Rinaghju
Also known asCategory:Alignement de Rinaghju
Datedc. 4250 BCE
Photo Max Berger · CC BY-SA 4.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
What the sources say
The statue-menhir known as Rinaghju lies in Sartène, France. Other recorded names are Category:Alignement de Rinaghju. In open records it appears as Wikidata item Q917914, mapped at 41.5267° N, 8.9214° E.
Built from structured records, not from an articleSources and licences
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.
The full article
About Rinaghju
This kind of monument hereSources for this section
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
A statue menhir is a carved standing stone of the later European Neolithic, in which a vertical slab or pillar has a stylised human figure cut into it, sometimes with hints of clothing or weapons. They are most commonly found in southern and western France, Catalonia, Corsica, Sardinia, Italy and the Alps, and France has most of the Atlas's records. A group from the Iron Age is also known in Liguria and Lunigiana in Italy, and there are two on Guernsey. One of them, La Gran'mère du Chimquière, "the grandmother of the cemetery", stands in a churchyard. Further down this page, About this kind of monument gives the whole of “Statue menhirs of France”.
DatingSources for this section
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
Typological estimate, not a date for this site: monuments of this kind in this region are normally dated 4800 BCE to 2500 BCE. The range comes from what is known about statue-menhir monuments in France; nothing measured on this site itself is on record, so it may be younger or older than the range suggests.
The range rests on this regional background (source: the Wikipedia article “Megalith”): Statue menhirs were created during the later European Neolithic Period and the megalithic constructions of Brittany begin c. 4800 BC.
Published age claims for this site include 4250 BCE (wikipedia: rinaghju (infobox)). The mainstream range is 4250 BCE.
Landscape and neighbours
Counting outward from Rinaghju, there are 2 catalogued sites within 1 km, 3 within 5 km and 4 within 10 km, and 2 of them are also classed as statue-menhir. It is one of 3 statue-menhir records among the 5 sites catalogued in Sartène, France.
The nearest neighbours in the catalogue are Stantari (0.4 km north, statue-menhir); Fontanaccia dolmen (0.4 km north-west, dolmen); Apazzu (4.4 km north-west, statue-menhir); Menhir von Vaccil-Vecchiu (8.4 km north-west, menhir). The catalogue is assembled from open records and is not complete, so unrecorded monuments may lie closer.
Records and protectionSources for this section
Sources for this section
Wikidata lists the site with the heritage status classified historical monument. The open records for it are Wikidata (Q917914), where corrections and further identifiers can be added. Sites of this kind often lie on farmland or other private ground, so check local access rules before visiting and leave the monument as you found it.
How this page was madeSources for this section
Sources for this section
This page was built automatically from Wikidata (CC0), the heritage register named above and the regional article “Statue menhirs of France”, written for the Atlas from the Wikipedia articles it cites (CC BY-SA 4.0), plus distances and counts computed from the catalogue coordinates. It contains no AI-written text.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Statue menhirs of France
A statue menhir is a carved standing stone of the later European Neolithic, in which a vertical slab or pillar has a stylised human figure cut into it, sometimes with hints of clothing or weapons. They are most commonly found in southern and western France, Catalonia, Corsica, Sardinia, Italy and the Alps, and France has most of the Atlas's records. A group from the Iron Age is also known in Liguria and Lunigiana in Italy, and there are two on Guernsey. One of them, La Gran'mère du Chimquière, "the grandmother of the cemetery", stands in a churchyard.
A well-known site is on Corsica. Filitosa, in the south of the island, is a megalithic site occupied from the end of the Neolithic and the beginning of the Bronze Age until about Roman times. Arrowheads and pottery date the earliest habitation to 3300 BCE. Around 1500 BCE menhirs 2 to 3 metres high were erected there, carved with human faces, armour and weapons. About twenty menhirs of various periods have been counted. One interpretation, by Roger Grosjean, was that they were set up to ward off an invasion by a people he called the Torréens, who threw them down, broke them up and reused some as building stone, and then built the circular stone structures called torri; later researchers disputed this theory.
Dating rests on comparison with the Arco stelae, six Copper Age statue menhirs found in Trentino in 1989, which are similar in style to other anthropomorphic stelae of the fourth and third millennia BCE.
When visiting, look at the weapons and belt carved on the stone.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Statue menhir, Wikipedia: Filitosa, Wikipedia: Arco stelae · CC BY-SA 4.0
Photographs
6 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. 4800–2500 BCEHow this date was established: Type comparisonTypical range for statue-menhirs in France; this site has not been dated itself. Statue menhirs were created during the later European Neolithic Period and the megalithic constructions of Brittany begin c. 4800 BC.Source for this date
Where it stands
France
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 41°31′36″ N, 8°55′17″ EFor a GPS or map app: 41.52667, 8.92139
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.
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
3 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q917914wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
- 03Wikipedia: Rinaghjuen.wikipedia.org
Image files
- Stone row rinaghju 01.jpgMax BergerCC BY-SA 4.0
- Stone row rinaghju 02.jpgMax BergerCC BY-SA 4.0
- Corse-Du-Sud Cauria Megalithes Vaches - panoramio (1).jpgrene boulayCC BY-SA 3.0
- Corse-Du-Sud Cauria Megalithes Vaches - panoramio.jpgrene boulayCC BY-SA 3.0
- Alignements de Renaghju 1.jpgQuirinalisCC BY-SA 4.0
- Alignements de Renaghju 2.jpgQuirinalisCC BY-SA 4.0
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Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
Credit
Text, licence and sources
This page is assembled from open records (Wikidata, CC0; OpenStreetMap, ODbL) and a tradition article paraphrasing Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). No article exists for this site, and nothing here is written by a model.
- Wikidata Q917914CC0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0

