Menhir de Pasquiou
MonumentHidden Treasure
Menhir de Pasquiou, located in Le Vieux-Bourg (Département 22), is a historic monument. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- autre
- Location
- Le Vieux-Bourg, Département 22, Bretagne
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 48.3934, -3.0476
- Mérimée Reference
- PA00089744
A granite sentinel since the Neolithic period, the Pasquiou menhir watches over the grounds of Vieux-Bourg with a solemnity that goes back thousands of years. A raw and striking testimony to the megalithic soul of Brittany.
History
In the heart of the Côtes-d'Armor region, in the peaceful commune of Vieux-Bourg, the Pasquiou menhir rises like a stone pointer pointing skywards, a monumental relic of a Neolithic civilisation that has never completely disappeared. This block of local granite, fashioned by the hands of men and women who had neither writing nor metal, imposes a respectful silence on anyone who approaches it. Its mere presence is enough to reconfigure our relationship with time. What makes this menhir truly singular is its setting in a typical Central Brittany landscape, far removed from the large megalithic concentrations of Morbihan. Isolated, it embodies a discreet, almost intimate form of monumentality, in contrast to the grandiloquence of Carnac or Locmariaquer. Here, there are no crowds or tourist attractions: the encounter is direct, almost personal, between the visitor and five or six millennia of human history. The visitor experience is as much a pilgrimage as a walk. You can get there along rural lanes lined with hedges and oak trees, in an inland Brittany untouched by contemporary noise. The orange and greyish lichens that cover the granite tell of the centuries of rain and wind that have patiently sculpted the surface of the stone. Early in the morning, when the mist lingers in the hollows of the countryside, the menhir literally seems to emerge from another age. Listed as a Historic Monument since 1965, the Pasquiou menhir benefits from official protection that guarantees its integrity. This institutional recognition, belated in view of the monument's age, nonetheless testifies to France's determination to preserve its most ancient legacies, even the most discreet. For lovers of prehistory, geology and Celtic culture, it's a must-see when exploring the archaeological treasures of the Côtes-d'Armor.
Architecture
The Pasquiou menhir is a monolith of Armorican granite, a magmatic rock characteristic of the Breton subsoil, renowned for its hardness and exceptional resistance to erosion. Its colour varies from bluish grey to pinkish beige, depending on the amount of sunlight, and its surface is colonised by a variety of lichens, attesting to its great age and stability in an open environment. The shaft, roughly carved to make it easier to erect while preserving the rough appearance of the natural rock, has a tapering silhouette towards the top, a common feature of Armorican menhirs. The height of the menhir, estimated at between two and four metres above the ground - with a significant part buried in the ground to ensure its stability - is in line with the norm for isolated menhirs in Central Brittany, which are generally less spectacular in scale than those on the Morbihan coast, but have a remarkable plastic presence in their landscape context. Its siting takes account of the local topography: placed on a slight natural eminence, it can be seen from a respectable distance along the surrounding paths, reinforcing its probable role as a signpost in the Neolithic landscape. The absence of any visible engraved decoration distinguishes the Pasquiou menhir from the more ornate examples to be found in Finistère and Morbihan. The bareness of the stone is not an impoverishment, but a form of austerity that accentuates the formal power of the whole: here, it is the mass, the verticality and the raw material that constitute the architectural language, with no artifice other than that of overcoming gravity.
Related Figures
Populations néolithiques armoricaines (Ve-IIIe millénaire av. J.-C.) — bâtisseurs anonymes du menhirProsper Mérimée — inspecteur général des Monuments Historiques, précurseur de l'inventaire des mégalithes bretons au XIXe sièclePaul du Châtellier — archéologue finistérien du XIXe siècle, pionnier du recensement des monuments préhistoriques armoricainsZacharie Le Rouzic — archéologue breton (1864-1939), spécialiste des mégalithes dont les travaux ont éclairé le contexte régional des menhirs isolés
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Menhir de Pasquiou located?
Menhir de Pasquiou is located in Le Vieux-Bourg, Département 22 department, Bretagne region, France.
Is Menhir de Pasquiou open to visitors?
Menhir de Pasquiou is currently closed to visitors.