The Cairn of Barnenez (also: Barnenez Tumulus, Barnenez Mound; in

Breton Breton most often refers to: *anything associated with Brittany, and generally **Breton people **Breton language, a Southwestern Brittonic Celtic language of the Indo-European language family, spoken in Brittany ** Breton (horse), a breed **Gale ...

''Karn Barnenez''; in

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

: ''Cairn de Barnenez'' or ''Tumulus de Barnenez'') is a

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

monument located near

Plouezoc'h Plouezoc'h ( or ; , before 2002: ''Plouézoch'')Décret du 10 ...

, on the Kernéléhen peninsula in northern

Finistère Finistère (, ; ) is a Departments of France, department of France in the extreme west of Brittany. Its prefecture is Quimper and its largest city is Brest, France, Brest. In 2019, it had a population of 915,090.Brittany Brittany ( ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the north-west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica in Roman Gaul. It became an Kingdom of Brittany, independent kingdom and then a Duch ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. It dates to the early

, around 4000 BC. Along with the

Tumulus of Bougon The Tumulus of Bougon or Necropolis of Bougon (French: "Tumulus de Bougon", "Nécropole de Bougon") is a group of five Neolithic barrows located in Bougon, near La-Mothe-Saint-Héray, between Exoudun and Pamproux in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Fra ...

and

Locmariaquer megaliths The Locmariaquer megaliths are a complex of Neolithic constructions in Locmariaquer, Brittany. They comprise the elaborate Er-Grah tumulus passage grave, a dolmen known as the ''Table des Marchand'' and "The Broken Menhir of Er Grah", the larges ...

, also located in Great West France, it is one of the earliest

megalithic monuments A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. More than 35,000 megalithic structures have been identified across Europe, ranging geographically f ...

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

and one of the oldest man-made structures in the world. It is also remarkable for the presence of

megalithic art Megalithic art refers to art either painted or carved onto megaliths in prehistoric Europe and found on the structural elements, like the kerbstones, orthostats, or capstones of megalithic tombs, but recent investigations have included decorati ...

History

Dates

Radiocarbon Carbon-14, C-14, C or radiocarbon, is a radioactive isotope of carbon with an atomic nucleus containing 6 protons and 8 neutrons. Its presence in organic matter is the basis of the radiocarbon dating method pioneered by Willard Libby and coll ...

dates indicate that the first phase of the monument was erected between 4850 and 4250 BC, and the second phase between 4450 and 4000 BC.

Secondary use

Pottery found in and around the monument indicates that it underwent a period of reuse in the

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

, in the 3rd millennium BC.

Recognition as an ancient monument

The cairn was first mapped in 1807, in the context of the

Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...

cadaster A cadastre or cadaster ( ) is a comprehensive recording of the real estate or real property's metes-and-bounds of a country.Jo Henssen, ''Basic Principles of the Main Cadastral Systems in the World,'/ref> Often it is represented graphically in ...

. Its first scientific recognition took place in the context of an academic congress in Morlaix in 1850, when it was classified as a

tumulus A tumulus (: tumuli) is a mound of Soil, earth and Rock (geology), stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, mounds, howes, or in Siberia and Central Asia as ''kurgans'', and may be found through ...

Quarry damage

Privately owned until the 1950s, the cairn was used as a

quarry A quarry is a type of open-pit mining, open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock (geology), rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some juri ...

for paving stones. This activity, which threatened to destroy the monument, was only halted after the discovery of several of its chambers in the 1950s. The local community then took control of the site.

Restoration and excavation

The cairn was restored between 1954 and 1968. At the same time, vegetation was removed from the mound and systematic

excavation Excavation may refer to: * Archaeological excavation * Excavation (medicine) * ''Excavation'' (The Haxan Cloak album), 2013 * ''Excavation'' (Ben Monder album), 2000 * ''Excavation'' (novel), a 2000 novel by James Rollins * '' Excavation: A Mem ...

took place in and around the monument.

The monument

The mound

Today, the Barnenez cairn is 72 m long, up to 25 m wide, and over 8 m high. It is built of 13,000 to 14,000 tons of stone. It contains 11 chambers entered by separate passages. The mound has steep facades and a

stepped profile A stepped profile describes the edge of something that has a series of defined steps. It has applications in architecture, construction, Profile (engineering), engineering, and geology. Applications Architecture and construction In building design ...

. Several internal walls either represent earlier facades or served the stability of the structure. The cairn consists of relatively small blocks of stone, with only the chambers being truly megalithic in character. The monument overlooks the Bay of

Morlaix Morlaix (; , ) is a commune in the Finistère department of Brittany in northwestern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department. History The Battle of Morlaix, part of the Hundred Years' War, was fought near the town on 30 Septembe ...

, probably a fertile coastal plain at the time of its erection. Barnenez plan

Construction phases

The monument is the result of at least two phases of building.

Cairn 1, before 4500 BC

In a first phase, a slightly trapezoidal mound of 32 m by 9 to 13 m was erected. It contained 5 chambers and was surrounded by a double kerb. The first phase favoured the use of

dolerite Diabase (), also called dolerite () or microgabbro, is a mafic, holocrystalline, subvolcanic rock equivalent to volcanic basalt or plutonic gabbro. Diabase dikes and sills are typically shallow intrusive bodies and often exhibit fine-grain ...

