Dolmen de Kérivole (ou Kerivoa)
MonumentHidden Treasure
Dolmen de Kérivole (ou Kerivoa), located in Bourbriac (Département 22), is a historic monument. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- autre
- Location
- Bourbriac, Département 22, Bretagne
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 48.4381, -3.2310
- Mérimée Reference
- PA00089034
A stone watchman for over 4,000 years, the granite slabs of the Kérivole dolmen stand in the heart of the Breton Trégor region - a megalithic sanctuary listed as a Historic Monument in 1914.
History
In the heart of the Trégor bocages, a few leagues from Bourbriac, the Kérivole dolmen stands out in the landscape with the quiet authority of those that have survived the millennia. Its large slabs of grey granite, weathered by centuries of rain and lichen, make up one of those primitive architectures that fascinate archaeologists and ordinary walkers alike. The building is known by two spellings - Kérivole and Kerivoa - this toponymic doubling alone testifying to the richness and complexity of the Breton language, in which the suffix often evokes a place of memory or a sunken path. What distinguishes Kérivole from a simple pile of stones is the architectural coherence of the whole structure: the burial chamber, supported by sturdy orthostats, is topped by a cover slab weighing several tonnes, a logistical feat that never ceases to puzzle prehistory specialists. The care taken in assembling the blocks reveals an organised community capable of long-term collective planning, a far cry from the image of wandering peoples that is sometimes associated with the Bronze Age. To visit Kérivole is first and foremost to accept a complete change of scenery. You approach the monument along paths lined with hedges and bracken, and the first glimpse of the standing stones in the low Breton morning light has an almost cinematic quality. The site, discreet and well-preserved, does not suffer from the massive numbers of visitors that some of the more publicised megaliths do: people come in small numbers, often out of personal curiosity or archaeological passion, and this intimacy is a rare privilege. The natural setting that surrounds the dolmen amplifies its mysterious character. The moors and coppices of the Goëlo-Trégor region, dotted with ancient embankments and sunken lanes, provide a backdrop of vegetation that changes with the seasons. In autumn, purple heather and scorched ferns envelop the stones in a colour palette of poetic melancholy. In spring, the flowering broom warms the landscape with a luminous gold. Nature and heritage photographers will find here compositions that combine prehistoric architecture and the Breton landscape in striking balance.
Architecture
The Kérivole dolmen belongs to the family of simple single-chamber dolmens, an architectural type typical of late Neolithic and Bronze Age funerary monuments in Armorica. Its structure is based on a set of orthostats - vertical granite slabs - arranged in a slightly rectangular pattern to define an enclosed inner chamber. These blocks of local granite, some of which are probably two to three metres high, have a rough, unworked surface, typical of the Breton tradition that favoured robustness over ornamentation. The covering slab, known as the table or capstone, rests on these supports and is the most spectacular element of the whole: massive and slightly projecting over the sides, it gives the building its instantly recognisable silhouette. The granite used comes from the Hercynian massifs of Trégor, the dominant rock in this part of the Côtes-d'Armor region. Its exceptional resistance to the elements explains the relatively good preservation of the monument after four millennia of exposure to the elements. The stone surfaces are now covered with grey and yellow lichens, forming a natural mantle that helps to integrate the monument into the landscape and accentuate its ancestral character. Originally, like almost all Breton dolmens, Kérivole was most likely covered by a mound of earth and small stones that concealed the chamber from view and symbolically reinforced the boundary between the world of the living and that of the dead. Erosion and successive agricultural activities have gradually removed this mantle, leaving the slabs exposed in their current naked state - a configuration which, paradoxically, for our contemporary eyes is the archetypal image of the dolmen, even though it represents a degraded state of the original building.
Related Figures
Bâtisseurs anonymes de l'Âge du bronze (vers 2000-1500 av. J.-C.) — artisans et organisateurs de la constructionChefs de clans ou dynasties locales du Trégor préhistorique — défunts dont le dolmen perpétuait la mémoireProsper Mérimée — inspecteur général des Monuments Historiques, dont l'action au XIXe siècle prépara les premières protections du patrimoine mégalithiquePaul du Châtellier — archéologue breton (1833-1911), pionnier de l'inventaire des mégalithes armoricainsZacharie Le Rouzic — préhistorien (1864-1939), grand documentariste du mégalithisme breton dont les travaux éclairent des sites comme Kérivole
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Dolmen de Kérivole (ou Kerivoa) located?
Dolmen de Kérivole (ou Kerivoa) is located in Bourbriac, Département 22 department, Bretagne region, France.
Is Dolmen de Kérivole (ou Kerivoa) open to visitors?
Dolmen de Kérivole (ou Kerivoa) is currently closed to visitors.