Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Carnac stones" in English language version.
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the longest Alpine jade axehead from one of the massive Carnac mounds at Mané er Hroëck at Locmariaquer (Morbihan, France) measures no less than 46.6 cm in length … hundreds of hours of supplementary polishing would have been required to produce the 'Carnac−style' axeheads, with their perfect regularity of form, their extreme thinness and sometimes with a perforation through their butt. … For certain examples, a figure of 1000 hours is far from being unreasonable.
The status of the individuals who were interred in the massive mounds in the Carnac area of the Gulf of Morbihan, accompanied by numerous large Alpine axeheads and by other objects imported over long distances, is therefore all the more exceptional and demands to be explained. ... The evidence encourages us to regard this society – which produced the earliest megalithic architecture in Europe around the middle of the 5th millennium, together with a whole repertoire of symbolic imagery engraved on extraordinary standing stones, as one which was markedly inegalitarian, with some men having acquired an intermediary status between the elite and the supernatural powers. Such individuals would have been theocrats, 'divine kings'.
The 'Powerful Ones' who were interred under the massive mounds of Tumiac at Arzon, Saint−Michel at Carnac and Mané er Hroëck at Locmariaquer would have been supreme sovereigns in a system of royalty based on religious concepts, where the 'King' is an intermediary between people and supernatural Powers.
the builders of the Carnac graves are very likely the same people who also solved the technical problems linked to the quarrying, the haulage over at least 10 km and the erection of the Er Grah 'grand menhir'. … one could say that the existence of a king explains the invention of the lost wax technique in Varna culture and the processes that led to the erection of the Er Grah broken menhir at Locmariaquer.
It has long been recognised that, in Neolithic and Chalcolithic Europe, there existed a kind of 'mirror image' between Carnac and the Gulf of Morbihan (Brittany, France) in the west and Varna (Bulgaria) in the east. Around the middle of the fifth millennium BC, these two areas display a remarkable wealth in their funerary assemblages (with jade and variscite being used in the west and gold and copper in the east), and they also shared some social concepts, featuring a marked degree of social inequality, expressed through symbols of violence and of power, curved throwing weapons, sceptres and axes. … Mont Viso and the Beigua massif (in the Italian Alps) occupied a central position in the diffusion of Alpine axeheads (through repeated contacts) across a vast swathe of Europe, from Carnac to Varna.
It has long been recognised that, in Neolithic and Chalcolithic Europe, there existed a kind of 'mirror image' between Carnac and the Gulf of Morbihan (Brittany, France) in the west and Varna (Bulgaria) in the east. Around the middle of the fifth millennium BC, these two areas display a remarkable wealth in their funerary assemblages (with jade and variscite being used in the west and gold and copper in the east), and they also shared some social concepts, featuring a marked degree of social inequality, expressed through symbols of violence and of power, curved throwing weapons, sceptres and axes. … Mont Viso and the Beigua massif (in the Italian Alps) occupied a central position in the diffusion of Alpine axeheads (through repeated contacts) across a vast swathe of Europe, from Carnac to Varna.
At the pan−European scale, large jade axeheads are very rare in tombs. … Two regions of Europe offer an exception to this general situation. Firstly, on the shores of the Black Sea, tomb 43 in the cemetery of Varna I, one of the richest graves, with the most gold objects, contained an axehead made of jade from Mont Beigua that had been placed between the legs of a man. This had clearly been a personal possession of a particularly rich individual. The second and most important exception is to be found on the southern coast of Brittany, in the gigantic Carnac mounds close to the Gulf of Morbihan.
Within the sphere of long-distance links based on the functioning of inegalitarian societies, the role of the gulf of Morbihan during the 5th millennium is becoming increasingly clear, as an epicentre of a 'Europe of jade', symmetrical to Varna as an epicentre in the 'Europe of copper'. In both cases, the strategic location of these centres of power (between the sea and the continent), the role of salt in the exchanges and the power of religious beliefs could have been some of the primary conditions for the success of these societies with their unequally-distributed riches.
The Grand Menhir Brisé was once a single stone standing to a height of seventeen metres (with a further three metres below ground). It marked the termination of a row of menhirs at Locmariaquer in Morbihan on the south coast of Brittany. The stone was brought from a source more than ten kilometres away. Its transport and erection were a triumph of the coercive power at work within the Early Neolithic community.
The weight and the number of gold finds in the Varna cemetery exceeds by several times the combined weight and number of all of the gold artifacts found in all excavated sites of the same millennium, 5000-4000 BC, from all over the world, including Mesopotamia and Egypt. … Three graves contained gold objects that together accounted for more than half of the total weight of all gold grave goods yielded by the cemetery. A scepter, symbol of a supreme secular or religious authority, was discovered in each of these three graves.
There are, in the Morbihan region of western France (Brittany), more than one hundred earthen mounds (circular or elongated) containing individual or multiple burials dug into pits or arranged in stone or wood cists. … Among such monuments, three stand out for their isolation in the landscape, gigantic proportions and for the quantity and quality of the objects made of jade and callaïs they contained. These funerary spaces have no structured access and preserved the remains of only one individual. The volumes of their tumuli are extraordinary: Saint-Michel in Carnac (35,000 m3), Tumiac in Arzon (16,000 m3) and Mané er Hroëck in Locmariaquer (14,600 m3); while their maximum height rises between 10 and 15m above the ground. The current state of knowledge suggests Mané er Hroëck was the oldest of the three, followed by Tumiac and – finally – Saint-Michel. The last two have radiocarbon dates available (about 4500 cal BC), obtained from diverse samples and by different researchers.
Some researchers argue that the large tombs with richly furnished graves and the cult centres in the form of stone rows at Carnac indicate the possible existence of 'kingdoms' at that time, ruled by priests.
There are, in the Morbihan region of western France (Brittany), more than one hundred earthen mounds (circular or elongated) containing individual or multiple burials dug into pits or arranged in stone or wood cists. … Among such monuments, three stand out for their isolation in the landscape, gigantic proportions and for the quantity and quality of the objects made of jade and callaïs they contained. These funerary spaces have no structured access and preserved the remains of only one individual. The volumes of their tumuli are extraordinary: Saint-Michel in Carnac (35,000 m3), Tumiac in Arzon (16,000 m3) and Mané er Hroëck in Locmariaquer (14,600 m3); while their maximum height rises between 10 and 15m above the ground. The current state of knowledge suggests Mané er Hroëck was the oldest of the three, followed by Tumiac and – finally – Saint-Michel. The last two have radiocarbon dates available (about 4500 cal BC), obtained from diverse samples and by different researchers.
There are, in the Morbihan region of western France (Brittany), more than one hundred earthen mounds (circular or elongated) containing individual or multiple burials dug into pits or arranged in stone or wood cists. … Among such monuments, three stand out for their isolation in the landscape, gigantic proportions and for the quantity and quality of the objects made of jade and callaïs they contained. These funerary spaces have no structured access and preserved the remains of only one individual. The volumes of their tumuli are extraordinary: Saint-Michel in Carnac (35,000 m3), Tumiac in Arzon (16,000 m3) and Mané er Hroëck in Locmariaquer (14,600 m3); while their maximum height rises between 10 and 15m above the ground. The current state of knowledge suggests Mané er Hroëck was the oldest of the three, followed by Tumiac and – finally – Saint-Michel. The last two have radiocarbon dates available (about 4500 cal BC), obtained from diverse samples and by different researchers.
