Castellu di Cucuruzzu

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Cucuruzzu (Corsica)
Cucuruzzu
Cucuruzzu
Location of Cucuruzzu

The Castellu di Cucuruzzu is a megalithic cult site of the Torre culture on the island of Corsica : It is located between Sainte-Lucie-de-Tallano and Levie on the approximately 900 m high granite plateau Pianu di Levie. The Torrean complex, which was only discovered in aerial photographs in 1959, was built in the Corsican Bronze and Iron Ages between the 9th and 4th centuries BC. Used. Later there was no permanent settlement here, so the complex was preserved relatively well. Nearby are the similar facilities of Castellu di Capula and Forcina , as well as the "Forêt du temps" (Forest of Time).

The people lived from agriculture and animal husbandry (cattle, sheep, pigs and goats) and hunted deer and wild boar, which is evidenced by the bones under the Abri . During the excavation between 1963 and 1964, only a small amount of inventory was found because the complex had been looted.

Some of the buildings are, as is typical for the Torrean people, integrated into a natural rock backdrop (including an abri). The complex of 1200 m² is divided into two areas:

  • In the west is the so-called fortress with a high Cyclopean wall and an interior dotted with boulders that leaves little space free. It takes up an area of ​​about 30 by 40 m and consists of boulders from half a ton to a ton; the average height is five, the wall thickness two to five meters.
  • Castellu di Cucuruzzu

  • Castellu Cucuruzzu (outside)

  • Period of Corsican megaliths

  • Castellu Cucuruzzu (inside)

The only access is in the west. Stone stairs were built between the halves of a huge broken granite block. The subsequent wooden catwalk is part of a superstructure that covered a square chamber that could have served as a guard cell. There are five openings in the wall to the west. Based on the finds of lumps of clay, it is assumed that there were also places for the production of pottery or, what might suggest, millstones , a space where grain was processed into flour. A large rock table with a round recess in the middle, which was used for grain grinding, forms the northern western front. Beyond is lodge A, which forms the north-western exit with the rocks. A huge boulder in the back of the western front was made into an artificial abri by means of plates, under which one found a lot of broken ceramics (bowls, jugs, bowls). In the southern part of the western sector, piled stones were inserted between the natural rocks. In the area of ​​three niches, which are laid out like covered corridors, the masonry is very carefully executed.

The cult monument is to the east. The access to the higher cult monument, which probably served the cult of the dead, is in the east and about 10 m above the Torrean village. In the corridor there is a niche (guard cell) to the right and left. The corridor is roofed with an ogival arch. It leads to a polygonal cella three to four meters in diameter, which leans laterally against the natural rocks. Their cantilever vault is three meters high, as is more common in the Mediterranean region. It is the only intact Torrean vault in Corsica. In the nearby village of the same time, there were hut layouts.

literature

  • Roger Grosjean : Le complexe torréen fortifié de Cucuruzzu (Lèvie, Corse). Première campagne de fouilles, 1963. In: Bulletin de la Société préhistorique française. Vol. 61, No. 1, 1964, pp. 185-194. (Online version at Persée)
  • Eugène Bonifay (Red.): Préhistoire de la Corse. Center Regional de la Documentation Pédagogique, Ajaccio 1990, ISBN 2-86620-50-3 .

Web links

Coordinates: 41 ° 43 '28.9 "  N , 9 ° 7' 36.1"  E