Allée couverte de Mélus
MonumentHidden Treasure
Allée couverte de Mélus, located in Ploubazlanec (Département 22), is a historic monument. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- autre
- Location
- Ploubazlanec, Département 22, Bretagne
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 48.8155, -3.0723
- Mérimée Reference
- PA00089461
A silent Neolithic vestige nestling in the Côtes-d'Armor region, the covered alleyway at Mélus in Ploubazlanec reveals Breton megalithic art in all its mineral sobriety, just a stone's throw from the sea.
History
Standing on the edge of the Ploubazlanec peninsula, facing the changing waters of the Trieux and the estuary leading to the island of Bréhat, the covered alleyway of Mélus belongs to that family of funerary monuments that have punctuated the Breton landscape for over five thousand years. No tower, no castle, no abbey - and yet one of the most striking buildings ever erected by man in Armorique. The silence that surrounds it is not that of abandonment, but of duration. What sets the Mélus covered walkway apart from the many megaliths in Brittany is above all its integration into a coastal landscape where the local rock, bluish-grey granite from the Côtes-d'Armor, almost blends into the winter sky. The massive, slightly sloping roof slabs create a long, narrow interior space, typical of collective burials in the Neolithic culture of Armor. To enter this stone corridor is to cross a boundary between the world of the living and that which the builders reserved for their dead. The tour takes place in the open air, in a setting that is both wooded and maritime. Visitors take the time to walk around the monument, to observe the layout of the orthostats - the large vertical slabs that form the walls - and to understand the structural ingenuity deployed without metal, mortar or mechanical equipment. The low-angled light of the morning or late afternoon reveals the textures of the stone and the golden lichens that line its sides. Ploubazlanec itself is well worth a visit: a seafaring village of pink granite, it is famous for its marine cemetery and the memory of Pierre Loti. Combining a visit to the covered walkway with a tour of the peninsula makes for a particularly coherent day of heritage and landscape, between prehistory and 19th-century literary romanticism.
Architecture
The covered alleyway at Mélus has the characteristic configuration of Neolithic Armorican funerary monuments of the type known as "U-shaped covered alleyways" or with frontal entrances. It consists of an elongated chamber, generally oriented along an east-west axis or slightly off-centre depending on local topographical constraints, and delimited by orthostats - large slabs of granite set vertically in two parallel rows - on which rest horizontal cover slabs, known as tables or megalithic ceilings. The whole structure forms a low, narrow interior corridor, estimated to be between six and twelve metres long and around one to one-and-a-half metres wide - typical dimensions for this type of structure in the Côtes-d'Armor department. The exclusive material is local granite, a metamorphic rock abundant in Armorique, characterised by its hardness and resistance to weathering. The blocks have undergone minimal shaping, sometimes limited to regularising the load-bearing faces, giving the monument its raw, telluric appearance. Some orthostats may bear traces of flint spikes or abrasion, testifying to the roughing work carried out in situ or in a quarry. The entrance, probably marked by a slab gate pierced by a circular porthole or simply framed by two projecting uprights - as seen at Barnenez or La Roche-aux-Fées - formed the symbolic threshold between the world of the living and the space of the dead. The aisle was originally sealed under a mound of earth and dry stone, of which only scattered vestiges generally remain, vegetation and erosion having levelled this protective mantle over the centuries.
Related Figures
Les bâtisseurs néolithiques anonymes (3500-2500 av. J.-C.) — communautés agro-pastorales armoricainesProsper Mérimée — inspecteur général des Monuments historiques, pionnier du recensement mégalithique en FrancePaul du Châtellier — archéologue finistérien du XIXe siècle, inventeur régional des mégalithes armoricainsZacharie Le Rouzic — archéologue carnacéen, référence nationale pour la classification des allées couvertes bretonnesPierre Loti — écrivain, figure tutélaire de Ploubazlanec, dont l'œuvre contribua à la notoriété de la presqu'île
Tags
Nearby castles
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Allée couverte de Mélus located?
Allée couverte de Mélus is located in Ploubazlanec, Département 22 department, Bretagne region, France.
Is Allée couverte de Mélus open to visitors?
Allée couverte de Mélus is currently closed to visitors.
