statue-menhir de Granisse
DatedEst. 4800–2500 BCE
No licensed photograph yetWe have no photograph we may publish for this site, so the interpretive 3D view leads instead.
Overview
About this site
Overview
The statue-menhir de Granisse is a statue-menhir of the Rouergat group, found at Lacaune in the département of Tarn, France. It is dated by typological estimate to between 4800 and 2500 BCE.
It is a complete female figure, 1.23 m high, sculpted in pink sandstone. It 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 Granisse
The statue is sculpted in a slab of pink sandstone, and the nearest extraction sites lie 10 km or 18 km from the findspot.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Statue-menhir de GranisseCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Statue-menhir de GranisseCC BY-SA 4.0
The statue is sculpted in a slab of pink sandstone, and the nearest extraction sites lie 10 km or 18 km from the findspot. It measures 1.23 m in height, with a maximum width of 0.70 m and a thickness of 0.12 m.
The statue is complete, but the sculpted detail is worn and is almost effaced on the back. The figure is female, with a face (eyes and nose), breasts, arms, hands, legs and feet. The arms are bent and shown very high, close to the face, and the legs are disjointed. The figure wears a necklace of three rows and a belt.
Research historySources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Statue-menhir de GranisseCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Statue-menhir de GranisseCC BY-SA 4.0
The statue was discovered in 1969 by Robert Maurel in a wall beside a path.
ConservationSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Statue-menhir de GranisseCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Statue-menhir de GranisseCC BY-SA 4.0
The statue-menhir has been listed as a historic monument, as an object, since 14 October 2019.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Statue-menhir de GranisseCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Statue-menhir de GranisseCC 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. Monuments of this kind 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
- 537 CE
537-538 Sites mégalithiques du Tarn Liste des statues-menhirs de France
Source - 1969
La statue a été découverte en 1969 par Robert Maurel dans un mur de chemin.
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 - 2021
336-337 Jules Masson Mourey, Images du corps en Méditerranée occidentale : les stèles anthropomorphes néolithiques du sud-est de la France (Vème-IIIème millénaire avant J.-C.) (Thèse de doctorat), Marseille, Maison méditerranéenne des Sciences de l'Homme, 2021, 768 p. (lire en ligne), p.
Source
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°42′29″ N, 2°41′25″ EFor a GPS or map app: 43.70810, 2.69030
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-menhirstatue-menhir de Granisse4800–2500 BCE
statue-menhir du Trou de l'Avenc4800–2500 BCE
Peyro-Lebado4800–2500 BCE
statue-menhir du Puech de Naudène4800–2500 BCE- Statue-menhirstatue-menhir du Vacant de Rieuvel4800–2500 BCE
statue-menhir de Nicoules4800–2500 BCE
statue-menhir de Rouyregros4800–2500 BCE
statue-menhir de la Barraque des Fournials4800–2500 BCE
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q111535731wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
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Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
- statue-menhir de Granisse0.1 km S
- statue-menhir du Trou de l'Avenc0.2 km S
- Peyro-Lebado2.9 km E
- statue-menhir du Puech de Naudène4.6 km E
- statue-menhir du Vacant de Rieuvel5.3 km NE
- statue-menhir de Nicoules6.8 km N
- statue-menhir de Rouyregros8.3 km SE
- statue-menhir de la Barraque des Fournials9.6 km SE
- statue-menhir du moulin de Louat 29.7 km E
- statue-menhir de Malvieille9.7 km E
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Statue-menhir de Granisse" (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