The oldest known map of Europe “Saint-Bélec Slab” possibly found in France

July 21, 2022

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A large slab of stone covered in some random markings has been revealed to be far more than just another old rock. At some 4,000 years old, it might just be the oldest map ever discovered in Europe.

Almost two metres square, one side of the slab is rough, whilst the other is covered in what had seemed to be an unusual collection of drawings and lines carved into the surface.

But archaeologists have analysed the stone and discovered that its carvings are far from arbitrary. The etchings depict the route of the Odet river and its many tributaries, making it the oldest cartographical representation of a known territory in Europe.

When the slab of rock was discovered in 1900, during an archaeological excavation of a prehistoric burial ground in Finistère, western Brittany, it was largely overlooked.

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The rock formed one of the walls of a little stone coffin-like box used to hold the corpses of the dead. The engraved surface was facing the inside of the tomb. The team who recovered it, led by local archaeologist Paul du Chatellier, must have been initially unimpressed.

Dominant on the map is about 18 miles of the river we call the Odet. Its tributaries are also shown. Clément told History Hit it was stunningly accurate, perhaps even 80% so.