Campana Stone Giants: the Elephant
There are no certainties about the origins of the megaliths of Campana (also called Pietre dell'Incavallicata), in fact if on the one hand they are believed to be the result of human ingeniousness, it is also likely that the forms have been shaped by atmospheric phenomena over the years. The formations were already known in the seventeenth century, as evidenced by a writing of the bishop of Isola Francesco Marino, who defined the statue identified as Cyclops: "The great colossus fallen to the ground because of earthquakes". Moreover, the area in which they are located has been defined, in a map of Calabria drawn by Giovanni Antonio Magini in 1603 "Il Cozzo dei Giganti". Believing them to be works of sculpture, three different hypotheses have been formulated on their dating: the first dates them to the expedition of Pyrrhus in the early third century BC, the second hypothesis does not deviate from the first one by many years, claiming that they were made by Carthaginian soldiers under the orders of Hannibal during the Second Punic War; the third finally identifies the Elephant with the reproduction of a specimen of Palaeoloxodon antiquus, a species of elephant lived and died out in the Pleistocene, attributing the realization of both monoliths to the first inhabitants of Calabria. The discovery of an almost intact fossil of antiquus in the nearby lake Cecita would confirm the hypothesis that this species lived in the Sila area.
Size: 3936px × 2624px
Location: Campana (Cosenza), Italy
Photo credit: © Giulio Ercolani / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
Keywords: ancient, antiquus, art, artistic, beautiful, calabria, campana, cosenza, curiosities, curiosity, dellincavallicata, elephant, european, formation, giant, hannibal, human, humans, italian, italy, man, megaliths, men, mistery, mysterious, nature, oldest, outdoor, palaeoloxodon, park, pietre, pleistocene, prehistoric, pyrrhus, rock, rocks, sculpure, stone, stones, wilderness
