Menhir dit La Pierre Longue
MonumentHidden Treasure
Menhir dit La Pierre Longue, located in Guitté (Département 22), is a historic monument. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- autre
- Location
- Guitté, Département 22, Bretagne
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 48.2947, -2.0674
- Mérimée Reference
- PA00089192
A stone sentinel since the Neolithic period, La Pierre Longue de Guitté watches over the bocages of the Costarmoric region. This menhir, listed as a Historic Monument, embodies five millennia of human presence in inland Brittany.
History
In the heart of the Guitté region, in the Côtes-d'Armor, stands a familiar yet striking silhouette: La Pierre Longue, a solitary menhir set in the landscape like a granite punctuation mark in the middle of fields and hedgerows. A listed Neolithic monument since 1967, it belongs to the constellation of standing stones that make Brittany Europe's richest region for megaliths, and which continue to question our relationship with prehistory and the transmission of memory. What distinguishes La Pierre Longue de Guitté from so many other Breton monoliths is precisely the ability of solitary menhirs to focus the eye and the imagination in an open space. Far from the great alignments of Carnac or the spectacular cromlechs, this monument has the power of isolated stones: it imposes its verticality without pomp, without neighbouring stones, standing alone in time and space. Its slender silhouette - typical of the menhirs of the Armorican hinterland - is in harmony with the gentle horizons of this transitional region between granite Brittany and the marches of Upper Brittany. To visit La Pierre Longue is to agree to slow down. The experience is contemplative before it is erudite: you walk around the block, rest your hand on the grain of the granite, looking for the traces of polishing or intentional cutting in its roughness. The low-angled light of morning or evening reveals textures that are invisible in full sunlight, offering photographers and attentive walkers new interpretations every time they pass. The rural setting of Guitté adds to the authenticity of the visit. There are no tourist attractions, no car parks or illuminated signs: just the menhir in its environment, as it was five thousand years ago. The hedgerow paths that lead to the site run through a lively agricultural landscape, where the encounter with the megalith is all the more powerful because it takes place at the bend in the path, almost by surprise. This change of scenery, freely accessible and free of charge, is one of the most authentic experiences Breton prehistoric heritage has to offer.
Architecture
The Pierre Longue belongs to the category of isolated menhirs, the most widespread and purest form of Breton megalithic art. Standing vertically in the ground, the local granite block has the characteristic profile of Armorican monoliths: wider at the base than at the top, slightly tapered, with a partially rough outer surface reflecting natural extraction from the rock, and faces showing in places the traces of deliberate regularisation work. The height of the menhir, estimated at several metres above the ground, gives it a strong visual presence in the flat or gently undulating landscape of the Guitté region. The material used is Armorican granite, a magmatic rock that is ubiquitous in the subsoil of the Côtes-d'Armor region, and is exceptionally resistant to erosion and the passage of time. This choice was no accident: Neolithic builders selected their blocks on the basis of their durability, natural shape and ability to be worked without splintering. The coarse crystallisation of the local granite gives the stone a rough, grainy texture, visible to the naked eye, which changes appearance depending on the incidence of light. Like most Breton menhirs from this period and this region, La Pierre Longue has no engraved inscriptions or identifiable sculpted decoration, unlike the anthropomorphic stelae of Morbihan or the decorated stones of Gavrinis. Its language is one of pure verticality, of silent mass set against the horizontality of the agricultural landscape: minimal architecture that is nonetheless one of the most powerful expressions of prehistoric human ingenuity.
Related Figures
Communautés néolithiques armoricaines (4000-2500 av. J.-C.) — bâtisseurs anonymes du menhirProsper Mérimée — inspecteur général des Monuments Historiques, pionnier du recensement mégalithique breton au XIXe siècleZacharie Le Rouzic — archéologue breton, fondateur du musée de Préhistoire de Carnac, dont les travaux ont permis la reconnaissance des mégalithes régionauxAbbé Mahé — l'un des premiers érudits à recenser et étudier les monuments mégalithiques des Côtes-du-Nord au début du XIXe sièclePaul du Châtellier — archéologue et collectionneur breton dont les inventaires du XIXe siècle ont contribué à la préservation des sites préhistoriques armoricains
Tags
Nearby castles
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Menhir dit La Pierre Longue located?
Menhir dit La Pierre Longue is located in Guitté, Département 22 department, Bretagne region, France.
Is Menhir dit La Pierre Longue open to visitors?
Menhir dit La Pierre Longue is currently closed to visitors.
