142. Plan of Moustoir-Carnac.
143. Section of Moustoir-Carnac. From 'Mémoire' by René Galles
To the north of Kerlescant, at about the distance of half a mile, is another long barrow, called Moustoir or Moustoir-Carnac, which was opened in 1865, also by M. René Galles. It was found to contain four separate interments, dispersed along its length, which exceeds 280 feet, the height varying from 15 to 20 feet. The western chamber is a regular dolmen, of the class called "Grottes des fées," and is apparently the oldest of the group. The centre one (b) is a very irregular chamber, the plan of which it is difficult to make out; the third (c) is a dolmen, irregular in plan, but roofed with three large stones; but the fourth (d) is a circular chamber, the walls of which are formed of tolerably large stones, the roof being built up into the form of a horizontal dome ([woodcut No. 144]), by stones projecting and overlapping, instead of the simpler ceiling of single blocks as on all the earlier monuments. This, as well as the walls, being built with small stones, I take to be a certain indication of a more modern age. A considerable number of flint implements were found in the western chamber, with some beads and a partially pierced cylinder in serpentine, but no coins, nor any object of an age which can be positively dated. Here, however, these troublesome Roman tiles make their appearance as at Crubelz. "Ici, comme à Mané er H'roëk, nous trouvons les traces caractéristiques du conquerant (les Romains): des tuiles à rebord ont croulé, au pied de notre butte funéraire, et plusieurs même se sont glissées à travers les couches supérieures des pierres, qui forment une partie de la masse."[421]
144. Section of Chamber d of Moustier-Carnac.
If these monuments are really prehistoric, it is to me incomprehensible that these traces of the Romans should be so generally prevalent in their structure. If it is objected that these are not found in the chambers of the tombs themselves, the answer seems only too evident that hardly one of them is virgin: all, or nearly all, have been entered before the time of recent explorers, and all their more valuable contents removed. Celts and beads and stone implements were not likely to attract the attention of early pilferers, and these they left; but except in the instance of the sepulchre at Plouharnel, metal is very rarely found in any. But the presence of Roman pottery, or other evidence of that people, in the long barrows in Gloucestershire, at Kennet, and at Carnac, are too frequent to be accidental. In so far as proving that the monument is not prehistoric, the presence of a single fragment of Roman pottery is as conclusive as a hoard of coins would be, provided it is found so placed that it could not have been inserted there after the mound was complete; and this I fancy is the case in all the instances mentioned above.