pierre du Crapeau

Pierre du Crapeau is a dolmen at Baugé, in the French département of Maine-et-Loire. It is a single-chamber megalithic tomb, a type of monument especially common in France, where about 4,500 dolmens are spread across 60 French departments.

The chamber is bounded by two sandstone blocks set at right angles. It is covered by a triangular capstone measuring 3 m in length. A fourth slab, now toppled, lies flat inside the chamber.

Pierre du Crapeau is dated by typological estimate to 4000 BCE to 3000 BCE. Most French dolmens belong to the Late Neolithic and date to about 4000 to 3000 BCE; many were originally covered with earth or smaller stones to form a mound, although the original covering at Pierre du Crapeau is not described.

Local folklore says that the dolmen was a hat turned into stone by fairies. It also tells that a hollow in the capstone is always filled with water, whatever the season, through the work of the devil. These details belong to the site's folklore rather than its archaeological description.

pierre du Crapeau is a dolmen in Baugé, France. A typological estimate: 4000 BCE to 3000 BCE. No English Wikipedia article exists for it; the full text below is the French article "Pierre du Crapeau", shown in the original language.