Menhirs d'Oppagne - Wéris

The three menhirs of Oppagne are first reported by Moreels after a visit to Wéris on 5 July 1888 . In a later communication about the two megalithic tombs , he mentions a third megalithic tomb, a small tumulus with the emergence of large aligned stones. These pudding blocks, which he mistook for the capstones of a dolmen, are the three recumbent menhirs, as confirmed by an excavation carried out in 1906 by Alfred de Loë under the auspices of the Royal Museums of the Cinquantenaire Park in Brussels. The report of this rapid excavation states that two of the stones were broken in half and three small fragments of human bones were discovered, as well as cut flints and an arrowhead.

The stones remained, practically deserted. In 1913, Mr. Moureaux, a teacher from Hotton, bought one from the farmer and took it to his garden. He will bring it back to the site twenty years later . In 1932, the Archaeological Institute of Luxembourg bought the plot (5 m by 5 m) with the menhirs and a strip path connecting the site to the road. After returning his stone, in September 1933, Mr. Moureau led the work to straighten the three menhirs. The central menhir was repaired.

In the summer of 2001, the Archeology Department of the Walloon Region carried out a thorough excavation at the site. Several clues (such as the valleys of the interface between the soil present on site and the backfill layers) brought to light by the intervention suggest that the menhirs were indeed built on the site , but slightly further south.

The menhirs are in the middle of the field under a tree . Ribbons are hung in the tree, like a fever tree . Originally it would probably have been just two standing stones, one of which has cracked in two.

Some 5,000 years ago, in the late Neolithic (late New Stone Age), people from a group of the Seine-Oise-Marne culture (SOM) erected the dolmens here.

In all, there are more than 30 menhirs in the megalithic site of Wéris

Willem Vandenameele