statue-menhir de Saint-Sernin
DatedEst. 4800–2500 BCE
Photo Docteurmoreau · CC BY-SA 4.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
The statue-menhir of Saint-Sernin, also known as la Dame de Saint-Sernin, is a statue-menhir of the Rouergue group, found at Saint-Sernin-sur-Rance in the department of Aveyron, France. The catalogue dates it, on typological grounds, to between 4800 and 2500 BCE.
It was found in 1885 and is regarded as probably the best known of all statue-menhirs, standing for the whole Rouergue group.
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 Saint-Sernin
A double belt encircles a pleated garment shown on each face, and on the back the shoulder-blade hooks are visible.
DescriptionSources for this section
Sources for this section
The figure is carved in bas-relief on a slab of Permian sandstone measuring 1.13 m by 0.56 m and 0.18 m thick. It is one of the most complete examples, in aesthetic terms, and carries all the anthropomorphic features and attributes that can occur on a female statue-menhir: a pair of breasts, a Y-shaped pendant, a necklace of six rows, tattoos, a garment, a belt and hair worn in two plaits tied at their ends.
The arms are bent at a right angle and continue onto the two edges of the slab. The legs are separate. A double belt encircles a pleated garment shown on each face, and on the back the shoulder-blade hooks are visible.
Research historySources for this section
Sources for this section
The statue was found in 1885 near the tènement of Laval. It was one of the first statues studied by the abbé Hermet.
ContextSources for this section
Sources for this section
Statue menhirs are carved standing stones 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.
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
- 1885
Elle a été découverte en 1885 près du tènement de Laval.
Source - 2005
466-467 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
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. 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°53′00″ N, 2°36′15″ EFor a GPS or map app: 43.88324, 2.60403
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 du Puech du Lac4800–2500 BCE
statue-menhir de Monteils4800–2500 BCE
statue-menhir de Boutaran4800–2500 BCE
statue-menhir de Balaguier4800–2500 BCE
statue-menhir de Monteillet4800–2500 BCE
statue-menhir d'Anglas4800–2500 BCE
statue-menhir de Saint-Léonce4800–2500 BCE- Statue-menhirstatue-menhir de la Prade4800–2500 BCE
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q55525316wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
- Stsernin.jpgDocteurmoreauCC BY-SA 4.0
- St-sernin dame 02.jpgLiberligerCC BY-SA 4.0
- St-sernin dame 03.jpgLiberligerCC BY-SA 4.0
- Statue-menhir.JPGSiannan13CC0
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Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
- statue-menhir du Puech du Lac1.8 km W
- statue-menhir de Monteils2.2 km NE
- statue-menhir de Boutaran2.6 km SE
- statue-menhir de Balaguier2.7 km NW
- statue-menhir de Monteillet5.8 km N
- statue-menhir d'Anglas5.9 km E
- statue-menhir de Saint-Léonce6.2 km SE
- statue-menhir de la Prade7.7 km N
- statues-menhirs de Réganel9.0 km N
- statue-menhir de Serres10 km SE
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Statue-menhir de Saint-Sernin" (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