Cairn of Gavrinis

Gavrinis is a small granite island in the Gulf of Morbihan, uninhabited and only about 750 by 400 metres, and the round stone mound on its crest hides one of the most richly carved chambers of the Neolithic in Europe. The cairn, about 50 metres across, was raised around 4200 to 4000 BC, and it was used as a passage grave until about 3000 BC, when its builders sealed the entrance and left it to the heather.

Inside, a passage 14 metres long leads to a small square chamber about two and a half metres across. What makes Gavrinis unique is the stone itself: of the 29 upright slabs lining the passage, 23 are covered almost edge to edge with carvings, pecked into the granite in dense concentric arcs, zigzags, wavy lines, lozenges, axe blades and crook shapes, so that the walls look like fingerprints or rippled water. The meaning of the motifs is unknown, and every attempt to read them, from sun symbols to stylised figures, remains a guess.

The roof held a second surprise. In 1984 researchers realised that the great ceiling slab of the chamber, weighing close to 17 tonnes, fits together with capstones of two monuments at Locmariaquer across the gulf; all three were cut from a single huge decorated standing stone, deliberately broken and shared out, a reuse that says much about how these communities treated their own older monuments. The tomb was first dug into in the 1830s, and the stonework was restored by Zacharie Le Rouzic from around 1930 and consolidated again later in the century.

Getting there

Gavrinis lies in the Gulf of Morbihan, about 14 km from Vannes, and is reached only by boat from Larmor-Baden on the mainland shore. The nearest airport is Rennes–Saint-Jacques (RNS), about 103 km away.