Cairn 2, c. 4200 – c. 4000 BC

In a second phase, an extension with six further chambers was added in the west. At the same time, Cairn 1 was enveloped in a wider and taller structure; its passages had to be extended. More

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

was used in this phase.

The chambers

The 11 chambers of the Barnenez cairn are of the type known as ''

Dolmen A dolmen, () or portal tomb, is a type of single-chamber Megalith#Tombs, megalithic tomb, usually consisting of two or more upright megaliths supporting a large flat horizontal capstone or "table". Most date from the Late Neolithic period (4000 ...

à couloir'' in French archaeological terminology. The term translates roughly as "

passage grave A passage grave or passage tomb consists of one or more burial chambers covered in earth or stone and having a narrow access passage made of large stones. These structures usually date from the Neolithic Age and are found largely in Western Europ ...

". They are built of large slabs of

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

and

. Originally, all the chambers were entirely enclosed by the mound. The fact that several of them are partially exposed now is the result of modern quarrying. Each of the 11 chambers is reached from the southeast via a long narrow passage (7–12 m long). They are arranged parallel to each other. Shapes and construction techniques differ slightly. In nine cases, narrow passages lead to

corbelled In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal keyed into and projecting from a wall to carry a bearing weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applie ...

chambers. Normally, the corbel vault rests on orthostats, in one chamber it actually sits on the ground, forming a true '' tholos''. The passages have slab-built or

dry stone wall Dry stone, sometimes called drystack or, in Scotland, drystane, is a building method by which structures are constructed from stones without any mortar to bind them together. A certain amount of binding is obtained through the use of carefully ...

s and are covered with slabs. One of the chambers has a dry-stone vaulted ante-chamber. Barnenez symbols

Logistics

One cubic metre of the Barnenez cairn contains 1,500 kg of stone. It is estimated that the quarrying, fashioning, transport and construction of such an amount represents about four work days for a single worker (assuming a 10-hour day). The original monument, Cairn 1, had a volume of about 2,000 cubic metres; it is built of 1,000 tons of granite and 3,000 tons of dolerite. It would thus have required 15,000 to 20,000 working days; in other words, it would have taken 200 workers three months to erect Cairn 1 alone. In its final form, the Barnenez mound is nearly three times as big as the first phase. Deesse de Barnenez

Engraved symbols

Engraved symbols occur in several of the chambers and passages. They depict bows, axes, wave symbols or snakes and a repeated U-shaped sign. One of the carved slabs is in secondary use; it was originally part of a different structure, an interesting parallel to the situation in several other such monuments, including

Gavrinis Gavrinis () is a small island in the Gulf of Morbihan in Brittany, France. It contains the Gavrinis tomb, a Neolithic passage tomb built around 4200–4000 BC, making it one of the world's oldest surviving buildings. Stones inside the passage a ...

. The symbols on the engraved blocks resemble those found in other megalithic monuments in Brittany; in broader terms they belong to the cultural phenomenon described as

. One of the recurring symbols is sometimes interpreted as an

anthropomorphic Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. It is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology. Personification is the related attribution of human form and characteristics to ...

depiction (the so-called "Dolmen Goddess").

Finds

Material from the original period of use

Only Cairn 2, namely chambers A, C and D, contained

finds at the time of excavation. They included pottery, polished stone axes (of

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Historically, flint was widely used to make stone tools and start ...

blades and arrowheads.

Bronze Age pottery

Pottery shards found outside the monument indicate that it was reused in the

(3rd millennium BC). A copper dagger and a barbed arrowhead are of

Chalcolithic The Chalcolithic ( ) (also called the Copper Age and Eneolithic) was an archaeological period characterized by the increasing use of smelted copper. It followed the Neolithic and preceded the Bronze Age. It occurred at different periods in di ...

date.

Comparable monuments

Similar, possibly contemporary, monuments are known at 22 other locations in France and on

Jersey Jersey ( ; ), officially the Bailiwick of Jersey, is an autonomous and self-governing island territory of the British Islands. Although as a British Crown Dependency it is not a sovereign state, it has its own distinguishing civil and gov ...

. Breton examples are Larcuste-Colpo, Le Bono, Petit Mont, Ty-Floc´h,

, Île Carn, Ploudalmézeau and Guennoc (I´ile Gaignoc – sometimes spelt Guénioc) off the shore at Landéda. Those located on islands are generally better preserved. Chamber 3 B at Guennoc contains a small

standing stone A menhir (; from Brittonic languages: ''maen'' or ''men'', "stone" and ''hir'' or ''hîr'', "long"), standing stone, orthostat, or lith is a large upright rock (geology), stone, emplaced in the ground by humans, typically dating from the Eur ...

near the entrance.

Exhibition

An exhibition in the modern entrance building explains the results of scientific excavation and displays some objects from the site.

References

External links

*
French site with many imagesInformation on "The Megalithic Portal"
{{Authority control Buildings and structures completed in the 5th millennium BC 1807 archaeological discoveries Neolithic sites of Europe Archaeological sites in Brittany Megalithic monuments in Brittany Stone Age Europe Prehistoric art Buildings and structures in Finistère Tourist attractions in Finistère Monuments historiques of Finistère Tumuli in France Monuments of the Centre des monuments nationaux Cairns (stone mounds)