Friday 20 March 2009

Past and Present: Brittany


Morbihan in southern Brittany has one of the greatest concentrations of megaliths to be found anywhere. There are so many that you get used to spotting them in unlikely surroundings – adjacent to a filling station, next to a modern house, in the middle of a forest or on the cliff tops of the Quiberon peninsula. This fine dolmen is located at the point where two roads diverge in the middle of the tiny village of Crucuno. It was recorded about 100 years ago by this postcard photographer. A century is a very small time in the life of a megalith so we should not be surprised that so little has changed when it was photographed again in March 2008. The entrance has been altered and the render removed from the wall of the neighbouring house, otherwise all is as it was. We get used to seeing these structures surrounded by a cordon sanitaire of landscaped open space but in my view, they lose none of their mystery when they’re encountered in the midst of modern development. If anything, the sense of incongruity is enhanced.

2 comments:

PIGNOUF said...

Hello Phil, I am from Brittany (Josselin), but I live in the South of France. The alignments of Carnac are magic!

Phil Beard said...

Bonjour Pignouf. D'accord, Carnac est magnifique. Nous avons souvent visiter la Bretagne et de l'aimer beaucoup.