Thursday, February 12, 2015

Parisian Menhir

Modern menhir, rue Vercingétorix, Paris

Modern menhir
Rue Vercingétorix
Quartier de Plaisance, 14th arrondissement
Paris, July 2014

“The menhir was erected outside a block of flats at 133 Rue Vercingetorix, south of Montparnasse, 30 years ago. It was a gift from Brittany, the region of France most strongly associated with Neolithic standing stones, from tall and beautiful menhir, to the thousands of megaliths that characterise the multiple stone rows at Carnac. This is not a prehistoric menhir, plucked from the Morbihan and transported to Paris, but rather a modern quarried equivalent of a megalith, a shiny new megalith (more or less), a gift from one area of France to another. At the base of the stone is a plaque which carries the (now almost impossible to read) inscription:
‘Ce menhir offert à la ville de Paris à l’initiative de la Chambre de Commerce et d’Industrie du Morbihan et réalisé par sept granitiers bretons. Il a été inauguré en 1983 par le président du Sénat de l’époque, Alain Poher.’” (The 14th arrondissemont menhir, The Urban Prehistorian)

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