Saint-Michel tumulus
tumulus in Carnac, France
The Saint-Michel tumulus (Breton: tumulus Sant-Mikael) is a megalithic grave mound, located east of Carnac in Brittany, France. It is the largest grave mound in continental Europe.
History
The tumulus was built during the fifth millennium BC. It consists of a mound of earth and stones 125 metres (410 ft) long, 50 metres (160 ft) wide and 10 metres (33 ft) high. Explored in 1862, researchers found a central vault containing fairly prestigious funerary furniture: axes, pearls, flint tools, and sillimanite.
On 27 June 1795, the site served as the setting for the Battle of Saint-Michel Tumulus between the French and the British during the Great French War.
It has been classified as a "Monument historique" (National heritage site) since 1889.
Around 1900, the archaeologist Zacharie Le Rouzic again excavated the Saint-Michel tumulus and discovered a second dolmen and fifteen small stone chests, thus revealing the complexity of this monument.
“Saint-Michel tumulus” enters the record as tumulus in Carnac, France. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Saint-Michel, tumulus and Carnac can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1419562. Authority coordinates are 47.588, -3.074. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1862, 1795, 1889 and 1900.
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This entry incorporates text from “Saint-Michel tumulus” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.