Marc book mentioned above. The necropolis is covered in his snappily titled Statues-Menhirs et Dolmens des Sausses et du Haut Languedoc. We didn't have time for everything and chose to target what seemed the more striking places.
Moth Posted by Moth
21st September 2007ce
Edited 11th November 2009ce