Tertre et cistes du Pusso
MonumentHidden Treasure
Tertre et cistes du Pusso, located in Erdeven (Département 56), is a historic monument. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- autre
- Location
- Erdeven, Département 56, Bretagne
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 47.6279, -3.1060
- Mérimée Reference
- PA56000120
In the heart of the megalithic region of Erdeven, the Pusso mound and cists reveal a Neolithic collective burial site of remarkable integrity, silent testimony to funerary rituals dating back five millennia.
History
Nestling in the commune of Erdeven, in one of the most densely populated areas of megaliths in the world, the Pusso mound and cists form a Neolithic funerary complex of exceptional archaeological value. The site, which was recently listed as a Historic Monument in July 2023, is part of the great Morbihan tradition of rough stone architecture built between 5,000 and 6,000 years ago by sedentary farming communities. The monument is distinguished by its combination of a mound - a mass of earth and stones carefully shaped into a mound - and cists, funerary caissons formed of upright granite slabs and a covering slab. This combination reveals an elaborate concept of funerary space, in which the world of the living and that of the dead are articulated according to a precise symbolic geography. Each cist could accommodate one or more graves, sometimes accompanied by ceramic offerings or polished flint tools. To visit the Pusso is to come face to face with the enigma of these anonymous Neolithic builders, capable of mobilising an entire community to honour their dead in a stone architecture destined to defy eternity. The silence of the site, often bathed in low-angled light from the nearby Atlantic, reinforces the feeling of a palpable ancestral presence. The surrounding area of Erdeven, with the Kerzerho alignments only a few kilometres away, places the Pusso within a vast network of megalithic sites whose exceptional concentration makes the Morbihan a unique territory in Europe for the study of monumental prehistory. This context makes for an enriching visit, combining several sites in the course of a single day.
Architecture
The Pusso mound belongs to the category of funerary monuments with lithic chamber(s) characteristic of the Middle Armorican Neolithic. The mound itself is an elongated or sub-circular mound, made up of a pile of earth, gravel and small granite blocks, with a footprint up to twenty metres long and a preserved height of one to two metres. This protective mass covers and marks out the rockroses, which form the architectural and symbolic heart of the system. The cists are funerary chests built from large slabs of local granite, set vertically to form the side walls and ends of the caisson, then topped with one or more horizontal covering slabs. Each cist typically measures between 0.8 and 1.5 metres in length and 0.5 to 0.8 metres in width, a size suited to the burial of a body in a flexed position or to the deposit of grouped bones. Pink or grey Morbihan granite, the dominant material in this region, gives the slabs their characteristic rough, grainy appearance. The overall effect is one of remarkable technical mastery for a society without metallurgy: the adjustment of the slabs, their stabilisation by wedging and the care taken with the general orientation of the monument - often directed along an east-west axis in line with the sunrise - bear witness to a fully developed architectural know-how, passed down from generation to generation by specialised craftsmen.
Related Figures
Les bâtisseurs néolithiques anonymes d'Erdeven (vers 4500-3500 av. J.-C.)Prosper Mérimée, inspecteur général des Monuments Historiques, initiateur de la protection des mégalithes bretons au XIXe siècleRené Galles, archéologue vannetais du XIXe siècle, pionnier des fouilles mégalithiques du MorbihanZacharie Le Rouzic, préhistorien et conservateur de Carnac (1864-1939), référence incontournable de l'étude des mégalithes armoricainsJames Miln, archéologue écossais ayant contribué aux premières fouilles systématiques de la région de Carnac-Erdeven à la fin du XIXe siècle
Tags
Nearby castles
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Tertre et cistes du Pusso located?
Tertre et cistes du Pusso is located in Erdeven, Département 56 department, Bretagne region, France.
Is Tertre et cistes du Pusso open to visitors?
Tertre et cistes du Pusso is currently closed to visitors.
