Le roc de la Dentillère - sepulture cavity
The famous "main de Morenci" is carved in stéatite and was found in one of the fissures of the Le roc de la Dentillère - perhaps indeed this one, which travels from one side of the tall rocky outcrop to the other. As far as I understand, this is the fissure that was used for Chalcolithic sepultures. It may have been slightly adapted and can be seen to have an erotic allure of feminine fertility. An drawing of the rock can be seen in this paper:
www.persee.fr/doc/bspf_0249-7638_1930_num_27_3_6827
An ancient menhir stands to the side of the roc de la Dentillère. It was converted into a cross in the 17th centuary (complete with a rustic face) and vandalised by car in 2007, with the current being a replacement facsimile. There is also a story of it being hit by hammer n the 1970s and the fate of the original stones needs further clarification. Below this standing stone and down from a ridge point of the col de Morenci (an ancient path from Belésta towards the loci of the Chateau of Montsegur and then Mont Saint Bartholemy) can be found the disc topped Rocher de Fougasse. A small tumuli was found to the south of the above outcrop. Lower down, the "Font de L'escoupie" is an index site for stratification in the Ariège for between the neolithic and chalcolithic. As many as eight groupments have been isolated. There may be further petroglyphs around the col de Morenci, but for the moment I have no hard details. An important prehistoric passage. The rock above the fissure has ancient primitive steps. Details of an associated Dolmen de Morency seem unclear to me at present. Other tumuli are said to exist on the greater ridge.
When I arrived at the col for a lunch time picnic before the exploration and photography, we saw one car and a rug with people lying down; either hikers having a mid walk siesta or picnickers who had finished a bottle of wine and were sleeping it off - my first impression, and 99% of the time it is just that. After a long hour I arrived to photograph the above cavity-sepulture only to find that the group of three were now lying on the ground in front on the very spot where my tripod needed to be. I asked them if they might move aside for a short while. It just so happened that the shot would take ages - multiple exposures for stacking and focus (I ended up enjoying a little blur in the shot). During the shoot I could overhear the three utterly normal adults. One was guiding the other two to access life forces from the stones. The couple were disconnected from nature and had aches and pains from modernity and were being guided through the mystical narrative of the landscape. I had come across individuals who were still active with folklore traditions of spirituality and landscape via translation work of rural traditions in the Occitane language, but was taken aback to share a space in just such circumstances. It was certainly interesting to witness that the landscape still had significance, and that perhaps the threads into our deepest past refuse to be cut.
AJ
Le roc de la Dentillère - sepulture cavity
The famous "main de Morenci" is carved in stéatite and was found in one of the fissures of the Le roc de la Dentillère - perhaps indeed this one, which travels from one side of the tall rocky outcrop to the other. As far as I understand, this is the fissure that was used for Chalcolithic sepultures. It may have been slightly adapted and can be seen to have an erotic allure of feminine fertility. An drawing of the rock can be seen in this paper:
www.persee.fr/doc/bspf_0249-7638_1930_num_27_3_6827
An ancient menhir stands to the side of the roc de la Dentillère. It was converted into a cross in the 17th centuary (complete with a rustic face) and vandalised by car in 2007, with the current being a replacement facsimile. There is also a story of it being hit by hammer n the 1970s and the fate of the original stones needs further clarification. Below this standing stone and down from a ridge point of the col de Morenci (an ancient path from Belésta towards the loci of the Chateau of Montsegur and then Mont Saint Bartholemy) can be found the disc topped Rocher de Fougasse. A small tumuli was found to the south of the above outcrop. Lower down, the "Font de L'escoupie" is an index site for stratification in the Ariège for between the neolithic and chalcolithic. As many as eight groupments have been isolated. There may be further petroglyphs around the col de Morenci, but for the moment I have no hard details. An important prehistoric passage. The rock above the fissure has ancient primitive steps. Details of an associated Dolmen de Morency seem unclear to me at present. Other tumuli are said to exist on the greater ridge.
When I arrived at the col for a lunch time picnic before the exploration and photography, we saw one car and a rug with people lying down; either hikers having a mid walk siesta or picnickers who had finished a bottle of wine and were sleeping it off - my first impression, and 99% of the time it is just that. After a long hour I arrived to photograph the above cavity-sepulture only to find that the group of three were now lying on the ground in front on the very spot where my tripod needed to be. I asked them if they might move aside for a short while. It just so happened that the shot would take ages - multiple exposures for stacking and focus (I ended up enjoying a little blur in the shot). During the shoot I could overhear the three utterly normal adults. One was guiding the other two to access life forces from the stones. The couple were disconnected from nature and had aches and pains from modernity and were being guided through the mystical narrative of the landscape. I had come across individuals who were still active with folklore traditions of spirituality and landscape via translation work of rural traditions in the Occitane language, but was taken aback to share a space in just such circumstances. It was certainly interesting to witness that the landscape still had significance, and that perhaps the threads into our deepest past refuse to be cut.
AJ