A terrain of lines
The Carnac Alignments are the largest collection of megalithic monuments in the world. More than 3,000 prehistoric standing stones, hewn from local granite, stretch across the landscape for nearly 4 kilometers. The complex consists of multiple types of structures, including stone rows (alignments), stone tombs (dolmens), and burial mounds (tumuli). The construction took place during the Neolithic period, with most activity occurring between 4500 BCE and 3300 BCE. The oldest structures at Carnac more than a millennium older than the sarsen stones of Stonehenge.
The alignments are organized into three main groups: Ménec, Kermario, and Kerlescan. Le Ménec is the largest, with 1,099 menhirs arranged in eleven converging rows that are 1,165 meters long. The stones follow a pattern: the tallest, around 4 meters high, stand at the western end, shrinking in the middle before rising again at the eastern end. The Kermario alignment features 1,029 stones in ten rows over a distance of about 1,300 meters. The Kerlescan group is smaller, with 555 stones in 13 lines, ending in the west with a circle of 39 stones. These groups may have once formed a single, massive alignment that was later broken up as stones were removed for other building projects.