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Key figures

Origin and history

The Museum of Prehistory of Carnac, also known as the James Miln-Zacharie Le Rouzic Archaeological Museum, finds its origins in the collections of Scottish archaeologist James Miln (1819-1881). When he died in 1881, his brother Robert Miln proposed to the city of Carnac to house his discoveries from local excavations. A dedicated building was built in 1882 and Zacharie Le Rouzic, a passionate Carnacian, became its guardian and then official curator in 1910. The museum was enriched in 1926 by the legacy of 3,000 objects of Le Rouzic, whose name was then associated with Miln's.

The museum, originally linked to the University of Rennes (1946-1958), settled in 1984 in the former presbytery of Carnac. Its collections, among the richest in Europe for Prehistory, come from 200 sites, including 120 megalithic ones, covering 30 communes in South Morbihan. Major pieces include remains of the mesolithic necropolises of Téviec and Hoëdic, the tumulus of Saint-Michel, or the alignments of Carnac. Ranked Historical Monuments in 1928, these collections illustrate the evolution of Breton megalithism from Paleolithic to Gallo-Roman times.

The museum plays a key role in valuing the local megalithic heritage, in close connection with the emblematic sites of the region, such as the Carnac alignments or the Locmariaquer monuments. Its holdings also include photographic archives, moulds and documents tracing the history of archaeological research since the 19th century. Today labeled "Museum of France", it remains an essential tool to understand the Breton Neolithic and its monumental heritage.

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