the largest man-made mound in Europe from the Bronze Age. Legend has it that it was built by Attila’s warriors to show him the fire of Aquileia, but much older
In the center of Udine stands the largest artificial prehistoric mound in Europe. The hill, about thirty meters high that the locals call Castello, not of natural origin but it was made in the Bronze Age 3,000-3,500 years ago. The Corriere della Sera able to preview the exceptional results of the archaeological and geophysical works led by Alessandro Fontana, associate professor of Physical Geography and Geomorphology at the Department of Geosciences of the University of Padua. Legend has it that the mound, in technical language called megamound, was made with their helmets by the Hun warriors to show Attila the fire of Aquileia, the city of the Western Roman Empire that they had sacked in 452 AD. C., explains Fontana, an expert in Quaternary geology and geoarchaeology.
Not natural
In the last century, the discovery of 5-7 meters high hills of natural origin in the Friuli plain led to the belief that the Castle of Udine was also of a geological nature, at least in part. Instead our excavations have resolved all doubts, continues the professor. We expected to find a nucleus of cemented gravels, instead the unnatural hill. The material probably comes from the underlying Piazza Primo Maggiowhere now there is a large parking lot while until two centuries ago it was covered by a pond, then buried.
Big Pi from Europa
The Castle is an artificial prehistoric hill with an open top 30 meters high, 250 wide and with an estimated volume of 400 thousand cubic meters that is unmatched in northern Italy. The biggest so far megamound of Europe was that of Silbury, in the south of England, about twenty kilometers from Stonehenge, ten meters higher but with a smaller volume: 350 thousand cubic meters.
The excavation and the studies
The excavation and the analyzes start from the project of the Municipality of Udine to build two lifts to connect the city center with the Castle. The Superintendency had asked for an archaeological and geotechnical study to study the hill, where Roman and early medieval structures also stand, as well as the Renaissance palace, now home to the Civic Museums, rebuilt in place of a fortress destroyed by an earthquake in 1511. was a multidisciplinary study which has united several entities, the University of Padua, the Municipality, the Museums and the Superintendency of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, with the superintendent Simonetta Bonomi and the archaeologist officer Giorgia Musina, continues Fontana.
The builders
Ma who created the megamound in Udine? Could the tombs of the mythical founders of the city be hidden at its base? At the moment we don’t know, but a suggestive hypothesis. During the Bronze Age, dozens of fortified sites developed throughout the plains of Northern Italy, surrounded by defensive earthen embankments a few meters high, continues the expert. This typology was characteristic of the so-called “Terramare civilization”, present in Emilia, Lombardy, Veneto and of that of the “Culture of the Castellieri” Friuli-Venezia Giulia with links with groups that lived on the Karst and along the coast of Istria and Dalmatia. At the end of the Bronze Age, the civilizations of Northern Italy also had contacts with those of Greece, Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean. To be able to carry out a work of this size, there had to be a social structure that had the time, a lot of workforce and undisputed authority to carry out complicated projects and to carry them out.
The motivations
What was the reason that prompted the Bronze Age men to undertake such an undertaking? The hill rises in the middle of the Friulian plain and, before the construction of the modern city, could be seen from miles away. Perhaps on the top there was a sanctuary or it served to inspire fear and respect: to make it clear to those who approached that he was facing a power capable of doing something extraordinary and therefore it was better not to enter into conflict. We want to carry out new and more in-depth analyzes and accurate dating of finds with radiocarbon to try to solve what is still an enigma at the moment.
April 7, 2022 (change April 7, 2022 | 15:43)
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