La Pierre Merlière

From La Motte d'Aveillans, this short hike towards Pierre Merlière, a local legend, can be supplemented by a visit to La Mine Image museum.

The Legend: The name of Pierre Merlière would come from Merlin the enchanter because the legend says that we practiced human sacrifices on this altar as evidenced by the hollow imprint on the top.
Right next to this hollow there is a round shape to accommodate the person to be sacrificed as well as a vertical gutter along the rock to evacuate the victim's blood.
But far from all that, we are facing a rock in which several millstones have been cut. We find two in the lower part abandoned during the size following the appearance of a defect, in reality it would seem that a single millstone was extracted from this rock, hence the hollow imprint visible on the top.
The rocks likely to give good grinding stones were rare in the region (it needed hardness and sufficient resistance to abrasion to obtain a good grinding wheel) the slightest rock likely to be suitable was immediately exploited to supply the mills of the region .
This is how the millstone became the Merlière stone.