Special nature reserve of the Bessa
The special nature reserve of the Bessa , established in 1985, is located in northern Piedmont at the exit of the Aosta Valley and on the southern slopes of the Bielle Alps in the province of Biella .
It is part of the Riserva naturale orientata delle Baragge nature reserve and extends over 7.5 km².
Geography and geology
The protected area is bordered in the north by the remains of a moraine from the Old Pleistocene and by the Quaternary alluvial areas of the Elvo torrent, to the south by a moraine from the same ice age phase and by the valley of the Olobbia torrent.
The Bessa presents itself today as a plateau , which extends on the extension of the valley of the Viona, a torrent, with a length of 8 km in a north-west-south-east direction. It is 800 m to 1.7 km wide and drops from a height of approx. 450 m in the north-west to a height of approx. 300 m in the south-east.
The Bessa gold deposit was formed by the erosion caused by watercourses and the re-sedimentation of the gold-bearing moraine deposits that were transported by the expansion of the glaciers in the Aosta Valley, a process that began a million years ago. At the same time, the large boulders , hundreds of which lie in the park today, were cleared of rubble.
history
The archaeological remains found in the area of the mine can be traced back to the 2nd to 1st century BC. Date and also show older traces. These are mainly boulders with rock carvings. The area consists of two terraces of fluvio-glacial origin, covered on the upper terrace with pebbles and on the lower one with sand and gravel left over from washing to extract the metal.
On numerous boulders in the area of the park there are rock paintings , mainly in the form of bowls , which testify to intensive prehistoric traffic in this area. From the 5th to 4th century BC The area was controlled by the Salassians .
Between 143 and 140 BC It was conquered by the Roman legions under Appius Claudius and gold mining was entrusted to the Publicani , the entrepreneurs of that time, who employed up to 5,000 men at the same time for the work.
How long the exploitation lasted is unknown, but we know from the historian Strabo that the gold mines were founded in the second half of the 1st century BC. Had already been abandoned (or more likely exhausted), and that the majority of Roman gold at that time came from Iberia and Gaul .
Individual evidence
Web links
Coordinates: 45 ° 29 ′ 5.8 ″ N , 8 ° 2 ′ 14.4 ″ E