Cairn of Gavrinis
— — what someone carved before the sea came up.
Not only on a wall.
“A passage tomb on a small island in the Gulf of Morbihan, reached only by boat from the port of Larmor-Baden. Twenty-three of the twenty-nine stones lining the corridor and chamber are covered in carved arcs, spirals, axe-heads, and serpentine lines — among the most elaborate megalithic art in Europe. The cairn was raised around 3500 BCE, when Gavrinis was still a hilltop on the mainland; the post-glacial sea rose later and left the tomb on its island. Rediscovered in 1832, the chamber is open in season for guided visits of about half an hour. Newgrange in Ireland is the closest cousin we know of. *from the studio*
Cairn of Gavrinis, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
The place, in three passes.
The Cairn of Gavrinis sits on Gavrinis, a small wooded island in the Gulf of Morbihan, a shallow inland sea on the southern coast of Brittany. The island is administratively part of the commune of Larmor-Baden, in the department of Morbihan. The monument itself is a passage tomb, raised around 3500 BCE during the Late Neolithic — roughly a thousand years before the great stones of Stonehenge. When the tomb was built, Gavrinis was a hilltop on the mainland; the post-glacial sea continued to rise through the following centuries and left the cairn stranded on its small island sometime after 3000 BCE. The mound is roughly fifty metres across and about six metres tall.
Twenty-three of the twenty-nine upright slabs lining the fourteen-metre passage and the inner chamber are deeply carved with curvilinear motifs — concentric arcs, spirals, hafted axes, serpentine lines, and crook-like signs. The density and craft of this engraved program place Gavrinis among the most important examples of Neolithic art in Europe, comparable to Newgrange in the Boyne Valley of Ireland. One of the slabs in the chamber, when examined from above, was identified as a broken fragment of a much larger menhir whose other pieces were reused at the Table des Marchand at Locmariaquer and the Er-Grah tumulus — direct evidence that the builders dismantled and re-deployed an earlier ritual monument.
Gavrinis is reached only by boat from the small port of Larmor-Baden, about a fifteen-minute crossing of the Gulf. The site is open from late March through early November; outside that window the island is closed. Visits inside the cairn are by guided tour only — small groups, roughly half an hour underground, led by an interpreter — and tickets are sold in limited daily slots through the operator running the crossing. The chamber and passage are kept under controlled conditions to protect the carved surfaces, so photography is restricted and the chamber floor is roped off. In July and August, the daily tours sell out and reservation ahead is needed.