At 9.5 meters in peak (about 31 toes), the Kerloas menhir is the tallest menhir (or standing stone) on the planet nonetheless upright. It's positioned barely beneath the best level of the Pays d'Iroise, and dominates a nice and huge area for guests.
The menhir's flattened form and floor flanks are typical of a Bronze Age approach. It has the particularity of getting a curiously bevelled prime. The monument, which is claimed to have as soon as reached 11 to 12 meters in peak (36 to 39 toes), was broken by lightning throughout the seventeenth century. It's stated that from the block that fell to the bottom, a farmer made a trough. The stone is seen from as much as 30 kilometers away—particularly from some buildings in Brest—and has lengthy been a outstanding landmark for navigators.
Specialists estimate the overall weight of the menhir, also referred to as Kervéatoux menhir, to be between 100 and 150 tons. Composed of porphyroid granite, it was most likely extracted from outcrops at the least two kilometers away in direction of Aber Ildut. From then on, we will think about the difficulties that the monument's builders needed to overcome to extract it from its rock, carve it, then transport it over this distance up the pure slope of the land, and erect it in its present location.
The Kerloas menhir has two reverse humps at about one metre from the bottom, two small rounded protuberances about thirty centimetres in diameter. That is why some individuals nonetheless name this monument Le Bossu (“the hunchback”). The presence of those two reverse bumps on a superbly bush-hammered stone means that they have been intentionally formed if not maintained. For what objective? One can think about, for instance, that they might have been used to dam ropes throughout transport. One other protrusion, however of a distinct kind, is seen on the menhir of Kerhouézel, within the commune of Porspoder.
A ceremony was transmitted to us by a number of Nineteenth-century vacationers. Jacques Cambry, a Breton author, tells us, for instance, in 1805: “New brides take their husbands there, make them kiss the stone, to be mistresses of their properties. A wierd superstition causes women and men to rub their navels towards this pillar to offer start to boys relatively than ladies, and the stone is worn and polished on the waist.”
For his half, in 1832, Christophe-Paulin de la Poix, Chevalier de Fréminville, advised us: “The newlyweds go devoutly to the foot of this menhir, and after having partly stripped themselves of their garments, the girl on one facet, the husband on the opposite, rub their naked bellies towards one among these bumps. The person claims, by way of this ridiculous ceremony, to acquire male kids relatively than daughters, and the girl claims that by doing so she can have the benefit of being absolutely the mistress of the dwelling and of governing her husband solely.”
One other legend claims that the stones scattered all through the territory, together with the Kerloas menhir, have been thrown by the enormous Gargantua on the inhabitants of Plouarzel as a result of he was sad with the meals that they had given him to eat.
A number of excavations have been carried out across the monument. They revealed a pavement about 20 meters lengthy and 26 shards from the deposition of a Bronze Age ceramic vase, from a lot later than the erection of the menhir. In 1961, following the clandestine excavation of a treasure seeker, one other pottery deposit was found on the foot of the monument. The shards have been deposited on the Museum of Prehistory in Penmarc'h. Sadly, we don't but know the civilization that created this feat.
