La Bertinière gallery grave

About

The covered driveway of the Bertinière, also known as Grotte or Maison des Fées, is a covered driveway located in La Sauvagere, in the department of Orne, Normandy, near the hamlets of Mauny and La Bertinière.

Description: The covered aisle stretches about 15 m long along an east-west axis. Its width is between 1.10 m and 1.40 m, for a height of less than 1.10 m. It is bounded by eighteen quartz sandstone orthostats. Initially, it was protected by nine cover tables of the same material, except for one that is of coarse granite. The interior space is partitioned by two small slit slabs. In the eastern part, it has a small substantially square room (1.45 m side), possibly closed by two round slabs, one of which is still standing and the other tilted outside the aisle, north side.

Archeological vestiges: The summary excavations of 1881 carried out by M. de Contades provided little funerary furniture: a human bone, a polished stone with sharp edges, a black pottery with stripes and bourrelets, two cut flints, calcined stones.