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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The Dolmen de la Grotto à Cournols, also known as the Grotte or Grotte aux Fées, is a megalithic site located in Cournols (Puy-de-Dôme), at the so-called Sarou, 800 metres above sea level. Ranked a historic monument in 1889, it is described as an angeline dolmen with portico by Michel Gruet, although some texts describe it as partially ruined covered driveway. According to a plan of 1846 drawn up by Jean-Baptiste Bouillet, the building originally consisted of thirteen granite orthostats, delimiting a corridor, an anthamber and a bedroom, all covered with two to three slabs of cover, including one in trachyte du Mont-Dore, now disappeared.

Currently, the monument holds only one cover table (3.13 m x 2.10 m) and eleven orthostats, for a total length of 5.80 m. The residual tumulus is 2.35 m x 2.40 m. The excavations conducted in 1840 by Abbé Croizet revealed stone axes, oyster shells, slingstones and a nearby bronze axe, suggesting a neolithic construction with re-use in the Bronze Age. These artifacts have since disappeared.

The building is distinguished by its partitioned internal structure: two slabs separated the corridor of the antechamber (2.35 m x 2.20 m), and two others isolated it from the funeral chamber (2.60 m x 1.50 m), all open to the east. The remaining cover slab, fractured diagonally, and granite orthostats show characteristic megalithic construction techniques. Its present state reflects both its archaeological importance and the degradations suffered over the centuries, including the disappearance of slabs under the effect of lightning (1835, 1853).

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