Before the construction of a residential building in the center of the city of Sion in Switzerland, archaeologists found six stone slabs made in the 3rd millennium BC. The slabs bear carved images and were probably intended for an ancient necropolis.
For the first time, monuments of the Neolithic era were found on the avenue du Petit-Chasseur in Sion back in 1961, also thanks to construction work. Then a dolmen was found there - a burial structure made of stone slabs. Later, archaeologists carried out a series of excavations in this area and found several more dolmens, and the total number of individual stone steles has already exceeded the third dozen. Some of the slabs are hewn in the form of a stylized human silhouette. Many have carved images: either geometric patterns or human figures.
Of the current finds, images have been found on three slabs. The largest of the slabs, weighing almost two tons, bears a drawing of a man, from whose face rays emanate. The other slab has small indentations. Similar slabs have never been found in Sion and in the Valais canton in general, but similar finds have come across in the Italian region of Valle d'Aosta.
Archaeologists noted that some of the slabs were deliberately broken and buried, while others were not completed. It is possible that later builders used similar stone steles as building materials. For example, some of the dolmens in Sion were built of engraved slabs.