Megalithes du Morbihan & The Carnac Stones - France

Located at the heart of the largest megalithic area in western France, the Morbihan, and more particularly its coastal area, concentrates a large number of monuments, which are exceptional by their scale and variety. This implies the presence of a particularly dense and dynamic population, sufficiently prosperous to build such monuments.

There are almost 500 megalithic sites in Morbihan, but they are unevenly distributed over the area:

The main concentrations lies along the coast between the Blavet estuary and the Rhuys peninsula (including the Morbihan Gulf, the Quiberon peninsula and the Isle of Groix), in particular between the Etel and Auray river estuaries

Another large group of monuments is located on the Landes de Lanvaux, a line of hills between the Claie and Arz valleys, from the Blavet river in the West to the Oust river in the East.
Northern Morbihan has fewer monuments, but they are evenly distributed.
The area between the coast and the Landes de Lanvaux is relatively empty.

Megalithes du Morbihan.

But why did they build them?

Some megaliths, dolmen (stone passages) and tumuli (dolmen covered by large mounds) are graves and some single standing stones (menhirs) are associated with graves. But the reason for building the long lines of stones (alignments), the stone circles (cromlechs) and many of the menhirs has been lost in the mists of time. Some people think that they are calendars and observatories, so that ancient farmers knew the seasons and when to plant and harvest their crops and the priests could foretell terrifying phenomena such as eclipses of the sun and moon. Alexander Thom, who has surveyed many megaliths in Britain and France, believes that Carnac was a huge lunar observatory. The central of the complex was the huge broken menhir, Le Grand Menhir Brisé, beside the Marchand's Table and Er Grah tumuli at Locmariaquer. The sights to various tumuli and menhirs marked the extreme positions of the moon.

The Megaliths of Carnac
by Vicki Sherwood.


Carnac by The Megalithic Portal.

Many interesting black and white photographs: The Megaliths of Carnac

Carnac is the most dramatic of all the Breton sites, with more than 3,000 prehistoric stone monuments. These include long avenues of menhirs (single standing stones) and dolmens (multi-stone arrangements supporting horizontal slabs). Hewn from local granite, they were erected at different periods from early to late Neolithic (c. 4000-1500 B.C.). Now worn by nature and time, they are covered with white lichen. Theosophical literature contains numerous references to Carnac ...

The Mysteries of Carnac and Atlantis an article by Paul Johnson.

Website: Labyrinthos

Prehistoric labyrinth petroglyph, Pansaimol, Goa, India

Have a history that can be traced back over 4000 years. The earliest examples, found carved on rocks, all have the same design - the classical labyrinth symbol...

Labyrinthos is the resource centre for mazes and labyrinths...

The African Labyrinth

The labyrinth in its many shapes and forms has, throughout the ages, been recognized and used as an archetypal symbol of healing, rebirth, re-generation and transformation. The spider-web labyrinth design is based on the sand drawings of the Tchokwe people of northeast Angola. These drawings (sona) are linked through dots in the sand and show the skill of a visionary/sangoma.

According to Credo Mutwa, African labyrinths have existed for eons in Africa and are an integral part of every tribe in some shape or form. Apart from divination, the labyrinth is also used as an initiation tool into Umlando, the Great Knowledge.

The African Labyrinth

Every culture uses the path as an initiation; the sanusis and sangomas have to walk through several gates to reach the center where they perform certain procedures before they can exit. In some traditions one has to follow the path encountering seven dangers to find the green chief (representing the Earth God) without a leg in the center dome, receiving a gift for your journey forward. On the way out various people wearing different masks try to take the gift away, reminding one to take great care of the gifts of life bestowed on us. In the Zulu tradition kings were exposed to nine temptations (representing the nine months in a mother's womb) before they could finally enter the cave of rebirth, where they would find a young virgin sangoma that would usher them into this world giving them a blessing.

