At Home in Brittany: History in Stone

What I find so remarkable is that the history we spend so much time looking for and digging for in the UK is so readily on view here in Brittany. Scratch the surface of any field et voila your almost guaranteed to find evidence of a bygone time in the shape of a roof tile, a piece of pottery or even Roman tesserai.

My dog and my husband often while away the time studying various corners of fields, their patience is sometimes rewarded. My dog is very successful at spotting old bones (mainly deposited circa two days ago by the farmer’s dog) but more often than not it is my husband who returns with a find!

These bits and bobs abandoned by communities living on this soil centuries ago are a handy nudge; because we can become too immersed in the ‘here and now’ and fail to reflect on how we got here. But for a really loud wake-up call there is a place that positively shouts at you from 5000 years BC!

Ten kilometres from Morlaix at the top of a headland overlooking the sea rises the Barnenez mausoleum; the oldest ancient monument built by man on the Armorican peninsula. This funeral complex is 87 meters long by 20 meters wide and no less than 8 meters in height. The exterior is built of dry stone and constructed in two phases, the second being established two or three hundred years after the first.

No literary description can do justice to such a mysterious and titanic work and the interior is no less impressive. There are corridors lined with dolmen, vaulted ceilings supported by corbels and a floor garnished with stones which leads to a rectangular inner chamber. The purpose of this room is not clear but the general hypothesis suggested by archaeologists is that it would have served as a sanctuary; a place where funerary rites would have been performed on the deceased before being placed in the other dolmen serving as their graves.

The intrigue does not stop at the inner sanctum and following the nose of our dog leads us to notice certain stones are engraved. Amongst many there is one displayed on a flat stone slab, a rectangular shape of the female form purportedly to be the goddess who looked after the dead. Following our intrepid four footed friend who seems to be on the trail of an historic scent, we spot the curious sign of the ‘U’ whereupon the link is made to other megalithic monuments; suggesting perhaps a pre-Christian conspiracy!

It is difficult to comprehend the vast gulf in time that stretches between the 21^st century and 5000-BC, but it might not be here today if some entrepreneurs in 1954 had had their way. Barnenez was provided as a source of stones to be used in the construction of roads and only the pugnacious-ness of archaeologists stopped the complete destruction of this piece of history. Unfortunately some serious damage was done before the archaeologist’s complaints were heard and it was many years before the cairn of Barnenez was fully restored.

So alone or with a four-footed companion, remember as you approach this mysterious structure of stones to spare a thought to the builders. The meaning of their exploit is lost in time but the gravity of this structure and the man-power that must have been employed, refuses to be ignored.