Walking along the Via Francigena he finds a stele from 5 thousand years ago – time.news

by time news

Stroll through the Tuscan countryside and make a sensational archaeological discovery: a stele, carved about five thousand years ago, which depicts a mysterious woman’s face and in perfect condition. It looks like the plot of a novel but what happened to Paolo Pigorini from Carrara who with his father Walter was climbing the ancient cobbled path which, detaching from the Via Francigena at the Magra-Verde confluence (Pontremoli-San Lazzaro), climbs up to Monte Galletto, the hill overlooking the Santissima Annunziata.

The finding

The two came across a pile of stones that a farmer, after plowing his field, had piled up in the mule track below. A stone had a strange shape of a mushroom, they will tell. So Paolo decides to take it home and, after having cleaned it from a blanket of mud, the discovery arrives: a woman’s face. The Carrarese, with a great civic sense, understands that this is not a recent work, perhaps discarded, and submits it to Angelo Ghiretti, director of the Museum of the steles, who recognizes it as an authentic work of the Copper Age, immediately informing both Marta Colombo, official of the Superintendence, and the mayor of Pontremoli Lucia Baracchini.

To the stars

Ghiretti was immediately struck by the refinement of the female face of almost 5,000 years ago, complete with magnificent earrings perfectly preserved while in the U-shaped face the “pastille” eyes are highlighted, as in the famous head of the Verrucola or in the one from Caprio Superiore, recently inserted in the collections of the Museum. On the other hand, what is not surprising is the place of the discovery that continues to offer finds of exceptional value that depict cosmic idols, funerary deities and the petrified spirit of the dead themselves. A sort of real valley of the steles that of the Magra with several anthropomorphic monuments in sandstone found in a row, in order of height, with the face facing south, enigmatically facing the flow of the sun. Today about forty are kept in the museum of the stele statues of Pontremoli which is located inside the suggestive Piagnaro Castle that dominates the Tuscan village from above. At the entrance to the Annunziata gorge – explains Ghiretti – there is the forced crossing par excellence of the head of the valley and many other steles come from similar positions, located near fords where one had to pass through. It should be noted that the ancient track did not go beyond the gorge but went up the north side of Mount Galletto and then descended towards the lower valley after having intercepted the ancient route coming from Arzengio on the saddle. Just on the saddle of Monte Galletto we must imagine there was, almost five thousand years ago, an alignment of statues-steles, of which ours would be a fragment that fell into the underlying field, a situation that closely resembles the Sanctuary of Minucciano with its pass, a natural hinge between Lunigiana and Garfagnana. The find has already been cataloged in the museum and, for its director, it is another important step on the extraordinary journey of the stelae towards the goal, the understanding of their meaning today a little less mysterious.

March 11, 2021 (change March 11, 2021 | 5:55 pm)

© Time.News

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