statue menhir of Maurels
DatedEst. 4800–2500 BCE
Photo Milca56 · CC BY-SA 4.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
The statue-menhir of Les Maurels is a carved standing stone of the Rouergat group, found at Calmels-et-le-Viala in the département of Aveyron, France. It was discovered in 1880 by M. Fabre at the locality of Les Maurels.
The statue is a complete male figure, 2.09 m high, with a weight of 872 kg. It is now kept in the musée Fenaille at Rodez, and a copy stands at the find-spot.
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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 of Maurels
The statue was cut from a sandstone slab whose nearest known extraction site is about 15 km away.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Statue-menhir des MaurelsCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Statue-menhir des MaurelsCC BY-SA 4.0
The statue was cut from a sandstone slab whose nearest known extraction site is about 15 km away. It measures 2.09 m in height by 0.73 m in width and 0.25 m in thickness. Its weight of 872 kg must have required considerable logistics for transport and erection.
The figure is male and complete, of fine workmanship although slightly worn on the back. It has all the anthropomorphic features (face, arms, hands, legs, feet and shoulder-blade hooks) and all the male warrior attributes: a baldric, “the object”, a bow and an arrow. The belt is decorated with chevrons, unless it represents a plaited belt.
On the back, the straps of the baldric end in volutes. This motif is unknown on the other statue-menhirs of the group and results from a later modification, at an unknown date, by over-engraving.
SettingSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Statue-menhir des MaurelsCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Statue-menhir des MaurelsCC BY-SA 4.0
The statue was found at Les Maurels, facing the statue-menhirs of Les Ardaliès, which stand about 800 m away on the opposite bank of the river Dourdou.
ConservationSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Statue-menhir des MaurelsCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Statue-menhir des MaurelsCC BY-SA 4.0
The original is held in the collections of the musée Fenaille at Rodez. A copy has been erected on site, near the hamlet of Les Maurels.
DatingSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Statue-menhir des MaurelsCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Statue-menhir des MaurelsCC BY-SA 4.0
The catalogue gives a typological estimate of 4800 to 2500 BCE, based on the style of the carving.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Statue-menhir des MaurelsCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Statue-menhir des MaurelsCC 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
- 1880
Elle a été découverte en 1880 par M.
Source - 2005
368-369 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
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°57′40″ N, 2°44′22″ EFor a GPS or map app: 43.96103, 2.73936
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.
statues-menhirs des Ardaliès4800–2500 BCE- Megalithic complexstatues-menhirs des Ardaliès
statue menhir of Bancanel4800–2500 BCE
statue-menhir de Bournac4800–2500 BCE- Menhir (standing stone)menhir du Puech Capelle2800–1800 BCE
statue-menhir de Serregrand4800–2500 BCE
statue-menhir de la Coste4800–2500 BCE- Dolmendolmen de Pinsac4000–3000 BCE
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q111669638wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
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Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
- statues-menhirs des Ardaliès0.8 km W
- statues-menhirs des Ardaliès0.8 km W
- statue menhir of Bancanel4.7 km NE
- statue-menhir de Bournac5.2 km NE
- menhir du Puech Capelle7.1 km E
- statue-menhir de Serregrand7.1 km S
- statue-menhir de la Coste8.3 km NW
- dolmen de Pinsac8.7 km E
- dolmen du Rajal8.8 km NE
- statue-menhir de Saint-Jean-de-l'Hôpital9.0 km W
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Statue-menhir des Maurels" (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