Allée couverte de Kergüntuil - Trégastel, Côtes-d'Armor, FRA
N 48° 48.658 W 003° 31.112
30U E 461929 N 5406571
The dolmen and the covered alley of Kergüntuil or Kergünteil are two megalithic buildings separated by a hundred meters located in the town of Trégastel, in the department of Côtes-d'Armor.
Waymark Code: WM13EAY
Location: Bretagne, France
Date Posted: 11/22/2020
Views: 10
Covered aisle
The monument was excavated and was the subject of a rather hazardous restoration by the town hall of Trégastel in 1939 with the help of the population.
As it stands, it is thus impossible to know on which side the entrance was located even if it is probable that it was to the south-east.
The covered walkway is 8.50 m long by 1.40 m wide on the east side and 1.75 m on the west side. Its height varies between 1 m and 1.20 m. It is oriented east-south-east-west-north-west. It has six orthostats on the north side and seven on the south side, as well as two bedside slabs (one on the west, one on the east). On the south side, the alley is backed by an embankment. Four cover tables cover the whole. The largest is 3.30 m long by 1.95 m wide and 0.50 m thick; the smallest 1.30 m long by 1.10 m wide and 0.40 m thick.
"The decoration of this burial is one of the richest in the Late Armorican Neolithic" (c. 2500). Several orthostats on the north side have decorations on the interior of the chamber. For the purposes of description, they are numbered 1 to 6 from east to west. Pillar # 4 is adorned with six pairs of raised breasts, roughly aligned and each completed by a hollow stitched collar. The circumference of the breasts has been polished3. This frieze continues on pillar no.5 with two pairs of breasts, but here only one pair is highlighted by a necklace2. Each breast is roughly hemispherical with a diameter of about 5 cm. Orthostat No. 4 also has several representations of "palettes". Pillar no 2 would also have a pair of breasts, but the slab having been raised head to tail, it would now be buried3. Four pillars have growths. The modern engravings visible on the fourth and fifth orthostat, for their part, amount to vandalism.
The summary excavations of 1939 would have brought to light two layers of paving composed of large blocks, now disappeared or reused during the restoration of the building. In the intermediate layer of clay separating the two pavings were discovered lithic material and pottery. These objects are partly kept at the town's initiative union. The lithic material consisted of five or six polished axes, or even ten, including one in flint, and a flint dagger of the Grand Pressigny type. The pottery consisted of two “ruffled bottles” (a third would have been taken before excavations by Dutch archaeologists), a “flowerpot” type vase and shards of flat-bottomed and round-bottomed vases. The "flanged bottles" (called Kragenflaschen) are "typical of megalithic ceramics from northern Germany", examples have been found in the Netherlands, Denmark, North Germany, Bohemia, Moravia and Poland. They would therefore be the witnesses of contacts between the coasts of the Channel and those of the North Sea.
Source: (
visit link)