Dolmen dit Chillon du Feuillet
MonumentHidden Treasure
Dolmen dit Chillon du Feuillet, located in Descartes (Indre-et-Loire), is a historic monument. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- autre
- Location
- Descartes, Indre-et-Loire, Centre-Val de Loire
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 47.0185, 0.6744
- Mérimée Reference
- PA00097735
A discreet and bewitching Neolithic vestige, the Chillon du Feuillet dolmen erects its thousand-year-old orthostats in the heart of southern Touraine, a rare testimony to an agricultural civilisation that disappeared over 4,000 years ago.
© Wikimedia Commons
History
In the heart of the Indre-et-Loire department, just a few kilometres from Descartes - the town that bears the name of France's most famous philosopher - the dolmen known as Chillon du Feuillet stands out as one of the region's oldest monuments. Listed as a Historic Monument since 1911, this Neolithic funerary structure is one of a constellation of megaliths that discreetly dot Touraine, reminding us that long before the châteaux of the Loire, long before the Romans and the Merovingians, human communities were already shaping this land with their astonishing mastery of stone. What sets Chillon du Feuillet apart from other dolmens in the Centre-Val de Loire region is the quality of its preservation and the almost austere sobriety of its composition: a few large slabs of local sandstone standing vertically to form the walls of the burial chamber, topped by a covering table whose weight, several tonnes, still defies imagination today as to the means used to erect it. This economy of means, this formal brutality, gives it a silent and deeply moving presence. A visit to the dolmen invites you to meditate on the long history of humanity. It's easy to leave the noise of the world behind and approach these stones, which were erected by hands without metal tools, without wheels, without writing. The Neolithic inhabitants who rested here - for the dolmen was above all a collective tomb, reused from generation to generation - look down on us from a forty-century abyss of time. The surrounding natural setting, typical of the bocage south of Tours, with its gentle meadows and oak woods, amplifies this sense of timelessness. In spring, ferns and mosses carpet the foot of the intensely green megaliths; in autumn, the slanting light of the late afternoon carves the edges of the slabs in striking relief. A site to be savoured slowly.
Architecture
The Chillon du Feuillet dolmen belong to the large family of single-chamber dolmens, the most widespread architectural type in the Centre-Val de Loire and characteristic of late Neolithic megalithic constructions in the region. Its structure is based on the fundamental principle of the trilithon: upright vertical slabs (the orthostates) form the walls of a rectangular or slightly trapezoidal burial space, closed at either end by bedside slabs, the whole being topped by one or more large horizontal roofing slabs. The materials used were blocks of Turonian sandstone or limestone, abundant in the geological formations of southern Indre-et-Loire, and probably quarried relatively close to the site. The dimensions of the burial chamber correspond to the usual proportions of Touraine dolmens: an interior length of up to two to three metres, with a width of one to two metres and a height under the table that allows an adult to stand bent over. The covering slab, estimated to weigh several tonnes, reveals an astonishing mastery of lifting techniques using sledges, levers and earth fill, without the use of any metal tools. The orientation of the chamber, which is often east- or south-east-facing in regional monuments from this period, could have a symbolic or astronomical significance linked to the solar cycles. The patina of time has given the slabs a characteristic grey-brown colouring, punctuated by ochre and green lichens that draw tiny maps on the stone. The absence of any engraved or painted decoration - common in the dolmens of the Centre region, unlike some Breton monuments - underlines the formal sobriety of the building, whose full power lies in the raw majesty of its volumes.
Related Figures
Bâtisseurs néolithiques anonymes (vers 3500-2500 av. J.-C.) — communautés agricoles sédentaires du bassin de la Creuse, artisans du monumentÉdouard Gatian de Clérambault — érudit tourangeau du XIXe siècle, parmi les premiers à inventorier les mégalithes d'Indre-et-LoireRené Descartes (1596-1650) — natif de la ville voisine (alors nommée La Haye-en-Touraine), dont la philosophie rationaliste contraste avec l'obscur mystère des pierres néolithiques prochesInspecteurs généraux des Monuments Historiques (1911) — signataires de l'arrêté de classement protégeant définitivement le dolmen
Tags
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Dolmen dit Chillon du Feuillet located?
Dolmen dit Chillon du Feuillet is located in Descartes, Indre-et-Loire department, Centre-Val de Loire region, France.
Is Dolmen dit Chillon du Feuillet open to visitors?
Dolmen dit Chillon du Feuillet is currently closed to visitors.