The story of this place
Stretching across the Breton countryside near Carnac are the greatest concentration of megalithic standing stones in the world—more than 3,000 menhirs erected in long, arrow-straight parallel rows over some 4 kilometres. Raised by Neolithic peoples between roughly 4500 and 3300 BC, they predate Stonehenge and Egypt's pyramids, yet their purpose remains a genuine mystery: astronomical calendar, ritual processional way, territorial marker or ancestor cult, no one truly knows. Local legend held that they were a Roman legion turned to stone by Saint Cornelius. Nearby dolmens and burial mounds show the same builders honoured their dead in monumental stone. The alignments are among Europe's most astonishing prehistoric sites.