Editing Menhir (section)

== Etymology ==
The word ''menhir'' was adopted from French by 19th-century archaeologists. The introduction of the word into general archaeological usage has been attributed to the 18th-century French military officer [[Théophile Corret de la Tour d'Auvergne]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.landrucimetieres.fr/spip/spip.php?article1598|title=La Tour d'Auvergne (Théophile Malo Corret de la Tour d'Auvergne : 1743–1800)|last=Landru|first=Philippe|date=2008-08-23|access-date=2018-01-24}}</ref> It is a combination of two words of the Breton language: ''maen'' and ''hir''. In [[Welsh language|modern Welsh]], they are described as ''maen hir'', or "long stone". In modern Breton, the word ''peulvan'' is used, with ''peul'' meaning "stake" or "post" and ''van'' which is a [[Breton mutations|soft mutation]] of the word ''maen'' which means "stone". In Germany and Scandinavia the word ''Bauta'' is used (German: [[:de:Bautastein|Bautastein]]; Norwegian: [[:no:bautastein|bautastein]]) and this occasionally makes its way into English with the term "bauta stone".
[[File:Carnac Geant du Manio.jpg|thumb|upright|The Géant du Manio, a menhir in [[Carnac stones|Carnac]], [[Brittany]]]]