December 21 is the winter solstice in our hemisphere, the day when astronomically the coldest season of the year begins. A particular night, the longest of the year but already from the day after the days will return to lengthen.
Day of popular traditions throughout the northern hemisphere could also be greeted by a rain of falling stars, the swarm of the Ursids. The most spectacular site to attend the winter solstice is Stonehenge, when the famous megaliths arranged in a circle are pierced by the fiery rays of the sun. A phenomenon due to the inclination of the earth's rotation axis.
In the Lucanian Dolomites there is a place that, on the occasion of the winter solstice, reveals a secret, an all-Italian Stonehenge: Petre de la Mola is a sophisticated prehistoric stone calendar on Mount Croccia. An interdisciplinary research group composed of archaeologists, geophysicists, geologists and astronomers has started the study of the megalithic complex called Petre de la Mola, not far from the top of Mount Croccia.
Sophisticated surveys carried out have revealed that the complex has direct alignments to the position of the Sun at midday and at sunset of the winter solstice; others report the same phenomenon for the equinoxes and the summer solstice.
It is therefore probable that the megalith was used by the ancient inhabitants of Mount Croccia as a stone calendar to indicate particular dates of the year, for ritual purposes and for practical purposes. In addition to the megaliths, the entire archaeological area includes a fortified Lucanian settlement (4th century BC), located on the top of the mountain.
This settlement is surrounded by several walls made of perfectly squared blocks, has a length of over 2 km and its main gate looks, through the megalith, at the point where the sun rises at the equinoxes. Any confirmation of this data would indicate the conservation of a memory and the sacred value of the megalith. This gigantic rock was used for rituals, for the harvest and for exceptional events. In fact, drains were found around the gigantic boulder for water and engravings, perhaps precisely for the sacred rituals during the solstice which, for all ancient peoples, represented a very important day of the year.
As has been the case for several years now, on December 21st a hundred people, from all over Italy, went up to the megalithic complex of Petre de la Mola, located about 1000 m above sea level on Mount Croccia (Basilicata), to observe the spectacular sunset of the sun at the winter solstice.
The Petre de la Mola are a natural outcrop of the rock, which was modified by man's work, in an era still unspecified but certainly not later than the beginning of the first millennium BC, to transform it into a stone calendar. In fact, from a special observation point indicated by a petroglyph indicating the directions in which to look, on the day of the winter solstice at noon you can see the Sun appear in a small artificial crack carved into the rock. On the same day from the same observation point the star is seen reappearing for about ten minutes at sunset within a gallery obtained by superimposing a stone slab on a natural slit, carefully worked to align it exactly with the desired direction. Deep artificial basins for the collection of rainwater and other petroglyphs on the surrounding rocks testify to the sacred character of the place and the ceremonies that took place there in the prehistoric era at the solstice, a day of great importance in all ancient cultures.
The observation was led by the writer, Vito Francesco Polcaro, researcher of INAF IAPS in Rome, and by the archaeologist Leonardo Lozito, national vice president of the Archaeological Groups of Italy. In addition to the many fans of astronomy and archeology, the archaeologist Emmanuele Curti and the mayors of the neighboring countries took part in it.
At noon on the winter solstice, the sun appears in the meridian slit of Petre de la Mola
Recently it has been shown that the presence of astronomically oriented monuments is remarkably widespread in Southern Italy and in particular in Basilicata, Cilento, Puglia and Sicily. One of the best known is, in fact, the megalithic complex of Petre de la Mola, located at 1049 m a.s.l. on Mount Croccia, inside the Croccia-Cognato Natural Park, an area of anthropological-naturalistic reserve with total protection due to the presence, as well as rare animal and vegetable species, of numerous archaeological remains. Traces of frequentation of the site date back to the Neolithic period (10000 - 6000 BC) and also during the Bronze and Iron Age the area was certainly frequented, to be then abandoned until today starting from the IV century BC.
The accidental discovery by the late professor Marco Mucciarelli, geophysicist of the University of Basilicata, of a singular lighting effect at noon in this megalith made us suppose that Petre de la Mola had been modified by the human hand to transform them into an instrument of calendar measures. A subsequent investigation, conducted, together with Professor Mucciarelli, by the writer and the archaeologist Emmanuele Curti, has in fact revealed two clear astronomical alignments. From a single and particular observation point, a rift in the ridge that delimits the small (probably artificial) esplanade in front of the northern side of the megalith, an artificial hollow in the rock is observed exactly to the south and, at an azimuth of 238 degrees, a small area opened on the sky by the hand of man between the boulders that make up Petre de la Mola, obtained by superimposing a stone slab on a crack in the rock, natural but carefully worked to align it in the desired direction.
From the same vantage point, the Sun shines at sunset in the artificial tunnel in the southwest
At the winter solstice, the Sun thus appears in the midday aim at noon and in the south-west at sunset. The probability that, from the same observation point, two alignments of artificial sights will occur by chance on the same day with the positions of the Sun in azimuth and height at different times is negligible.
Many elements indicate that the place had a sacred value for its ancient visitors and was the seat of cults related to the winter solstice, a day of great practical and symbolic importance for all ancient cultures, because starting from the solstice the hours of solar lighting begin to increase, representing the victory of light over darkness. In fact, on a rock slab next to the privileged observation point, a petroglyph indicates precisely the direction of the meridian and that of the sunset at the solstice and deep artificial basins dug in the Petre collect rainwater and convey it to the ground with a series of grooves, with a probable lustral purpose.
Furthermore, Petre de la Mola are not a unique case: just 90 km, on Mount Stella in Cilento there is an extremely similar megalithic complex: the Preta 'ru Mulacchio. In this case, a "cultural fossil" also gives us an indication of what was the ceremony that took place there in ancient times: in fact, until the middle of the last century, women who went in procession to the Marian shrine placed on top of the Monte Stella, when they wished for a son, passed through the narrow gallery oriented to the setting sun of the Sun, crawling the belly on the rock. This fertility rite, clearly of pre-Christian and probably pre-classical origin, explains the name of the megalith: in fact, in Cilento local dialect 'mulacchio' indicates the illegitimate child.
There is no ethnographic evidence of the same rite at Petre de la Mola, but it is the name itself that suggests that a similar rite was celebrated there in antiquity. In fact, in Lucanian, the 'mola' is the stone used to sharpen blades, a purpose for which the soft sandstone of Petre is absolutely not suitable. Instead, the name of "Petre de la Mola" can easily derive (like the Cilentan Mulacchio) from the Indo-European root 'mul' (the same as 'mule'), which indicates the crossing of different species, in this case the woman and the rock. Evidently, the purpose for which the megalithic complex was built in the distant past has also left a trace here.
