Mysterious Cyclopean masonry in Italy

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

A striking monument of that cultural era, unparalleled, is located in the vicinity of the ancient city of Latium; it is so remarkable that it is quite possible to put it on a par with the structures of the ancient Egyptians, and, indeed, it is worth spending many days on an exhausting trip to see it.

Such lines back in the middle of the 19th century. was dedicated to the Italian town of Alatri by one of the best experts in Italy, the historian Ferdinand Gregorovius, who has traveled all over the world. One might think that this monument - gigantic stone walls - so amazed the remarkable researcher of history, in fact, was not in the "land of the Romans", but in distant Peru.

Wall in Alatri (Italy) (left) and wall in Sacsayhuaman (Peru) (right). The similarities are noticeable even in the details. Huge stones were laid into the wall according to the polygon principle without the use of joint mortar

Anyone who wants to get to know more about the picturesque ruins of an ancient culture about which almost nothing is known today will not have to make tedious trips. In some two hours by car from Rome, stretches the so-called Chiokiaria, the "land of sandals", the spacious valley of Sacco Anagni, framed by the picturesque northern slopes of the Lepinsky mountains - Monti Ernichi and Monti Avsoni.

The towns located in this area are among the oldest in Italy. Cyclopean walls, erected in the pre-Roman era, usually flaunt in their center. The best-preserved and most picturesque wall of this kind is located in Alatri. The city is still surrounded on one side by a giant wall approx. 2 km.

The second ring of trapezoidal walls triumphantly rises on a rocky summit above the city center, designed in the Gothic style.

You can get to the ancient acropolis through five massive, perfectly preserved gates. The most impressive among them are Porta Areopago (or Porta Maggiore), whose height is 4.50 m and width - 2.70 m. The area of the acropolis, which is egg-shaped, is 19,060 square meters. m, and the height of the surrounding stone wall in some places reaches 17 m.

Acropolis of the city of Alatri. Small Gate (Porta Minore)

Acropolis of the city of Alatri. Great Gate (Porta Maggiore)

This truly cyclopean wall with its huge stone monoliths amazes the imagination of even seasoned contemporaries. The southeastern corner of the wall alone consists of fourteen huge monoliths and involuntarily evokes associations with buildings in Peru.

Two features immediately catch the eye, reminiscent of the megalithic structures of the pre-Incan era in South America. For example, the walls of the Acropolis of Alatri can be compared to the giant fortress walls of Sacsayhuaman. As it turns out, the largest stone blocks of the lower ring of the walls of Sacsayhuaman are 5 m high, 5 m wide and 2.5 m thick.

Their weight is estimated to be approximately 360 tonnes, which is the same as a full-load wide-body jumbo jet. And here and there a natural question arises: how were these monoliths transported (this was probably the most difficult technical problem even when using draft animals)?

These imposing buildings, which have stood for many millennia, having withstood the violence of the elements, hurricanes and even earthquakes, were built without cement, clay or any other mortar. The joints between the blocks are so tight today that it is impossible to insert a knife blade into them.

Acropolis of Alatri (Porta Maggiore)

Acropolis of the city of Alatri. Walls

Gregorovius wrote with good reason:

“Having seen and walked around these titanic black stone structures, preserved so well as if their age was calculated not by many millennia, but by several years, I was amazed at the power of man’s creative forces, which amazes me every time when I see the Roman Colosseum.”

The buildings of the ancient inhabitants of Latium, who fought against Rome, immediately catch the eye of everyone at the sight of the picturesque landscapes of Chiokiaria. When the gentle October sun floods this area with its golden light, many Romans come here to admire the beauty of nature.

Ruins of the city of Alba Fucens (Apuzzo)

For this wonderful time they even have a special name - ottopate gotape (Roman October). Today it is difficult to say whether this was one of the reasons why the Guernik people in the 6th century. BC. decided to found his capital here, or he was guided rather by strategic and cult considerations.

Latsitsum or Latium (lat. Latium) is a region in ancient Italy, the ancestral home of modern Romanesque peoples. Its territory is currently part of the larger administrative territorial unit of modern Italy, Lazio.