Antique Maps of America

LINK

Stained Glass Map, Massachusetts, 1998

"Brightening with each swipe of a workman's cloth, stained glass in the Christian Science Mapparium in Boston, Massachusetts, shows political boundaries and coastlines charted after millennia of mapmaking."

—From "Revolution in Mapping," February 1998, National Geographic magazine

Chronicles of Nineveh

Photograph by Randy Olson, National Geographic

The rebuilt gates and mud-brick walls around the ancient city of Nineveh, near modern-day Mosul, Iraq, are popular tourist attractions.

Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire from 705 to 612 B.C., but the city was reduced to rubble by attacks from Medes, Babylonians, and Susianians. Archaeologists found the "lost" city in the mid-19th century and began excavations and reconstructions.

Still—like many of the sites on the Global Heritage Fund list—Nineveh suffers from the pressures of modern society. "At site after site after site, you are losing half the site to new development, encroachment, [and] you're getting looting of the site," the group's Morgan said. "We are not even talking about natural disasters."

Basin of Maya Mysteries

Photograph by George P. Mobley, National Geographic

The Mirador Basin in Guatemala, considered the cradle of Maya civilization, sits adjacent to the well-known Classical Maya ruins in Tikal National Park, including the Great Plaza of Tikal, seen above in an aerial picture.

The four cities in the Mirador Basin predate Tikal by as much as 1,200 years, but the Mirador ruins continue to lie abandoned under 2,000 years' worth of jungle growth. Threats to the approximately million-acre (405,000-hectare) site include looting, slash-and-burn agriculture, and illegal logging. (Explore an interactive map of the Maya Empire.)

Archaeologist Richard Hansen leads a project exploring the ancient site and is a proponent of responsible tourism as a means to protect the region.

"That will provide revenue for the poorest of Guatemala's population, and that's the key, to involve them in the model," he said. (Related: "Bowls of Fingers, Baby Victims, More Found in Maya Tomb.")

Temples' Potential

Photograph courtesy Sourav De

Only 72 of the original 108 terra-cotta temples remain intact in the 18th-century village of Maluti, India. The temples were built during the Pala dynasty by devotees of the Hindu goddess Mowlakshi. Other temples at the site were dedicated to Shiva, Durga, Kali, and Vishnu.
Today, neglect, poor drainage, and overgrown vegetation are taking a toll on the complex. But "with proper restoration and maintenance, the temples have the potential to be a major source of economy in the small town of Maluti," the Global Heritage Fund says in its report.
"With no such plan in place, the temples are fast deteriorating beyond repair."
(See pictures of the new seven wonders of the world, as chosen in 2007.)

Monastyr

Monastyr is a Polish role-playing game set in a dark fantasy world of Dominium. Its setting features a fantastic equivalent of the Age of Enlightenment. Most often, the game plays in a cloak and dagger mood and involves plotting, intrigue, but also struggle in the name of honour. The game has been inspired by such authors as Alexandre Dumas, père, Michael Moorcock and H. P. Lovecraft. It is published by Wydawnictwo Portal (Portal Publishing House) and it is currently available only in Polish.
The game does not shy from dealing with serious issues such as religion or race. The players have to play humans, and they are all followers of a certain monotheistic religion, know as Karianizm. The religion is based on Christian faith in one god mixed with reincarnation and the cycle of life known from Hinduism. The human countries, tied together with that religion, are involved in a long struggle against all other races (elves, dwarves, orcs, etc.); their religion dictates that all of those races are doomed and are beyond salvation, therefore must be exterminated as a minions of evil god Kusiciel (from polish Tempter.) Magic is also considered a sign of a devil or demons, so there are no (overt) mage characters.
The corebook, Monastyr, does not describe the lands of non-humans, instead it concentrates on the human empire, which, while united by a single faith and church, and is composed of over fifty separate countries, each involved in various struggles, political or military, with others.
Monastyr mechanics are based around the 3d20 system.

External links

• (Polish) Monastyr's official website