Quelques mégalithes de l'Ouest-Minervois

All are marked on the IGN 1:100.000 Béziers-Montpellier map (no.65).
Tous marqués sur la carte IGN 1 : 100.000 No.65 (Béziers-Montpellier).

2. Menhir de Malves-en-Minervois (Aude)

This easily-accessible standing-stone is five metres high,
and estimated to extend another four metres underground.
The approach has been charmingly planted with shrubs.

More photos of this standing-stone can be seen as a little slide-show >

and on the

developed from this website

Some 25 km NW, not far from Saissac in the commune of Fraïsse-sur-Agout, is the smaller, but more remarkable
Menhir de Picarel (-le-Haut).

This curious granite megalith , 2.5 metres high, so unlike other statue-menhirs of the area, features also on a slightly unsteady video,
where it is suggested that the deep groove which makes the standing-stone so phallic
was a mediæval Christianisation.

Other interpretations suggest that the engraved top represents a solar disc,
or a human head on which is engraved an ouroboros circumscribing an egg:

"La partie supérieure, représentant la tê;te sans doute, est séparée du reste par un sillon profond creusé dans la pierre.
Elle est gravée d’un ouroboros, c’est à dire un serpent se mordant la queue, symbole d’éternité, qui entoure un œuf, emblème du retour à la vie..."