Dolmen dit Peyro Cotado
MonumentHidden Treasure
Dolmen dit Peyro Cotado, located in Larnagol (Département 46), is a historic monument. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- autre
- Location
- Larnagol, Département 46, Occitanie
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 44.4924, 1.7533
- Mérimée Reference
- PA00095126
A Neolithic vestige in the Lot, Peyro Cotado rises up from the limestone slabs on the Quercy limestone plateaux: a dolmen with a covered chamber listed as a Historic Monument, a silent witness to 5,000 years of human history.
History
Perched on the limestone heights overlooking the Célé valley, just a stone's throw from the market town of Larnagol, the dolmen known as Peyro Cotado - "carved stone" in Occitan - is one of the few preserved megalithic monuments in the southern Lot. Its presence in the Quercy Blanc region, where limestone outcrops in natural slabs, is no coincidence: Neolithic builders knew how to read the landscape and chose their materials and locations with care. What sets Peyro Cotado apart from the surrounding megaliths is first and foremost the remarkable condition of its top table, an imposing slab that still rests on its orthostats with a stability evocative of the care taken in its construction. The precision of the stonework, carried out without mortar or metal, bears witness to a technical and collective mastery that contemporary archaeologists continue to admire. Each stone was extracted, transported and erected by human hands, probably over several generations. The experience of visiting the site is one of going back to basics. Here, no museographic device stands between the visitor and the raw stone. You move freely around the structure, experiencing its volumes, measuring the height of the sepulchral chamber at shoulder height. Millennia of erosion have left the surfaces with a patina of golden hues that are characteristic of the Lot causse, and which are revealed with particular intensity by the low-angled light of the morning or evening. The natural setting plays a full part in the atmosphere of the place. The pubescent oak and juniper trees typical of the causse form a discreet backdrop, allowing the light to filter through without ever overwhelming the monument. On a clear day, the view from the area around the dolmen takes in the wooded meanders of the Célé and the steep slopes for which the Lot is famous. It's a site where you can take the time to stop and reflect, to wonder about the men and women who chose this promontory to honour their dead.
Architecture
Peyro Cotado is a simple single-chamber dolmen, the most common architectural type in the Quercy region. It consists of orthostats - slabs of local limestone set vertically into the earth - forming the side walls and base of a roughly rectangular burial chamber. A large covering slab, the table, rests horizontally on these uprights, closing off the chamber at the top. The whole structure originally rested on a mound of earth and dry stone, of which a few remains remain on the ground today. The materials used came exclusively from the local substrate: dense, resistant white to beige limestone, typical of the Quercy limestone plateaux. In selecting the blocks, great care was taken to ensure that the contact faces were even, so that the foundation could be stable without the use of binders. The usual dimensions for this type of monument in the region are a chamber around 2 to 3 metres long and 1 to 1.5 metres wide, and the table can weigh several tonnes. The technical singularity of Peyro Cotado lies in the quality of its preservation: the covering table has remained in place, which is relatively rare for Lot dolmens exposed to the vagaries of the climate and the agricultural re-use of stones over the centuries. The orientation of the chamber, probably facing east or south-east as was common practice in Quercy dolmens, may have allowed the light of the rising sun to penetrate the tomb during the equinoxes, a cosmological dimension that contemporary archaeology is exploring with growing interest.
Related Figures
Bâtisseurs néolithiques anonymes du Quercy (vers 4000-3000 av. J.-C.)Édouard Lartet, paléontologue et préhistorien lotois du XIXe siècle, pionnier de l'étude des mégalithes quercynoisGabriel de Mortillet, préhistorien français qui contribua à la classification des monuments mégalithiques de France au XIXe siècleConservateurs des Monuments Historiques du Lot, acteurs de la protection et de l'inventaire des mégalithes départementaux au XXe siècle
Tags
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Dolmen dit Peyro Cotado located?
Dolmen dit Peyro Cotado is located in Larnagol, Département 46 department, Occitanie region, France.
Is Dolmen dit Peyro Cotado open to visitors?
Dolmen dit Peyro Cotado is currently closed to visitors.
