Post 3 Stonehenge
Finally got hold of these pictures taken in the early 1970's by my father, it took a while to locate them amongst the thousands of pictures he has taken over the years. I'm not sure of the exact date but it has to be early 70's, the stones were closed off in 1978. The pictures are of myself and brother, Sion Sebon and mother in the white coat.
I had visited Stonehenge on 30th November this year and was pleasantly surprised how pleasurable the whole experience was. English Heritage staff were brilliant and it was not too busy and all the visitors seemed to respect everyone else's space - there was no hurry, everybody very relaxed and really good to see the Devizes road disappearing under the archaeologist's trowels - so the area of the Avenue will at least be green and pleasant again.
I wrote a piece in Welsh for my Herald Gymraeg column on the experience see :
This is the guidebook that I still have from the 1970's
Post 2 The Manio Giant
The Manio Giant standing stone is certainly one of the most impressive stones to visit in the Karnag area, located down a forest trail, surrounded by woods and lying between the Kermario and the Kerlescan alignments.
If I have understood correctly the stone was originally included within a barrow which has since been excavated. Looking around there is just about an impression of stones scattered on the floor that may have once constituted part of the mound and there is a very gentle slope around the maenhir but there really is not much left.
The other thing that I had read is that there were carvings or rather peck marks of snakes on the lower part of the stone - again I could not really make them out.
I took plenty of photographs and will seek further information or guidance
Next to the stone is the 'quadrilateral enclosure' which is actually the remains of a tumulus - it's quite unusual for us to interpret this in that it's basically rectangular in shape which is probably what we'd expect for a Neolithic house (obviously the houses would have been built of timber frames) - but a burial monument it is, not a cromlech. I can't think of a parallel in Wales ?
It took a bit more of a search to find the nearby Kerlescan Dolmen, this is to the east of the Kerlescan alignment and actually the signpost had fallen off it's post. In a funny way I actually think that bad signage is not such a bad thing. It keeps the masses away and it's part of the fun to go trooping down lanes, across fields, map in hand basically 'lost' looking for that elusive monument / stone / cromlech .... and you always find it in the end and the satisfaction factor then is definitely enhanced.
The Kerlescan dolmen is later than the alignments - dating to around 3200-2800 BC and has a lateral entry. It compares to Pierres-Plates at Locmariaquer in form. This surely suggests that this area is still important even as the focus on the alignments is obviously diminishing.
This is the Kerlescan Dolmen :
Post 1 Karnag
My Rock’n
Roll travels have led me to Carnac over the years. From now on I will use the
Breton version ‘Karnag’ for the place name. The French Government tried to suppress the Breton Language during
the early-mid C20th by replacing Breton names with French names but in rural areas
such names were often never adopted - such was the victory of the rural Bretons.
It's also tempting of course to see this as an attempt to de-paganise
this whole megalithic area by introducing French names for the monuments and
sites but it was the Language that was under attack not the pagans. So the Breton people who spoke little French did not adopt these new names and as a consequence we are left with many sites today which have Breton names.Just a thought :
There is no English name for Barclodiad y Gawres or Bryn Celli Ddu !
So thanks to
Rock’n Roll, my first encounter with the alignments at Karnag was during
Anhrefn days, late 1980s. I was actually en route to see a Record Label in San Sebastian (Donostia) in the Basque Country who were interested in licensing some of our
recordings. Being young and energetic it seemed like a good idea to drive all
the way down from Wales with the master tapes.
Stopping off
in Nantes / Naoned with our good friend Gweltaz Adeux from Breton band E.V we
detoured to Karnag before heading down south to Euskadi. In those days
(pre-1991) the stones were not fenced off, it seemed pretty quiet, we strolled
around.
Over the
years I have returned during visits to Lorient Interceltique Festival, with
bands such as Gogs/The Heights, Frizbee and Hen Wlad Fy Mamau (Land of my
Mothers) each time detouring to Karnag while the band members usually got
dropped off at the beach near a bar to be picked up later.
My return
this summer served only to remind me how things had changed. The alignments,
certainly around the Menec section are now so popular, it has an air of
Stonehenge about it, a visitor centre in the form of Maison des Megalithes.
People everywhere, most of the stones fenced off, the inevitable erosion of the
footpaths around the perimeter fencing. I will return later to this whole
question of the balance between archaeology for all, the tourist economy and
possibly the plain fact that there are just too many people here.
I’m staying
here for 6 days, so this time I have enough time to wander, map in hand and
follow my own path at my own pace. Early in the morning it’s quieter. Out at
Kermario I have the stones to myself and at the Geant du Manio and tumulus,
perfect peace and quiet. Later in the day there will be people here as well but
not in the same numbers as the focal point around Menec.
Being
involved with the Tourist / Tour Guiding business in Wales I book myself on to
a guided tour of the stones – this gets me in to the enclosure amongst the stones
and also offers a guide who does a sterling job in English despite this
obviously being a second language for her – I presume she probably does the
German tours as well.
The guided
tour is pretty well a basic introduction for the generally interested visitor,
it’s not too basic and she does explain the concept of Neolithic following on
from the Mesolithic for example. And she does point out, quite humorously, that
the Asterix the Gaul cartoons are false – the stones were definitely here
before the Romans. Some details were pointed out, which prove the value of a
guide, but really I needed to be out with an archaeologist – I had too many
questions, too may thoughts ….
In North
Wales of course we have the wonderful 3 stones at Llanfechell, the 2 stones at
Penrhos-feilw, the huge stones at Bryngwyn (the remains of a circle) and the
impressive stones at Bwlch y Ddeufaen – but we have nothing that compares to
this. The scale of the monuments and the amount of stones erected is truly
impressive if not totally mindblowing. The whole factors such as manpower and
social organisation involved, let alone the why and the concentration of
megalithic monuments here in the Gulf of Morbihan is truly impressive and
dwarfs what we have in Wales and really dwarfs most monuments except the exceptions
of Calanis, Stonehenge, Avebury.
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