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The great menhir of St-Gonvarc'h


Municipality of Landunvez



Classified Historic Monument in 1889, called Argenton menhir.
  renewed on 27 May 1969 under its present name.





Parking GPS : 48°30'58 N  4°43'27 W





Be careful, do not enter the plot if there are cattle or if it is cultivated.





Access :   From St-Renan, take the D68 towards Argenton. After the St-Roch chapel, turn right at the 2d road and park at the second crossing on the right near the sign "St-Gonvarc'h".
  The menhir can be seen 200 m to the left, in the middle of a large field. Its access is very rarely possible because the field is mostly cultivated up to the foot of the monument and no passage is planned to reach it. So you have to resign yourself to contemplating it from afar and use a powerful zoom to photograph it.






  It is a very beautiful quadrangular menhir of 5,40 m height for a width of 1,60 m and a thickness of 0,90 m. Cut with great care from a block of pink porphyroid granite from the Aber Ildut, it has undergone a complete hammering that makes its faces very regular.



   On two of its edges we notice a notch which has led to a slight cutting of the stone. The result is a curious anthropomorphic effect depending on where it is observed from. Obviously, these abductions are voluntary and were perhaps carried out after the hammering in order to avoid the ropes slipping during the transport of the stone to its erection site.



   The bushhammered surface is largely exfoliated on the east face. This is wear due to alternating periods of rain and drought which has made the stone porous on its surface. The water flowing along the impermeable granite causes the porous layer to detach. 1


Drawing by Jean-Yves André©

-1- Explanation provided by Professor Louis CHAURIS in :
"The granite saga of Aber Ildut III: Pink granite megaliths"
Lanildut Local History Circle, 2002.


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