Barnenez

About

The cairn of Barnenez (Kerdi Bras in Breton) is a megalithic monument of the Neolithic region located in the town of Plouezoc'h on the north coast of Finistère, Brittany, managed by the National Monuments Centre. With a length of 75 m, this dolmenic cairn consists in reality of two cairns of dry stone, which are joined, covering eleven dolmens with a corridor. This ensemble is the largest megalithic mausoleum after that of Newgrange and, with the cairn III of Guennoc, the oldest monument in Europe.

The construction of the primary cairn bears witness to the tumulus of Saint-Michel, which is located in the Vannetais, and the site of Bougon, in the Poitou, of the early Atlantic megalithism. It takes place around 4,700 B.C.E. (between 5,010 and 4,400 B.C.E.), some 2,100 years before the oldest pyramid in Egypt and about 7,000 years after the beginning of domestic architecture, which were observed in the Middle East among the Natoufians of Mallaha, 5,000 years after the erection of the first monumental temple in Anatolia and 3,600 years after that of the Jericho Tower in the West Bank.

The construction of the secondary cairn, an expansion...