Menhir dit de Saint-Duzec
MonumentHidden Treasure
Menhir dit de Saint-Duzec, located in Pleumeur-Bodou (Département 22), is a Renaissance château built in the 16th century. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- autre
- Period
- Renaissance (16th century)
- Location
- Pleumeur-Bodou, Département 22, Bretagne
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 48.7887, -3.5445
- Mérimée Reference
- PA00089442
A Christianised granite sentinel, the Saint-Duzec menhir rises to a height of almost 8 metres and boasts the only cross in Brittany topped by the instruments of the Passion carved from Neolithic stone.
History
Standing on the moors of Pleumeur-Bodou, on the edge of the Lannion peninsula, the Saint-Duzec menhir is one of the most impressive and unusual megaliths in Brittany. Its tall, tapering silhouette, carved from local granite with a bluish-grey sheen, dominates the coastal plain with a quiet authority that has stood the test of time. Listed as a historic monument since 1889, it alone embodies the fascinating tension between the Neolithic world and the Christian faith that reconfigured the mental landscape of Armorique. What really sets Saint-Duzec apart from its Breton counterparts is the spectacular Christianisation it underwent, probably during the 17th century. On its main face, sculptors have carved a cross into the granite and, below it, an iconographic ensemble of rare precision: the arma Christi - cock, whip, pincers, spear, sponge, nails and Passion scale. A neighbouring medallion depicts the Virgin and Child. This conversion of a stone erected by prehistoric man into a support for Christian devotion is a practice attested in Brittany, but rarely with such rich detail. The visit is striking in its simplicity. The menhir is reached by a grassy path, with no barriers or museum displays. The stone gradually reveals itself, massive and sloping slightly towards the sunset. Up close, the texture of the granite reveals the traces of time: golden lichens colonise the lower parts while the sculpted reliefs retain their sharpness. You need to take the time to walk around the monolith to read its different faces and grasp the dialogue between the raw block and the sculptors' hands. The setting itself adds to the enchantment. The area around Pleumeur-Bodou combines heather moorland, groves of stunted oaks and open views towards the English Channel. A few kilometres away, the site of the radome of the Centre de Télécom creates a strange neighbourhood between the most ancient prehistory and the most technological modernity - a contrast that only Brittany can offer with such serenity.
Architecture
The Saint-Duzec menhir is a monolith of Armorican granite, a plutonic rock abundant in the Trégor region, characterised by its exceptional hardness and medium to coarse grain size. The shaft, which tapers slightly towards the top, reaches a height of around 7.50 to 8 metres above ground level, making it one of the largest standing menhirs in the Côtes-d'Armor department. Its cross-section is sub-quadrangular at the bottom, gradually rounding out towards the top where the Christian cross stands. The whole structure rests on a buried base whose depth, estimated at over one metre, has ensured the stability of the block for thousands of years. The main face of the menhir, facing roughly west, bears the Christian iconography. The Latin cross, carved in relief on the upper part of the stone, is flanked by a sculpted panel depicting the instruments of the Passion - a perched cock, whip, pincers, hammer, nails, centurion's spear, reed sponge, ladder and rope - arranged with the precision of an illuminator. Underneath is a shallow niche housing a bas-relief Virgin and Child, whose modelling betrays the hand of a sculptor trained in the tradition of the workshops in Tréguier or Lannion. The surface treatment on these sculpted parts contrasts with the roughness of the rest of the shaft, left in its natural state. From a purely megalithic point of view, the menhir meets the typological criteria of the large Armorican Neolithic stelae: extraction by percussion from an outcrop, rough shaping by staking to regularise the faces without aiming for a perfect polish, then vertical placement in a pit filled with wedges. No prehistoric ornamentation - a spiral, a polished axe, a crook-shaped sign - has been identified on the rock, which sets Saint-Duzec apart from the ornate menhirs of Morbihan. Paradoxically, its native sobriety reinforces the visual impact of the late Christian decoration, which is in dialogue with the raw verticality of the ancestral stone.
Related Figures
Artisans tailleurs de pierre du Trégor (XVIIe siècle) — auteurs présumés du décor sculpté chrétienSaint Duzec — saint breton local dont le culte a donné son nom au menhirProsper Mérimée — inspecteur général des monuments historiques, sous l'égide de qui les premières listes de protection furent établies, incluant ce menhir en 1889Paul du Chatellier — archéologue breton du XIXe siècle ayant contribué à l'inventaire des mégalithes armoricainsÉvêques de Tréguier (XVIIe siècle) — autorité ecclésiastique sous laquelle la christianisation du menhir fut vraisemblablement conduite
Tags
Nearby castles
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Menhir dit de Saint-Duzec located?
Menhir dit de Saint-Duzec is located in Pleumeur-Bodou, Département 22 department, Bretagne region, France.
When was Menhir dit de Saint-Duzec built?
Menhir dit de Saint-Duzec dates back to a period built during the Renaissance (16th century).
Is Menhir dit de Saint-Duzec open to visitors?
Menhir dit de Saint-Duzec is currently closed to visitors.
