CARNAL, a village of north-western France, in the depart ment of Morbihan and arrondissement of Lorient, 9 m. S.W. of Auray. Pop. (1931) 661. It has a church in the Renaissance style of Brittany, but owes its celebrity to the stone monuments in its vicinity. (See STONE MONUMENTS.) The most remarkable consists of long avenues of menhirs or standing stones; but there are also dolmens and barrows, throughout the whole district. About half a mile to the north-west of the village is the Menec system, which consists of eleven lines and extends a distance of ft. The terminal circle is broken by the houses and gar dens of a little hamlet. To the east-north-east there is another system at Kermario (Place of the Dead), which consists of ten lines about 4,00o ft. in length. Still further 'in the same direction is a third system at Kerlescan (Place of Burning), composed of thirteen lines, about m. in length, terminated by an irregular circle. These three systems seem once to have formed a continu ous series; the menhirs, many of which have been broken up for road-mending and other purposes, have diminished in number by some thousands in modern times. The alignment of Kermario points to the dolmen of Kercado (Place of St. Cado), where there is also a barrow, explored in 1863 ; and to the south-east of Menec stands the great tumulus of Mont St. Michel, which meas ures 377 f t. in length, and has a height of 65 ft. The tumulus, which is crowned with a chapel, was excavated by Rene Galles in 1862; and the contents of the sepulchral chambers, which include several jadeite and fibrolite axes and Callais beads, are preserved in the museum at Vannes. About a mile east of the village is a small piece of moorland called the Bossenno, from the bocenieu or mounds with which it is covered; and here, in 1874, the ex plorations of James Miln, a Scottish antiquary, brought to light the remains of a Gallo-Roman town. The tradition of Carnac is that there was once a convent of the Templars or Red Cross Knights on the spot; but this, it seems, is not supported by his tory. Similar traces were also discovered at Mane Bras, a height about 3 miles to the east. The rocks of which these various monu ments are composed is the ordinary granite of the district, and most of them present a strange appearance from their coating of white lichens. Carnac has an important museum of antiquities (Musee Miln) .
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