The Megalithic Complex of the ``Preta 'ru Mulacchio'' on the Monte della Stella
The Monte della Stella is a 1131~m high mountain, belonging to the range
separating the Alento Valley from the Tyrrhenian Sea, south of the city
of Agropoli in Italy. At 1030~m over the sea-level, a large, isolated
outcrop of the bedrock is present. This rock is well known to local
people and called the ``Preta ‘ru Mulacchio’‘, expression meaning in the
local dialect ``The Bastard Child Rock’‘. The ``Preta’’ is basically
composed by three rocks that were originated along of natural reasons
from a single block of arenite in its upper part and of a rough
conglomerate in the lower one: between the three rocks, two galleries
(thereafter F and G) were thus formed. However, it is easy to see that
the ``Preta’’ was deeply modified by human intervention: large stones
were wedged in exact position between the three original blocks or
positioned as a cover. We found that F gallery has an astronomical
azimuth of 359 deg and G gallery of 240 deg. Inside the measurement
precision (1 deg), the galleries are thus respectively oriented to the
meridian and to the sunset of the winter solstice. Furthermore, modern
folklore associated to the rock seems to remind very ancient fertility
rites. From a statistical analysis of the alignments and an
archaeological study of the complex, we conclude that ``Preta ‘ru
Mulacchio’’ is most probably a monument, dated to an epoch presently
unknown but possibly preceding the Greek colonization of Cilento, built
in order to determine with a high precision the winter solstice because
of cerimonial reasons, probably connected with fertility rites.