Immersed in dense vegetation that almost hide it
the gigantic boulders are the protagonists of many stories
always told by the people of the villages at the foot of Monte della
Star. One after the other, the women approached the stone giants,
to perform an ancient rite, also handed down from generation to
generation from the dawn of time: they entered the two narrow passages
between the rocks and walked through them, taking care to touch the belly with the
stone caressed by the sun, a guarantee of fertility. And they hoped that
contact could give them the children they so desired. Thus the Petra
'Ru Mulacchio, the illegitimate Son of the Stone in Italian, held
faith in the collective imagination to its ancestral fame, linked to
cults and practices dating back to prehistoric times. And somehow remained
current until the fifties of the last century.
After that, for a few decades, that ancient tradition had fallen away
in disuse as the frequentation of the Petra, of which it was almost
losing your memory. Until, in 1985, that place had been
recognized in its particularity and value by Professor Amedeo La
Greca, who had made known well beyond the district of
Monte della Stella the existence of that extraordinary site
archaeological, one of the rare megalithic monuments in Italy.
It is divided into three blocks, the Petra, separated by a natural phenomenon, which
opened two very narrow galleries between them. But at the work of the
elements was added that of man, who inserted between the boulders
seven meters high of the large stones, while others he raised above
above, horizontally, as if to form a roof. In those stones
higher, where rainwater is collected, gods have been dug
drains to drain it. The only modern addition is a staircase
of wood placed a few years ago by the Park Authority. All the rest of the
monument dates back to the second half of the third millennium BC. or, second
others, at the beginning of the second millennium, when it was in that territory
settled a population of proto-Apennine culture, therefore groups of
shepherds, who followed the rhythm of the seasons for transhumance e
they practiced fertility rites linked to the position of the sun.
None of the boulders that make up the Petra are in a random position. All
together they form a structure calibrated on the position of the sun, in
able to accurately indicate the winter solstice and that
in the summertime. Through the stones, the sun's rays penetrate at sunset
in the galleries to form a blade of light, the / sun blade, / a phenomenon
astronomical common to prehistoric megalithic structures such as
Stonehenge, which can be considered as stone calendars. There
position and length of the light blade change every day, in
constant throughout the year: the maximum length occurs in
winter solstice, the lowest on the summer solstice. An effect
so precise that it could never be the result of displacements
natural stones. For this the site of Monte della Stella was
equated to a Cilento Stonehenge.
Translated by Google •