The museum of marvels...the museum of the “Valley of Marvels”(Valléè des Merveilles) sited in the National Parc of Mercantour south-east of France beside Liguria (once part of Liguria). Mount Bego and the Valley of Marvels is the main sanctuary of ancient Ligurians. Where Ligurians made thousands of engravings as sign of devotion.
Ligurian Tommy Leggy
A Sanctuary
When I visited this place for the first time I had in mind two songs: Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” and “A Day In The Life” from Beatles.
The Led Zep song because there’s really a natural stairway that brings to the central Altar’s stone.
And that stone is seventy meters tall.
The Beatles song because it says:“I read the news
today oh boy/ Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire/ And though the holes were rather small/ They had to count them all...“. There’s an incredible numbers of cup marks all around the central Altar (somebody count 3249).
Jocking apart it’s really a remarkable place with a strong spiritual atmosphere. A serpent’s shape engraving on the Altar.
Most of the engraved cups are made (often in pairs) at the edge of the terraced rocks as if...
flying spirits could easyer go to pick their offerings.
the ancient track, interrupted by a new road, goes on after the cromlech.
Image credit: Ligurian Tommy Leggy
I’ve find out that the ancient track doesn’t stop at the cromlech.
Image credit: Ligurian Tommy Leggy
Sometime when you see those sites pictured in a book in black & white they don’t seem that much good.
Then when you visit them you understand that the book wasn’t a good one.
I’ve been surprised by the beauty of this place and
I’ve wished some friend was there with me to share my joy.
Plenty of small streams all around so the place was chosen for water’s cult, pastoral culture, simple, delicate engravings, peaceful, female in a word. And when I saw an hawthorn’s bush beside the rock I understood more...
The rock took its name by Professor A.Issel who studied and report it at the beginning of the last century. Is 2,80 meters long and 1,40 meters high. Down in the valley there’s a christian sanctuary called Acquasanta (Holy water...) where people use the water of a sacred fountain to cure their problems. I found this site because of a book (a good one)
written by Mr.Italo Pucci and Mr.Ausilio Priuli.
the ambient of the site, there’s more than one engraved rock.
Image credit: Ligurian Tommy Leggy
certain engraves are very microscopic.
Image credit: Ligurian Tommy Leggy
difficul to be pictured but it’s an engraved footprint.
Image credit: Ligurian Tommy Leggy
