Locmariaquer

When we were in Brittany (what feels like years ago now) the stone alignments of Carnac were our first priority - a novelty that you get blasé about pretty quickly because there are so many of them.

Once we had been to Gavrinis we needed to go to Locmariaquer. One of the large stones in the ceiling of Cairn of Gavrinis was once part of a huge carved dolmen at Locmariaquer, and there were other attractions - it was raining, and the idea of spending time out of the rain was appealing.

The first thing you see is the Er Grah tumulus, a long mound of stone covering multiple burial chambers. And by long, I mean 140 metres long and about 15 metres wide. Many of the stones used in its construction have been used elsewhere, but it's still an amazing piece of work. There has been considerable restoration done on the tumulus since it was used as a car park in the 1970s. It's really difficult to get an idea of how big it is, so here's an aerial view.

The Table des Marchands is a cairn that has a large capstone supported by upright stones. This has a couple of carved stones inside a la Gavrinis, including some on the ceiling. Like Gavrinis, it's a dry stone construction over a long chamber.

The third amazing thing is the Grand Menhir Brisé, a large broken standing stone. The stone was originally 20.60 metres tall and weighed about 330 tons. It stood upright, but now lies in several pieces, and quite a large chunk (according to our guide at Gavrinis) found its way there. There were once nineteen menhirs in an alignment, all of them apparently worked and smoothened.

Remember: all the rock you see, plus another piece, were all part of one standing stone.

These structures are believed to have been erected during the Neolithic period, around 4500 to 3300 BCE. The purpose of the megaliths is not definitively known, but as usual they are thought to have had ceremonial or religious significance.

One thing that struck me was continuity of purpose. At the foot of the monuments is the town cemetery.