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Origin and history

The menhir of Pierre Longue, also known as Pierre Saint-Jaouan, is a granite fusiform monolith located in Cuguen, in the department of Ille-et-Vilaine. It was 6.50 metres high and 1.85 metres wide at its base, extracted from a deposit located 3 km from the site. This megalith, dated from the Neolithic, underwent a stinging and was later Christianized by the addition of a cross at its top. Polished stone axes were discovered in the surrounding fields, attesting to an ancient human occupation.

Ranked as historical monuments in 1889, the menhir was associated with local legends. One of them says that the devil, carrying seven stones, would have lost one of them who would have found himself in the ground. One variant evokes two stones in a bag and a third pier on dogs, remaining planted in the ground. These accounts illustrate the mythological dimension often linked to megaliths in Brittany.

The site was the subject of archaeological studies, notably by Paul Bézier in 1883 and Jacques Briard in 2004, who documented his history and characteristics. The menhir, with its 7 metre perimeter at the base, remains a major testimony to the funeral and symbolic practices of Neolithic in the region. Its state of conservation and its precise location (40 La Butte, 35270 Cuguen) make it a point of interest for the study of Breton megalithism.

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