Dolmen dit La Cave ou Chambre aux Fées
Monument
Dolmen dit La Cave ou Chambre aux Fées, located in Saint-Cergues (Département 74), is a historic monument. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- autre
- Location
- Saint-Cergues, Département 74, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 46.2197, 6.3097
- Mérimée Reference
- PA00118430
At the gateway to the Savoyard Chablais region, this Neolithic dolmen, over 5,000 years old, sets its colossal slabs against a backdrop of Alpine greenery. The 'Chambre aux Fées' is one of the few protected megaliths in Haute-Savoie.
History
Nestling in the wooded hills of Saint-Cergues, on the borders of the Chablais and Geneva regions, the dolmen known as "La Cave" or "Chambre aux Fées" is one of the most remarkable megalithic remains in the Haute-Savoie department. Classified as a Historic Monument in 1889 - one of the first lists drawn up under the Third Republic - this collection of upright, capped stones is a powerful reminder of the first agrarian societies that shaped the foothills of the Alps. What makes this site truly unique is its location in the Alps, a region that is not very well suited to the preservation of megaliths due to the granitic and morainal nature of the soils resulting from the ice ages. The Saint-Cergues dolmen belongs to a family of funerary or cult monuments erected during the Middle or Final Neolithic, between 4000 and 2500 BC, when settled communities had already mastered animal husbandry, cereal growing and the collective organisation of the work required to move blocks weighing several tonnes. The experience of visiting the site is imbued with a strange serenity. Approaching the megalithic chamber along a woodland path, visitors feel as though they are entering a timeless space, intensified by centuries of surrounding vegetation. The roof slab, balanced on its orthostatic supports, creates a striking primitive vault effect. The light filtered through the foliage gives the place an almost sacred atmosphere. The natural setting amplifies the emotion of the heritage: Saint-Cergues is just a short distance from Lake Geneva and has a panoramic view of the Alps, making a visit that combines archaeology and discovery of the Haute-Savoie landscape all the more interesting. Hikers, curious families and prehistory enthusiasts will all find something to suit them.
Architecture
The Saint-Cergues dolmen has the classic morphology of a simple single-chamber dolmen, the most common type in the western Alps. It consists of several orthostats - vertical slabs of limestone or morainal granite - laid out in a roughly rectangular or slightly trapezoidal plan, forming the side walls and base of the burial chamber. On top of this rests a monolithic covering slab, the dolmen table, whose dimensions far exceed those of the opening, ensuring the structural coherence of the whole by its own weight. The blocks that make up the dolmen have rough, barely roughed-up surfaces, typical of Neolithic megalithic practices in the region, which did not resort to polishing or fine carving. The chamber, accessible from an open or slightly open side, must originally have been surrounded or surmounted by a mound of earth and stones, which has now disappeared - as is the case for the vast majority of French dolmens, whose covering cairns have been washed away by erosion, agriculture or the reuse of materials. The overall dimensions are modest but representative: the roof table is probably two to three metres long and one and a half to two metres wide, making this a medium-sized dolmen on the scale of French megalithic monuments. The choice of location reveals a keen sense of topography: set slightly higher than the valley floor, the site offers a view of the surrounding horizon, in line with the megalithic siting practices observed throughout Western Europe, where setting the monument in the landscape was an integral part of its symbolic and communal dimension.
Related Figures
Communautés néolithiques du Chablais (3500-2800 av. J.-C.) — bâtisseurs anonymes du monumentÉdouard Desor (1811-1882) — naturaliste et préhistorien suisse ayant documenté les mégalithes de l'arc lémaniqueAlexandre Bertrand (1820-1902) — archéologue, directeur du musée des Antiquités nationales, acteur majeur des premières listes de classement de 1889Adrien Arcelin (1838-1904) — archéologue savoyard ayant contribué à l'inventaire des mégalithes de la région alpineFélix Rémy — érudit local du XIXe siècle ayant signalé le dolmen aux autorités savantes
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Dolmen dit La Cave ou Chambre aux Fées located?
Dolmen dit La Cave ou Chambre aux Fées is located in Saint-Cergues, Département 74 department, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, France.
Is Dolmen dit La Cave ou Chambre aux Fées open to visitors?
Dolmen dit La Cave ou Chambre aux Fées is currently closed to visitors.