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My visit in italy
I liked very much Fossa standing stones in Abruzzo.
An extremely interesting site, Fossa, in Abruzzo, was used by the ancient Vestini tribe as a cemetery during the early Iron age (1000 - 800 BC). The stones - mostly upright flat slabs between 0.5m and 4m (1.6 and 13 feet) tall - are arranged in circles and straight lines, but with the unusual feature that in many of these circles and lines the slabs are of radically different heights and are arranged, like the steps of a staircase, in order of height.
Those slabs that are set in straight lines (usually between six and eight slabs in a row) may have had some horological or astronomical significance, as they are aligned E-W. The tombs inside the circles were used for single burials and the bodies were oriented, like the slabs, E-W.
Besides their human contents, the tombs also contain pottery, bronze vases, weapons and ornaments. Tomb 19 contained a jar decorated with geometical motifs made by the application of metallic flakes. Some of the later burials used the hollowed trunk of a tree as a coffin.
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The Piccolo San Bernardo stone circle probably dates back to second or third millennium BC. It was re-discovered last century. Its large diameter (72 m - 236ft) makes it one of the most important stone rings in mainland Europe. It is located 2190 metres above sea level, exactly (and probably deliberately) on the watershed of the Piccolo San Bernardo mountain pass between Italy and France. Indeed, the circle straddles the border between the two countries.
Forty-six low stones remain, but originally there were probably more, as the site is now crossed by a road which almost certainly destroyed several others. According to some ancient sources, a dolmen once stood in its centre. A group of three large stones is aligned to the point where the sun sets at the summer solstice, but some of these stones may have been moved, or even replaced, over the centuries, so it is very difficult to prove that this alignment was important to the original builders |
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