Menhir dit de La Pierre des Fées
MonumentHidden Treasure
Menhir dit de La Pierre des Fées, located in Janzé (Département 35), is a historic monument. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- autre
- Location
- Janzé, Département 35, Bretagne
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 47.9188, -1.5425
- Mérimée Reference
- PA00090606
Sentinelle de pierre dressée aux portes de Rennes, la Pierre des Fées de Janzé défie le temps depuis plus de 5 000 ans. Ce menhir néolithique, classé Monument Historique, incarne la spiritualité mystérieuse des bâtisseurs de mégalithes bretons.
History
Standing on the edge of the town of Janzé, in Ille-et-Vilaine, the Pierre des Fées is one of those silent landmarks that have punctuated the Breton landscape since the Neolithic period. A monument in its own right in an area less renowned than Morbihan for its megaliths, it nevertheless bears witness to a remarkable density of prehistoric human occupation on the outskirts of what is now the Rennes basin. Its solitary, imposing silhouette, planted in the earth like a perpetual affirmation, fascinates as much as it questions. What sets the Pierre des Fées apart is above all the persistence of its presence in a bocage landscape that has changed profoundly over the centuries. Where forests, fields and market towns have succeeded one another, the menhir has remained, an immovable witness to a vanished world. Its popular name - 'Fairy Stone' - is symptomatic of the way in which rural communities have long reinterpreted these monuments, which were incomprehensible in their own time, filling them with a fairytale and legendary imagination that is specific to Breton culture. Visiting the Pierre des Fées is like taking a break from time, far from the hustle and bustle of tourism. The site lends itself to slow contemplation, to that quiet meditation that only truly ancient monuments allow. Here, better than in any museum, you can appreciate the sheer scale of the human effort required to hoist and anchor such a block of rough stone - a collective, ritual and founding gesture. The surrounding countryside, typically bocage, with its hedges of trees and sunken lanes, heightens the sense of isolation and anachronism. Photographed in the low-angled morning light or in the autumn fog so characteristic of Ille-et-Vilaine, the menhir reveals a striking plastic power. A discreet monument of absolute authenticity, it's a must-see for lovers of prehistoric heritage travelling through eastern Brittany.
Architecture
The Pierre des Fées at Janzé belongs to the category of isolated menhirs, stones erected vertically in the ground by Neolithic populations. Carved from local granite with the grey-beige hues characteristic of the geological base of Ille-et-Vilaine, it has the typical morphology of these monoliths: an elongated block of stone, the narrowest face of which is planted in the ground to ensure stability, and the emerging mass of which offers a slightly irregular, tapered silhouette, the result of both roughing work and the effects of millennia of erosion. Its height, estimated at between two and three metres above the ground, is in line with the average for isolated Armorican menhirs, which range from a few dozen centimetres to giants over ten metres tall like the ancient Locmariaquer menhir. Its slightly flattened cross-section gives it a preferential orientation which, like many of its counterparts, may have had astronomical or symbolic significance for its builders. The surface of the stone is marked by lichens and mosses that gradually colonise the granite exposed to the elements, giving it the green and ochre patina typical of old megaliths. The siting of the menhir in the hedged farmland of Janzé, with no built infrastructure around it, preserves the authenticity of the relationship between the monument and its natural surroundings. No rock carvings have been found on this menhir - unlike some of the megaliths in Morbihan, which are adorned with cup-shaped or cross-shaped signs - which means that it belongs to the tradition of standing stones that are purely volumetric, whose power comes from the sheer physical presence of the block.
Related Figures
Les communautés néolithiques de la région rennaise (4500-2000 av. J.-C.) — bâtisseurs anonymes du menhirLes érudits et archéologues du XIXe siècle ayant contribué aux inventaires mégalithiques d'Ille-et-VilaineProsper Mérimée — inspecteur général des Monuments Historiques, initiateur de la politique nationale de protection du patrimoine préhistoriqueAndré Malraux — ministre des Affaires culturelles lors du classement du monument en 1963Les folkloristes bretons du XIXe siècle (Paul Sébillot, Anatole Le Braz) ayant collecté les légendes attachées aux menhirs de la région
Tags
Nearby castles
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Menhir dit de La Pierre des Fées located?
Menhir dit de La Pierre des Fées is located in Janzé, Département 35 department, Bretagne region, France.
Is Menhir dit de La Pierre des Fées open to visitors?
Menhir dit de La Pierre des Fées is currently closed to visitors.
