PONTILS MENHIR

To find the Pontils Menhir, head to Pontils from Couiza. Drive beyond the Pontils Tomb location and park opposite the second dirt track on the left. The first track is just a few metres past the tomb location, but it is the second track that leads to the Standing Stone and Quarry.

Pontils Tomb Location 2010

Walk up the second track until you reach the Menhir.

 

Two different angles of the Pontils Menhir 2005 and 2010

View from behind the Pontils Menhir towards the Bezis Valley - 2010

PONTILS ROSE MARBLE QUARRY

To reach the Pontils Rose Marble Quarry, carry on up the track until it splits in two. Walk up the left hand track for about 70 metres and then turn left into the scrub. The Quarry is about thirty metres from the track. The area is littered with abandoned blocks of Rose Marble cut from the hillside. With some of the blocks showing obvious signs of being worked, it seems that as much as possible was done on site before carted off for final finishing elsewhere.

 

Two Large Blocks of Rose Marble

 

Left - Rock marked for cutting  -  Right - A straight edged cut block

In the Tomb I discovered by deciphering some of the Abbé Saunière's church clues, the corpse interred seems to be laying on a block of Rose marble. If so it may have been quarried from this quarry and some of the block do seem to be about the same size as the block in the tomb.

 

A Tomb sized block of Rose marble with Pat mimicking the corpse

Although the blocks of marble do not look very pink or red, this changes when they have been smoothed and polished. To test this for yourselves, pick up one of the many chips of marble scattered about and wet it to bring out its colour. There are variations of colour ranging from greyish pink through to strong reds, but all are interspersed with veins of white.

 

Left - A partly worked block  -  Right - An unusual shaped worked block