Overview
About this site
Overview
The Pierre Longue, also called the menhir de Landerosse, is a menhir at Noyal-sous-Bazouges in the department of Ille-et-Vilaine, Brittany, France. It is dated by typological estimate to between 2800 and 1800 BCE and has been classified as a historical monument since 1889.
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Where it sits in time
The site's dated range, placed against world reference points.
The scale is logarithmic: each step to the left is about ten times older than the last.
Article
Pierre Longue
DescriptionSources for this section
Sources for this section
The menhir has the form of a four-sided pyramid whose faces measure 1.60 m, 0.80 m, 1.80 m and 1.70 m at the base. It is 5.10 m high and leans slightly towards the south. The stone has been Christianised.
According to one legend, the devil was carrying a gigantic stone under each arm and lost the first here and the second at Dol, where it became the menhir of Champ-Dolent.
FolkloreSources for this section
Sources for this section
According to one legend, the devil was carrying a gigantic stone under each arm and lost the first here and the second at Dol, where it became the menhir of Champ-Dolent. According to another tradition, the menhir was erected at the end of a battle.
ContextSources for this section
Sources for this section
Menhirs are most numerous in Western Europe, with about 1,200 in north-western France alone, and Brittany stands out for both the density of monuments and the variety of types.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Breton and French menhirs
A menhir is a large upright stone placed by humans. The word comes from the Breton maen and hir, "long stone", and entered archaeology through French antiquarians in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; in modern Breton the word for such a stone is peulvan. Menhirs are most numerous in Western Europe, with about 1,200 in north-western France alone, and Brittany stands out for both the density of monuments and the variety of types.
The largest known menhir is the Grand Menhir Brisé at Locmariaquer. It once stood nearly 20.6 metres high, and now lies fractured in four pieces; whole, it would have weighed some 330 tonnes. Stones in the Carnac area were hewn from local granite by the pre-Celtic people of Brittany. At Carnac more than 3,000 prehistoric standing stones form the largest such collection in the world, arranged in groups of alignments that stretch for four kilometres. The stones were erected at some point in the Neolithic, probably around 3300 BCE, with some perhaps as early as 4500 BCE. Elsewhere, the Cham des Bondons in the Cévennes is the second largest concentration in France, and a menhir 4.5 metres tall stands against Le Mans Cathedral, moved there in 1778 when its dolmen was destroyed.
Dating a menhir is difficult, because standing stones are usually hard to date and were put up in many different periods.
Folklore: a Christian legend held that the stones of Carnac were pagan soldiers who had pursued Pope Cornelius and were turned to stone by him. Modern beliefs link the stones with Roman and Christian occupation, even though they date from 4500 to 3300 BCE.
When visiting, look at how the stones taper towards the top and at how the alignments run across the slope.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Menhir, Wikipedia: Carnac stones, Wikipedia: Locmariaquer megaliths, Wikipedia: List of menhirs · CC BY-SA 4.0
From the article
Dated moments in the story
- 1883
Caillière, 1883, 360 p. (lire en ligne), p.
Source - 1889
L'édifice est classé au titre des monuments historiques en 1889.
Source - 2004
85-86. Jacques Briard, Loïc Langouët et Yvan Onnée, Les mégalithes du département d'Ille-et-Vilaine, Rennes, Institut culturel de Bretagne et Centre régional d'archéologie d'Alet, coll. « Patrimoine archéologique de Bretagne », 2004, 122 p.
Source
See it in 3D
An interpretive reconstruction of the monument, standing on the real ground at its exact point, under the sun for that place and season. Drag to look around it.
The reconstruction is ours, not a survey: it shows what a monument of this type looks like, at the size the record gives for this one.
Photographs
4 photographs, each with its author and licence
More photographs
Lore
Evidence & Lore
What the sources actually support — and, kept apart, what has been claimed.
What the evidence supports
Dates
Est. 2800–1800 BCEHow this date was established: Type comparisonTypical range for menhirs in France; this site has not been dated itself. Standing stones are associated with the Beaker people of the European late Neolithic and early Bronze Age c. 2800-1800 BC.Source for this date
Where it stands
France
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 48°25′39″ N, 1°36′17″ WFor a GPS or map app: 48.42739, -1.60483
Access is as our sources describe it; we have not visited the site to check.
Nearby
The closest sites in the Atlas, by straight line.
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_Hemicycle_m%C3%A9galithique_dit_Les_Tombes_01.JPG){kind=link}
_Menhir_dit_La_Roche_Longue_01.JPG){kind=link}
_La_Pierre_du_Domaine_01.JPG){kind=link}
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q22926987wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
- Noyal-sous-Bazouges (35) Menhir de Landes-Ros.JPGGO69CC BY-SA 3.0
- Noyal-bazouges pierre-longue 01.jpgLiberligerCC BY-SA 4.0
- Noyal-bazouges pierre-longue 02.jpgLiberligerCC BY-SA 4.0
- Bazouges-la-Pérouse menhir de la Pierre longue Mary-Rousselière.jpgE. Mary-RousselièrePublic domain
Report a correctionWrong date, name, photograph or source? Tell us and it will be put right.
Lore, kept apart
Legends and claims
These are stories and claims reported by the sources. They are not evidence, and they never stand in for the dating above.
- Tradition
Selon une légende, le diable portait une pierre gigantesque sous chaque bras, mais il perdit la première ici et la seconde à Dol (menhir de Champ-Dolent).
Selon une légende, le diable portait une pierre gigantesque sous chaque bras, mais il perdit la première ici et la seconde à Dol (menhir de Champ-Dolent). Selon une autre tradition, le menhir fut érigé à l'issue d'une bataille.
Source
Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
- Menhir de la Pierre-Longue4.9 km W
- allée couverte de Chevrot8.0 km W
- Menhir de la Roche au Diable11 km NE
- Roche Buquet14 km NE
- Menhir de Champ-Dolent16 km NW
- Champ des Tombes18 km N
- La Roche Longue18 km N
- La Pierre du Domaine18 km NW
- Alignement de menhirs de Bringuerault18 km SW
- Menhirs dans la forêt de Haute-Sève19 km SE
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Pierre Longue (Noyal-sous-Bazouges)" (French), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; authors are listed in the page history. Reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikipedia · Edit history and authors