_(28670672554).jpg/1920px-Menhir_di_Lugnacco_(Piemonte%2C_Italy)_(28670672554).jpg 1920w)
menhir
DatedEst. 2800–1800 BCE
Photo Luca Galli from Torino, Italy · CC BY 2.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
The Lugnacco menhir (menhir di Lugnacco) is a standing stone of the Neolithic at Lugnacco, in the metropolitan city of Turin, Piedmont, Italy. A typological estimate dates it to the period from 2800 to 1800 BCE.
The monolith is of gneiss, is pierced by eight holes, and stands 3.85 m high. Its weight is estimated at 1,800 kg.
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
menhir
The menhir stands near the Pieve della Purificazione di Maria, on the Strada provinciale 65.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Menhir de LugnaccoCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Menhir de LugnaccoCC BY-SA 4.0
The menhir stands near the Pieve della Purificazione di Maria, on the Strada provinciale 65. It is cut from gneiss and pierced with eight holes. It is 3.85 m high, with an estimated weight of 1,800 kg, and its circumference at ground level is 1.20 m. It may be a representation of a phallus.
Research historySources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Menhir de LugnaccoCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Menhir de LugnaccoCC BY-SA 4.0
The menhir was reported in 1975 to the Gruppo Archeologico Canavesano. In the late 1980s a second similar monolith, the Chivasso menhir, was discovered at Chivasso; it is protected by a glass bell. Almost at the same time a third menhir, the Mazzè menhir, was found during maintenance work along the tributary of the reservoir on the Dora Baltea near Mazzè.
FolkloreSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Menhir de LugnaccoCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Menhir de LugnaccoCC BY-SA 4.0
According to local oral tradition, the menhir once served as a pillory, to which criminals were chained to be exposed to the inhabitants.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Menhir de LugnaccoCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Menhir de LugnaccoCC BY-SA 4.0
Menhirs occur across central and southern Europe as well as on the Atlantic fringe. Italy has its most famous menhirs in Sardinia, where at least 332 standing stones can be seen. They include elaborate statue-menhirs that show a human face at the top and gendered symbols on the flat front; over a hundred of this standardised type have been found, mostly around the village of Laconi.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Central and southern European menhirs
Outside the Atlantic fringe, menhirs also occur across central and southern Europe. In the Czech Republic there are about 40 real menhirs and dozens of stones that could also be menhirs, and others have been erected recently. The largest real menhir is Kamenný pastýř, the "stony shepherd", near Klobuky, 3.3 metres high; the Czech menhirs are probably the last outcrop of a tradition that ran across northern Germany. Some of the Czech stones in the Atlas may be natural boulders.
Italy has its most famous menhirs in Sardinia, where at least 332 standing stones can be seen. They include elaborate "statue-menhirs" that show a human face at the top and gendered symbols on the flat front; over a hundred of this standardised type have been found, mostly around the village of Laconi. In the Sardinian language they are called perdas fittas or perdas lungas. In Switzerland, in the canton of Vaud, several menhirs form linear patterns at Clendy in Yverdon-les-Bains, and date back to the third millennium BCE.
A statue menhir is a carved standing stone of the later European Neolithic, in which a 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.
Menhirs are usually difficult to date, and those without excavation can only be given a broad range. A stone's present position is not always its original one.
When visiting, check whether a stone stands in its original position and look for signs of shaping.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Menhir, Wikipedia: List of menhirs, Wikipedia: Statue menhir · CC BY-SA 4.0
See it in 3D
An interpretive reconstruction of the monument, standing on the real ground at its exact point, under the sun for that place and season. Drag to look around it.
The reconstruction is ours, not a survey: it shows what a monument of this type looks like, at the size the record gives for this one.
Photographs
2 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. 2800–1800 BCEHow this date was established: Type comparisonTypical range for menhirs in Italy; this site has not been dated itself. Standing stones are associated with the Beaker people of the European late Neolithic and early Bronze Age c. 2800-1800 BC.Source for this date
Where it stands
Italy
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 45°26′39″ N, 7°46′41″ EFor a GPS or map app: 45.44406, 7.77803
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.
_(28670672554).jpg){kind=link}
_(29293486765).jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q26821874wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
- Menhir di Lugnacco (Piemonte, Italy) (28670672554).jpgLuca Galli from Torino, ItalyCC BY 2.0
- Menhir di Lugnacco (Piemonte, Italy) (29293486765).jpgLuca Galli from Torino, ItalyCC BY 2.0
Report a correctionWrong date, name, photograph or source? Tell us and it will be put right.
Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
- menhir di Mazzè20 km SE
- Cavaglià stone circle25 km E
- Lapis Longus30 km S
- Infernòt Carlini62 km SE
- Susa67 km SW
- rocher aux Pieds70 km W
- Cromlech of Little St Bernard Pass74 km W
- chemin des Collines94 km N
- Nécropole néolithique du Petit-Chasseur94 km N
- Chemin des Collines, menhirs and archaeological zone94 km N
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Menhir de Lugnacco" (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
- Wikipedia (French): Menhir de LugnaccoCC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q26821874CC0