About 10 miles southeast of Valençay you'll find an impressive dolmen in the woods just off a highway. What's a dolmen? Wikipedia says:"A dolmen or 'portal tomb' is a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb, usually consisting of two or more upright megaliths supporting a large flat horizontal capstone or 'table'. Most date from the Late Neolithic period (4000–3000 BCE)..." The one in this pictures is called La Pierre Folle. Charles-Henry and I went there in June 2014 to see it.
The table stone at La Pierre Folle is nearly five meters (15 ft.) long and three meters (10 ft.) wide. It sits on top of seven upright stones. Nobody really knows who built it, or why.
A man named Ludovic Martinet did archeological work at La Pierre Folle in 1875. On the site, he found several fragments of pottery but no human bones at all. What he found mostly was fragments of flintstone that had to have been transported to the site from elsewhere, because the only local stone is sandstone. By the way, that's CHM in the photo on the left above. He was about 90 years old at the time.
The table stone at La Pierre Folle is nearly five meters (15 ft.) long and three meters (10 ft.) wide. It sits on top of seven upright stones. Nobody really knows who built it, or why.
A man named Ludovic Martinet did archeological work at La Pierre Folle in 1875. On the site, he found several fragments of pottery but no human bones at all. What he found mostly was fragments of flintstone that had to have been transported to the site from elsewhere, because the only local stone is sandstone. By the way, that's CHM in the photo on the left above. He was about 90 years old at the time.
Sites like this one are very interesting. We visited one in Sweden once. CHM had such good health most of his life.
ReplyDeleteOh, the adventures you two had.
ReplyDeleteWow, that picture with chm really shows the large scale of the place! Always nice to see him.
ReplyDelete