We still do not know much about the builders and the history of this city of cyclopean monoliths, for the Guernica did not know writing. Probably, pronounced features of the rural way prevailed in their culture. Since the beginning of the Bronze Age (c. 2000 BC), the peoples living in this area of the coast of the Latium region had an established sea connection with Sardinia and Spain, and here one of the highly developed cultures of the eastern Mediterranean was formed.

Ancient Roman city of Koza (Toscana)

But the new skills had almost no effect on the way of life and way of life of the people of the Neolithic era. The technical equipment of the inhabitants of central Italy improved somewhat only on the threshold of the next millennium. Trade in those days did not have much significance, it was still far from the emergence of a viable society, and there was no question of the formation of a state structure.

People huddled in modest adobe huts with thatched roofs and led the life of shepherds and plowmen in the very years when the Etruscans had the first rudiments of a hierarchy of power. Guernica, like other tribes that inhabited Italy at that time, united into a close-knit community that survived only during the war and religious festivals.

Traces of their culture in the period of the 5th-4th centuries. BC. were destroyed or assimilated by the Roman conquerors. However, the Cyclopean fortifications, the construction of which required careful planning and organization of work, survived and continued to exist. What could have prompted the poor nomadic shepherds to erect giant stone structures next to their dilapidated huts?

Acropolis of Ferentino (Lazio)

Where did they get their knowledge in the field of construction? Why did they forget about the labors that ensured their survival, and devoted all their energies to the construction of these megalithic monsters? Who convinced them to start construction and why? These and other similar questions arise not only in Alatri.

The city of Ferentino, attracting tourists with its temples, monastery and picturesque old streets, and from the IV century. serving as the seat of the bishop, seven centuries earlier it was captured by the young Roman Republic and incorporated into it. The founding of the city, most likely, dates back to the 5th or 6th century. BC.

Acropolis of Ferentino: Three stages of construction are clearly visible here. Dorim Cyclopean (below), then Roman and Medieval. According to one version, the Etruscans put their hand here.

On the example of the gates of Porto Sanguinaria, the history of the town can be traced, as if on a cut of geological layers. The upper part consists mainly of rubble stone, which was widely used in the Middle Ages, the arched vaults of hewn stone and door ceilings date back to the Roman era (1st century BC). BC), and the lower part, the colossal masonry of the foundation walls, dates back to the time of the Guernics.

Apparently, this construction technique was also known to the neighbors of the Guerniks - the Volsk tribe. On the slope of the Lepinsky Mountains is the town of Senyi, which is more than two and a half millennia old.

H. Henning wrote about this town: “During the Middle Ages, Senyi sometimes served as a papal residence. The city still retains its typical medieval character today. But its most interesting attraction dates back to the times of antiquity. Senyi is surrounded by an almost completely preserved ring of fortress walls made of huge stone monoliths of irregular shape, the creation of which dates back to the Vi-V centuries. BC..

San Felice Circeo (Lazio)

Likewise, the ruins of ancient Arpino (near Civitavecchia) and Norba (Norma) have preserved to us the remains of the Cyclopean fortress walls of the Volskians. Suffice it to say that the height of the gates in them reached 8 m. It is curious that in the era after the erection of the walls, Norba was characterized by a system of city streets, parallel or intersecting at right angles.

In this, the creators of the city plan followed the principle of urban planning set forth in the 5th century. BC. Ippoam of Miletus. Apparently, the Volski at that time had established contacts with the Greek city-states. This conclusion is quite real.

Could the principle used for the planning of the city center, by analogy, be used as the basis for the plan for the construction of the Cyclopean fortress walls? Here, after making some adjustments and clarifications, we can repeat the question Erich von Daniken posed during the excavation of rock monuments and walls in the Hittite city of Hattusha (modern Turkey): “The same can be seen in Peru. So, the same teachers - the same results?"

Such a question should plunge venerable archaeologists into confusion. But there are also exceptions. One of them is Professor Marcel Hume. Back in the fifties, he asked himself a question that could fill the missing link in explaining the gigantism inherent in many ancient cultures of the world. His inductive method eventually led the professor to the idea that the peoples who lived in the "dark ages" could be influenced by alien aliens.

Thus, the know-how of the construction of the Cyclopean walls, which was owned by the Wolski and Guernica, from the point of view of Marcel Ohme and Erich von Daniken, is another stone in the mosaic of searches for global prehistoric connections and contacts between cultures.