ICYMI

Ancient stones, thought to be 7000 years old, removed to build a hardware store in France

 Jun 13 2023

THREE LIONS/GETTY IMAGES
One of the three large fields of stones near Carnac in Brittany was erected around 4000 years ago.

A site in Western France with ancient stones, thought to be around 7000 years old, has been destroyed in order to make way for a home improvement and DIY hardware store chain, France 24 reports.

The 39 stones in Carnac were around 0.6m to 1.2m in height and were situated close to highly protected pre-historic tourist attraction where similar menhirs exist.

Menhirs are tall upright stones of a kind that were erected during the pre-historic times in the Western Europe.

“The site has been destroyed,” local archaeologist Christian Obeltz told Agence France Presse on Wednesday.

Obeltz believes that the local authorities failed to properly investigate the value of the site before granting the building permit to the DIY chain Mr Bricolage last year.

“There weren't archaeological excavations in order to know if the stones were menhirs or not," he said.

However, Mayor of Carnac, Olivier Lepick, told AFP that he “followed the law” in granting the building permit and the stones found on the site were of “low archaeological value”.




“There were never 39 menhirs in this place. The preventative excavations we carried out in 2015 clearly show this,” Lepick told French news channel CNews.

“It’s really not the kind of images described in certain media articles. I feel like I have destroyed the Mona Lisa when I read certain articles,” he added.

Responding to the situation, the Regional Office of Cultural Affairs for Brittany, France said in a statement: “Given the uncertain and in any case non-major character of the remains, as revealed by checks, damage to a site of archaeological value has not been established."