Fireplace and holy altar in Curiceta at Apuan Alps, Italy

The Apuan Alps, High Versilia and Garfagnana are part of the Apuan Alps Park, and are rich of petroglyphs and archeological finds which are, in part, unknown and not precisly datable. These areas have been inhabited since Neolithic times but, the meaning and the reason for such signs engraved on stone, is still not clear. The Apuan Alps were chosen as a dwelling by people who have left many proves, ancestral and Christianization signs, sacred altars, thrones and artifacts carved in the stone. It is a stone atlas revealing our past and our roots.
The Curiceta site is placed inside a thick forest of chestnut trees, in an area where there are dried stone terraces perfectly preserved. The first building on the path, is the so-called ”fireplace”. It is a large flat stone stuck in the ground with a series of aligned stones where, probably, a fire was lit. Behind the big stone, there is a cavity where the smoke came out. In the lower part of the flat stone, there is a ”handle” carved in the rock. Its function is still unknown.
Along a short stretch of the path up the hill, protected by a high dry stone wall, we find the sacred stone altar. This enigmatic structure, has revealed many surprises during the tests performed with electronic instruments. The altar is carved in a single block of stone and is formed by a backrest and a horizontal supporting surface. From the left side, there are inclined planes which climb down. Below the inclined planes on a lower there is a vertical groove. On the altar we find the same handle carved present in the first structure the so-called ''fireplace''. The rock altars are very common around the world as, for example, in the South of Italy, in the Middle East but, in High Versilia this is the only one.
Archaeoacoustic analysis of the altar looks a dominant frequency between -47 and -50db at 25 – 28Hz very powerful. Another lower peak around 15-16Hz, which is the so-called harmonic Shuman frequency, is the highest and typical of the sacred sites.Indeed, it has also been observed in the Neolithic temples of Malta (Tarxien – Xaghra Stone Circle). This sound seems to come from underground water. Near the altar we have the same vibrations but at a much lower sound level. The source of the sound is right under the altar ; the sound decreases walking away from the altar.
According to studies and tests with electronic instrumentation, we have formulated a hypothesis on function of the Curiceta’s site. The two stone structures are connected. On the altar, probably, were celebrated sacrifices (animals and humans) and the blood flowed on the left side up to the groove on the floor. Afterwards, in the fireplace, the bodies or maybe just some organs were burnt.
Presentation by Tarabella & Debertolis at Archaeoacoustics III Academic Conference, 3-8 October, 2017, Maçao, Portugal.