statue-menhir de Boutaran
DatedEst. 4800–2500 BCE
Photo Milca56 · CC BY-SA 4.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
The statue-menhir de Boutaran is a carved standing stone of the Rouergue group, found at Saint-Sernin-sur-Rance in the département of Aveyron, France. It is dated by typological estimate to between 4800 and 2500 BCE.
It is the lower fragment of a larger sandstone statue, finely carved, and has been listed as a historic monument (as an object) since 14 October 2019.
Read on Wikipedia2 min readCC BY-SA 4.0
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
statue-menhir de Boutaran
It is the lower fragment of a larger sculpted statue, which would have been about 2 m high, probably male, and in a very good state of preservation.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Statue-menhir de BoutaranCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Statue-menhir de BoutaranCC BY-SA 4.0
The statue-menhir consists of a sandstone slab 1.05 m high, 0.87 m wide and 0.30 m thick. The nearest extraction site is about 2.5 km away. It is the lower fragment of a larger sculpted statue, which would have been about 2 m high, probably male, and in a very good state of preservation.
The carving is very fine and careful. The visible anthropomorphic features are the two legs, shown apart and arched, and the feet. The statue has a perfectly straight belt with a rectangular buckle, which gathers a pleated garment. The style is very close to that of Jasse du Terral no. 1.
Research historySources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Statue-menhir de BoutaranCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Statue-menhir de BoutaranCC BY-SA 4.0
The statue-menhir was found in 1940 by M. Barthe near the farm of Boutaran.
ConservationSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Statue-menhir de BoutaranCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Statue-menhir de BoutaranCC BY-SA 4.0
The stone has been listed as a historic monument as an object since 14 October 2019. The original statue is kept by its owner.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Statue-menhir de BoutaranCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Statue-menhir de BoutaranCC 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. Such stones are most commonly found in southern and western France, Catalonia, Corsica, Sardinia, Italy and the Alps.
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
From the article
Dated moments in the story
- 1940
La statue-menhir a été découverte en 1940 par M.
Source - 2005
286-287 Jean-Pierre Serres, Les statues-menhirs du sud-Aveyron, Millau, Éditions du Beffroi, 2005, 48 p.
Source - 2010
Jean Guilaine), Hommes et femmes de pierre - Statues-menhirs du Rouergue et du Haut-Languedoc, Toulouse, Archives d'Écologie Préhistorique, 2010, 538 p.
Source - 2019
La statue-menhir est inscrite monument historique au titre d'objet depuis le 14 octobre 2019.
Source
Photographs
1 photograph, each with its author and licence
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
- 43°52′14″ N, 2°37′53″ EFor a GPS or map app: 43.87043, 2.63149
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.
statue-menhir de Saint-Sernin4800–2500 BCE
statue-menhir de Monteils4800–2500 BCE
statue-menhir de Saint-Léonce4800–2500 BCE
statue-menhir d'Anglas4800–2500 BCE
statue-menhir du Puech du Lac4800–2500 BCE
statue-menhir de Balaguier4800–2500 BCE
statue-menhir de Serres4800–2500 BCE- statue-menhir de Serres4800–2500 BCE
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q89803594wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
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Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
- statue-menhir de Saint-Sernin2.6 km NW
- statue-menhir de Monteils2.7 km N
- statue-menhir de Saint-Léonce3.6 km SE
- statue-menhir d'Anglas4.0 km NE
- statue-menhir du Puech du Lac4.3 km NW
- statue-menhir de Balaguier5.3 km NW
- statue-menhir de Serres7.6 km SE
- statue-menhir de Serres7.6 km SE
- statue-menhir de Lucante7.8 km SE
- statue-menhir de Lucante7.8 km SE
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Statue-menhir de Boutaran" (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