^{This page is part of © FOTW Flags Of The World website}

Principality of Barnenez (Finistère, France)

Flag of the Principality of Barnenez - Image by Ivan Sache, 11 February 2006

Presentation of the Principality of Barnenez
Flag of the Principality of Barnenez

See also:

Presentation of the Principality of Barnenez

Barnenez is located on the peaninsula of Kernelehen (municipality of Plouézoc'h), 10 km north of Morlaix. The Great Cairn of Barnenez is built on a coastal shelf dominating the Channel. The monument has been known for years but its excavation started only when a stone quarry located near the cairn was to be increased; unfortunately, a former increase of the quarry made in 1954 destroyed a smaller cairn located in the north of the big cairn.
Now completely excavated, the cairn is 72 x 20-25 m and 9 m high; it is indeed made of two adjacent cairns. The second cairn was added in the west on an increasing slope, which required the building of a retaining wall. Inside the cairn are eleven funerary halls, 7-12 m long, covered with granit flagstones.
Remains of charcoal found in the stones were used for the C14 datation of the site. The first cairn was built c. 4350 BP or a few centuries before, whereas cairn 2 was built not later than 4100 BP. Therefore, the Great Cairn of Barnenez is one of the oldest monuments kept until today.

Source: Paleologos website by Odile Prigent

Ivan Sache, 11 February 2006

Flag of the Principality of Barnenez

The flag of the Principality of Barnenez is horizontally divided black-light blue-white-light blue-black with a white triangle charged with a red ermine spot placed along the hoist. The ratio of the flag is 1:2.
The flag was designed by the cartoonist Tramber, from Plouézoc'h, who has lived for ten years in Barnenez. Tramber published strip cartoons in famous French specialized journals such as Kebra, L'Echo des Savanes, Métal Hurlant and Hara-Kiri Hebdo. Back to Brittany, he published the cartoon books BZH (with Roger-Louis Dautriat), Iles Secrètes, Les Naufrageurs and Panique à Plégastel (with Marc Voline), Le Secret de Plégastel (with Georges Jouin) and Le Petit Tramber. His last books are Trop Breizh (lit., Too much Breizh!, with a pun on Tro Breizh, the traditional Breton pilgrimage) and La Marée était en noir (lit., The Tide was balck, with a double pun on the title of François Truffaut's movie La Mariée était en noir - The Bride was dressed in black -, and marée noire, an oilslick). Tramber publishes a plate of cartoons every week in Le Télégramme de Brest. I have not been able to find if he flag of Barnenez was designed for one of Tramber's book or if it is an independent invention.

The Principality of Barnenez has no official status but the flag does exist in real and as painted on road signs.

Hervé Prat, Pascal Vagnat & Ivan Sache, 11 February 2006