statue-menhir de Rouyregros
DatedEst. 4800–2500 BCE
Photo Milca56 · CC BY-SA 4.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
The statue-menhir de Rouyregros, also called the statue-menhir de Cabanettes, is a statue-menhir of the Rouergue group, found at Nages in the département of Tarn, France. It is dated by typological estimate to 4800 BCE to 2500 BCE.
It was discovered in 2005 and has been listed as a historic monument (as an object) since 30 October 2019.
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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
statue-menhir de Rouyregros
It is complete, but the engravings are worn on the front, visible only in raking light, and on the back are completely effaced.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Statue-menhir de RouyregrosCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Statue-menhir de RouyregrosCC BY-SA 4.0
The statue is engraved on a slab of local granite measuring 2.70 m in height, 1.42 m in width and 0.47 m in thickness. It is complete, but the engravings are worn on the front, visible only in raking light, and on the back are completely effaced.
It is a male statue. The face is formed of a facial “T” (brow ridges and nose) and tattoos. The upper and lower limbs are complete. The legs are separate and fairly short, but given the weight of the statue it must have been sunk to a depth of nearly 1 m. The figure wears a baldric and “the object”, whose ring is of large size, and a double belt with a large rectangular buckle.
Research historySources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Statue-menhir de RouyregrosCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Statue-menhir de RouyregrosCC BY-SA 4.0
The statue-menhir was discovered in 2005 by Daniel Escande and Henri Théron, in a field on a level shelf near the farm of Rouyregros.
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
- 585 CE
585-586 Sites mégalithiques du Tarn Liste des statues-menhirs de France
Source - 2005
La statue-menhir a été découverte en 2005 par Daniel Escande et Henri Théron près de la ferme de Rouyregros dans un champ sur un replat.
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 30 octobre 2019.
Source - 2021
448-449 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
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°39′00″ N, 2°45′21″ EFor a GPS or map app: 43.64990, 2.75588
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 la Barraque des Fournials4800–2500 BCE- Statue-menhirstatue-menhir de Naujac4800–2500 BCE
statue-menhir de Triby4800–2500 BCE- Statue-menhirstatue-menhir de Cambaissy4800–2500 BCE
- Statue-menhirstatue-menhir de Lubio4800–2500 BCE
- Statue-menhirstatue-menhir de la Landette4800–2500 BCE
- Statue-menhirstatue-menhir de Cacavel4800–2500 BCE
Statue menhir of Picarel4500–3300 BCE
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q111817646wikidata.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 la Barraque des Fournials1.7 km E
- statue-menhir de Naujac2.3 km SE
- statue-menhir de Triby3.5 km SE
- statue-menhir de Cambaissy5.3 km S
- statue-menhir de Lubio6.0 km NE
- statue-menhir de la Landette6.1 km E
- statue-menhir de Cacavel6.7 km S
- Statue menhir of Picarel7.1 km SE
- statue-menhir de Candoubre7.2 km NE
- Peyro-Lebado7.3 km N
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Statue-menhir de Rouyregros" (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