Carnac / Gulf of Morbihan

More than 3,000 prehistoric standing stones were hewn from local granite and erected by the pre-Celtic people of Brittany and form the largest such collection in the world. The stones were erected at some stage during the Neolithic period, probably around 3300 BCE, but some may date to as early as 4500 BCE.

Although the stones date from 4500 BCE, modern myths were formed which resulted from 1st century AD Roman and later Christian occupations. A Christian myth associated with the stones held that they were pagan soldiers in pursuit of Pope Cornelius when he turned them to stone. Brittany has its own local versions of the Arthurian cycle. Local tradition claims that the reason they stand in such perfectly straight lines is that they are a Roman legion turned to stone by Merlin.

According to Neil Oliver's BBC documentary A History of Ancient Britain, the alignments would have been built by hunter-gatherer people. That would place them in a different category from Stonehenge in England, which has been claimed to be the work of Early European Farmers. The question of which people Carnac stones are to be attributed to is still debated.

The Gulf of Morbihan is a natural harbour on the coast of the department of Morbihan in southern Brittany, France. Its English name is taken from the French version, le golfe du Morbihan, though it would be more precisely called ‘the Morbihan’ as its Breton name ‘Ar Mor Bihan means ‘the little sea’ as opposed to the Atlantic Ocean outside. Legend says that there are as many islands in the Gulf as there are days of the year. In fact the gulf has about 40, depending on the tides. Many islands are private property, except the largest two, Île-aux-Moines and Île-d’Arz.

The area around the gulf features an extraordinary range of megalithic monuments. There are passage dolmens, stepped pyramids with underground dolmen chambers, stone circles, and giant menhirs, among others. The site best known to outsiders is Carnac, where remains of a dozen rows of huge standing stones run for over ten kilometers.