Le Mané Lud en sauvetage (Locmariaquer, Morbihan). Enregistrement et restitution de signes gravés dans une tombe à couloir néolithique

Abstract: The great tumulus of the Mané Lud is more known for its passage grave in secondary addition that finishes the western extremity and that contains a number of carvings among the most famous of the European corpus. Ten steles will be here described and illustrated by photography and drawings whose realization will have demanded more 600 hours of work, undertaken on the terrain as well as in laboratory. Several signs are inescapable and validate by their discovery the simple method of acquisition and numerical image processing that we have developed these last years. The majority of carvings is equally better specified and allowed henceforth a re-interpretation of associations of signs united on a same support, but equally a simultaneous perusal of these steles understood as monuments fully fledged, functioning originally in a whole other special and historical context. The back stele, often considered as the master piece of the mortuary structure, and residing nevertheless one armorican engraving among the most badly interpreted and one of the most cryptic, appears as a representation in fact particularly succeeded of a spermwhale, staggering cetacean that our anterior studies had already sensed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]