There are many speculations about Carnac's stones rows. Which interpretation is the most convincing?
The stone rows at Carnac are as fascinating as they are mysterious. Various legends have circulated among the local population for ages. According to these legends, the stones come to life at night and go for a swim in the nearby sea. The stones were also said to have magical powers, such as alleviating suffering, increasing fertility and finding the right partner for life. According to another belief, the megaliths are Roman soldiers who were petrified when they pursued St. Cornelius. Cornelius was Bishop of Rome from 251-253 AD and is venerated as the patron saint of horned cattle. However, the rows of stones at Carnac were erected around 4,000 years before Roman times, as a dating using the radiocarbon method revealed.
The association with a military cemetery has recurred in different variations ever since there have been written reports about Carnac's stone rows. This interpretation is supported by the name of one of the stonefields - 'Kermario' means 'place of the dead' in Breton.
Other interpretations assume that the stones are a coded map of the heavens or the earth. Arthur Faram claims that the arrangement of the stones mark the areas of the earth known at ancient times. Using the rules of geoglyphology (geo = earth, glypho = stone, logos = teaching) that he established, lines can be drawn between prominent stones that point to other prehistoric sites such as Stonehenge.
The French archaeologist Serge Cassen, who is quoted in the Carnac visitor center, sees the stone rows as a line of defense against supernatural dangers emanating from the nearby sea.
Assessment of the various Explanations
Strengths:On a positive note, there are several alternative interpretations for the rows of stones in Carnac.
Weaknesses:None of the approaches first thoroughly analyzes the peculiarities of the Carnac stone rows and then attempts to derive a logically coherent explanation for these peculiarities. The popular legend of the fossilization of Roman soldiers does not fit with the scientifically substantiated dating of the time of origin of the stone rows.
Arthur Faram's interpretation that the stone rows are coded maps that can be deciphered using the rules of geoglyphology seems extremely speculative. Faram leaves many questions unanswered: For what reason would people have used a complicated code instead of using an immediately understandable representation of the earth, as we do today with maps and globes? And why did they erect so many more stones than were actually needed for the coding? Is there any direct or indirect evidence that the rules of geoglyphology stated by Faram are correct? How plausible is Faram's result that some stones from Carnac refer to places on the American continent which, according to our current historical knowledge, were out of reach to Stone Age people from Europe?
Cassen's view that the rows of stones form a line of defense against supernatural dangers is also unconvincing - why should such supernatural dangers have threatened only one place in Brittany and caused the Stone Age people to make the enormous effort to build a unique structure at this particular spot? Werner Ahrendt's hypothesis that real dangers emanated from the sea (in the form of foreign invaders who landed by ship in Brittany), against which only an alliance of several land forces could stand, and of which future generations were to be reminded with a war memorial, seems much more plausible.
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