Misunderstanding in Carnac after the destruction of menhirs to build a store

"The site is already destroyed," said Wednesday, June 7 to AFP an amateur archaeologist, Christian Obeltz, who had launched the alert last Friday in a blog post revealed by Ouest-France. He deplored the destruction of 39 small menhirs, the size of which, for the most part, was between 50 cm and one meter.

“Several brutal developments have been carried out, this winter and spring, around the alignments of menhirs of Carnac, distorting this world-famous site”, explained the author of the post.

The latest of these "developments": "a building permit issued by the mayor of Carnac for the construction of a Mr. Bricolage store, destroying thirty-nine menhirs appearing on the Unesco indicative list", he specified.

The menhirs destroyed did not have a "major" character, assures the direction of cultural affairs

The Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs (Drac) of Brittany assured that the forty small menhirs recently destroyed to allow the creation of a DIY store near the famous alignments of Carnac (Morbihan) did not present a "major" archaeological character.

In a press release dated Wednesday reacting to the excitement aroused by this destruction, revealed on its blog by an amateur archaeologist, the Drac de Bretagne highlights the "still uncertain and in any case not major character of the remains" which had been found in 2015 during preventive excavations.

"The attack on a site with archaeological value is not established", defends the Drac, stressing that the land on which the stones were located is considered an "activity zone" by the local urban plan (ENJOYED). It "is also not listed among the areas of archaeological presumption, that is to say the areas which justify an opinion from the regional archaeological service", she adds.

In a blog post revealed by Ouest-France, Christian Obeltz, passionate about archeology, deplored the destruction of 39 small menhirs from 50 cm to one meter high, for the construction of a DIY store on the site.

The building permit, issued on August 26, 2022 by the town hall of Carnac, was refused for the first time in 2015.

The land was then excavated by the National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (Inrap), which ended "on a contradictory finding".

"Only additional observations on the monoliths, or even an excavation, would make it possible to certify the Neolithic origin of this set", details the organization in its report published in April 2015.

The Drac had prescribed such an excavation on the two rows of stone blocks unearthed at the time, but this had never taken place, the first building permit having been refused for reasons unrelated to archeology. , she recalls in her press release.

For Mr. Obeltz, "the site is listed in the UNESCO World Heritage listing project, which normally requires warning the Architect of French Buildings and the Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs (Drac) before launching the project".

For his part, the mayor of Carnac, Olivier Lepick, assured to have "perfectly respected the legislation".

After this destruction, an association for the defense of heritage, Koun Breizh ("Breton memory", in Breton), announced that it had filed a complaint against X for voluntary destruction aggravated because relating to the archaeological heritage.