Carnac – Photos of the Beautiful Carnac Standing Stones

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Carnac – Photos of the beautiful vast lines of Carnac standing stones, the largest in the world, France. Photos by Paul E Williams. (TIP: Use the small icons below the slideshow for info & thumbnails)

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Photos of Callanish Standing Stones Isle of Lewis Scotland

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Photos of Carnac standing stones Brittany France.

The sheer volume of neolithic standing stones at Carnac is incredible. There are over 3000 stones making it the largest in the world. The stones are arranged in rows in areas called alignments.

There are 4 alignment areas running over an area several kilometres long. The Carnac Ménec stone alignments consist of Eleven converging rows of stones menhirs stretching for 1,165 by 100 metres (3,822 by 328 feet).

The Kermario alignment is a fan-like layout recurs a little further along to the east in the Kermario (House of the Dead) alignment. It consists of 1029 stones in ten columns, about 1,300 m (4,300 ft) in length.

The Carnac Kerlescan stone alignments is a smaller group of 555 stones, further to the east of the other two sites. It is composed of 13 lines with a total length of about 800 metres (2,600 ft).

The Carnac Petit-Ménec stone alignments is a much smaller group, further east again of Carnac Kerlescan. Most of the stones are within the Breton village of Carnac, but some to the east are within La Trinité-sur-Mer.

The stones were erected at some stage during the Neolithic period, probably around 3300 BCE, but some may date to as early as 4500 BC.

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.