Six sépultures circulaires sous tertre tumulaire
MonumentHidden Treasure
Six sépultures circulaires sous tertre tumulaire, located in Plougoumelen (Département 56), is a historic monument. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- autre
- Location
- Plougoumelen, Département 56, Bretagne
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- Mérimée Reference
- PA00091515
Neolithic burial mound at Plougoumelen: six circular tombs nestling under an ancestral mound, silent witnesses to Breton burial rites over 5,000 years ago.
History
In the heart of the Morbihan region, the land of megaliths par excellence, the six circular burial mounds at Plougoumelen form a funeral complex of rare coherence. Listed as Historic Monuments since 1928, these structures belong to the long tradition of corridor monuments and chamber tombs that dotted the Breton coastline in the Middle Neolithic, around the 4th millennium BC. What sets this site apart from the multitude of Breton burial mounds is its unique internal organisation: six separate burials, all circular in plan, share the same covering mound. This configuration reflects a collective and probably repeated use of the burial site, suggesting that the community that built it saw death not as an individual event but as a communal rite of passage, binding generations together under a single vault of earth. The visit takes place in a gentle landscape of hedged farmland, typical of the hinterland of the Auray ria. The mound, discreet in its surroundings, nonetheless offers an authentic archaeological experience: the proximity of the orthostatse and the dry stone facings is a reminder of the ingenuity of prehistoric builders, capable of mobilising considerable human resources without the use of metal tools. The low-angled light of morning or evening reveals the relief of the mound with particularly evocative clarity. Plougoumelen is part of the megalithic galaxy of the Gulf of Morbihan, just a few kilometres from Locmariaquer, Carnac and Gavrinis Island. This site, less frequented than its famous neighbours, offers a more solitary and contemplative immersion in Breton prehistory, far from the mass tourist flows. This is the monument for those who want to go off the beaten track.
Architecture
The monument consists of an elongated or sub-circular mound of earth and stone, enveloping and protecting six independent sepulchral structures. Each of these burials is circular in plan, typical of the Armorican Neolithic, and distinguished from the large covered walkways by its compactness and its individual or bifamilial character. The chambers are delimited by orthostats made of local granite, a stone that is ubiquitous in Morbihan, assembled without mortar using the dry stone bonding technique. The mound itself, whose original height has been partially reduced by centuries of erosion and agricultural activity, was originally intended to rise between two and four metres above the surrounding ground. Its footprint, covering the six burial cells, gives it considerable dimensions for a monument of this type in the region. The building materials - fieldstone, roofing slabs and earth fill - all come from the immediate geological environment, testifying to the builders' perfect knowledge of the area. The arrangement of the six burials within the mound, whether in a row, in clusters or in two parallel rows, reveals a premeditated architectural design rather than a simple random stacking. This internal spatial organisation makes the Plougoumelen burial mound a valuable architectural document for the study of collective burial practices in the Breton Neolithic.
Related Figures
Communautés néolithiques du Morbihan (IVe millénaire av. J.-C.) — bâtisseurs anonymes du tumulusProsper de Courcelles — archéologue breton du XIXe siècle ayant contribué à l'inventaire des mégalithes morbihannaisZacharie Le Rouzic — archéologue de Carnac, pionnier de l'étude et de la préservation des monuments mégalithiques du Morbihan au début du XXe siècleJames Miln — archéologue écossais installé à Carnac, dont les fouilles du XIXe siècle éclairèrent la culture néolithique armoricaineService des Monuments Historiques (1928) — instance ayant prononcé le classement protecteur du site
Map
Coordinates not available for this monument.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Six sépultures circulaires sous tertre tumulaire located?
Six sépultures circulaires sous tertre tumulaire is located in Plougoumelen, Département 56 department, Bretagne region, France.
Is Six sépultures circulaires sous tertre tumulaire open to visitors?
Six sépultures circulaires sous tertre tumulaire is currently closed to visitors.