Spaceship mark

Kerlud dolmen is all that remains of a once great Carnac-Mound. Burl believes that the dolmen itself was probably a later insertion.

The mound, once comparable to Mane Lud or Mane Er Hroek, was dismantled and used to build the hamlet that also bears the name Kerlud.

In the heart of Carnac-Plage it is uncertain if this is truly a prehistoric monument. Burl does not include it in 'Megalithic Brittany'. However it is included in Gabriel Le Cam's monumental 'Le Guide de Megalithes de Morbihan', he calls them:

"A dolmen and menhir that are certainly not in their original location"

Although the dolmen is super-sterotypical but not, on closer inspection, much like anything else around here, the stones themselves have an air of 'ancientness' and do not have the quarry marks and boreholes of many recently erected megaliths.

It could just be that these stones once formed an ancient monument, although whether this was their form is open to debate...

So a day traipsing around non-descript menhirs and ruined dolmens can have its rewards after all. And this is my reward. This magnificent dual-sex idol stone, massive and alone, in an unsignposted field.

Around 4m high the SW face is a perect goddess figure yet the NW is the slanting priapic phallus of all time. There is some evidence that the stones was shaped and even if not tis a well selected and beautiful stone.

These little (or massive actually) surprises are the reward for all our hard work. REAL DISCOVERIES!

Well the map said this was destroyed and indeed it is. Quite a bugger to find too with my two incompatibly scaled maps. In many ways though it's still worth a visit.

Set on slightly higher ground and hence, this being the Norfolk of France, commanding views of all around. The dolmen is now a low mound around 11m long by 5m wide. A number of large stones lie upon and within this mound including at least one former capstone. The others may be the collapsed walls; although for all I can tell there may still be a chamber within.

I am realizing that this area may not be the megalithic metropolis it appears at first glance on a map but these small, sadly ruined, sites have a personal air lacking at some more impressive sites. And it feels more like real antiquarianism hunting them out too!

The mound is orientated around 340°-160°.

Worthy of a visit for its name alone this 2m cream granite pillar is nestled at the end of a short alley off a busy dual carriageway. In many ways it is nothing special in a pointy kind of way but I am visiting everything so…

At last a site I can access and rather pleasant it is too. This two and a half metre menhir sits in short grass at the edge of a field. Wide and tall but thin across in a playing card kind of way and the stone is of creamy white quartz rich granite.

One can see on the south face how the menhir was split from the bedrock along a quartz vein as a layer of smooth quartz covers the surface.

I think that I'll start calling these 'Barbamama' stones after the blobby cartoon wife of Babapapa. Cos that's what they look like really.

The land around is very flat, although we are near a water tower, and to the north is the vast sprawl of the port of St.Nazaire.

The long axis of the stone is orientated 220°-040°.

AAAGGHH! More private property! And a lovely tapering lozenge menhir this is too. Maybe 3m+ but I can't get to it at all. How frustrating this is becoming.

The 'Bounding Stone' (I believe) is also private AND in the middle of a flooded water meadow! Ho hum…well these sites are not even marked on the 1:100,000 scale map so maybe the better known sites will be easier. The menhir appears to be a largish lozenge of about 2m but unfortunately I can say no more…

Another chunky menhir guarded by, not just a fence, but cows too! Could be on a mound or it could just be the pricklys that the cows don't want to eat. NEXT!

There are in fact two menhirs here. The first small, from which a signpost rises, and the second larger but fallen, to the west.

This is curious megalith country, very flat and in close proximity to the Loire River. Indeed I've just seen the vast bulk of the Queen Mary 2 in St.Nazaire ship works, where it is being built.

Why such a seemingly insignificant pair of menhirs warrant signposting from the main road I'm not sure, but if I must be the modern antiquarian then completion rules.

Dolmen des Rossignols

'It's a suburban dolmen!'

At last something unique and interesting. The dolmen sits below ground level in a large crater in an empty plot amongst an estate of bungalows. I t would seem likely that the dolmen was discovered whilst the foundations for another such bungalow were being dug. If this were true it would explain the row of holes connected by a crack along the top of the capstone. It would appear that an attempt was made to split the capstone before (hopefully before) its significance was realized.

And what a capstone! A good 3m by 4m and about 70cm thick at the edges this is a monster and the only capstone surviving, is ever there were more. It is actually difficult to ascertain where the original entrance was as it was either blocked off in prehistory or some of the uprights were placed wrongly during restoration. Nonetheless this is a very important and impressive dolmen.

The chamber inside is now very low but this could be due to the infill of sandy soil more than anything else, and the capstone appears to be supported by a combination of corbelling and orthostats.

Also, whilst here, I finally managed a break a rule by eating my lunch while blissfully unaware of the 'no picnics' sign, hurray!

The rocks appear to be a mixture of schist and granite and one wonders how far they were dragged to this sandy spot…