Filitosa: Faces Carved in Stone 3,500 Years Ago
Corsica, France
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Filitosa
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250
XP
+100 France
= 350 total
1 day
Filitosa: Faces Carved in Stone 3,500 Years Ago
250 + 100 XP
In 1946 Charles-Antoine Cesari, who owned the land, reported ruins under the maquis that locals took for an old convent; the writer Dorothy Carrington brought them to archaeologists' attention, and Roger Grosjean dug the site from the 1950s into the 1970s. Filitosa was lived in from the end of the Neolithic until long after the Bronze Age, and around 1500 BC menhirs two to three metres high were raised and carved with human faces, armour and weapons. Grosjean thought they were raised to ward off invaders he called the Torreans — if so it failed, because the statues were thrown down, broken up and built into the walls. The site has three Torrean monuments and thirteen statue-menhirs, though the way they stand now is an arrangement for visitors.
Required Activities
1
of 6
Get close enough to Filitosa VI, IX and XIII to see how the faces were made: eyes and mouth cut hollow into the granite, nose and chin left standing out of it — then look for the ears, barely suggested, on Filitosa IV
2
of 6
Find the sword on Filitosa I and on VI, the dagger on Filitosa V, and the shoulder baldric it hangs from on VII — then walk round the back of the stones for the shoulder blades in relief and the spine cut hollow, and the ribs that are only on Filitosa X
3
of 6
Climb to the central torra and look at what its wall is made of: forty-five fragments of monoliths came out of it, thirteen of them statue-menhirs, along with querns, mortars and grinders — somebody pulled down the standing stones and used them as rubble
4
of 6
Walk down to the alignment at the west foot of the hill and work out that it was put there: the row is modern, and several of its stones are not even from Filitosa — Scalsa Murta and Micalona I and II were found elsewhere in the Taravo and brought here to keep them safe
5
of 6
Find the granite quarry beside the site, then walk the whole spur end to end — 128 m long and about 40 m wide above the Barcajolo stream, at the place the Corsicans call Turrichju, the place of the towers
6
of 6
Go into the west tower and find the ground-floor rooms and the first steps of a stair — proof the tower once had an upper floor — and the single hearth with its clay base, the only fitting the diggers found inside
Get close enough to Filitosa VI, IX and XIII to see how the faces were made: eyes and mouth cut hollow into the granite, nose and chin left standing out of it — then look for the ears, barely suggested, on Filitosa IV
Find the sword on Filitosa I and on VI, the dagger on Filitosa V, and the shoulder baldric it hangs from on VII — then walk round the back of the stones for the shoulder blades in relief and the spine cut hollow, and the ribs that are only on Filitosa X
Climb to the central torra and look at what its wall is made of: forty-five fragments of monoliths came out of it, thirteen of them statue-menhirs, along with querns, mortars and grinders — somebody pulled down the standing stones and used them as rubble
Walk down to the alignment at the west foot of the hill and work out that it was put there: the row is modern, and several of its stones are not even from Filitosa — Scalsa Murta and Micalona I and II were found elsewhere in the Taravo and brought here to keep them safe
Find the granite quarry beside the site, then walk the whole spur end to end — 128 m long and about 40 m wide above the Barcajolo stream, at the place the Corsicans call Turrichju, the place of the towers
Go into the west tower and find the ground-floor rooms and the first steps of a stair — proof the tower once had an upper floor — and the single hearth with its clay base, the only fitting the diggers found inside
Before you go
Filitosa is privately owned and ticketed, and the guided tour runs from June to September, six days a week but not Thursdays, starting at 10.30 — outside those months ring 04 95 74 00 91 before you drive out, because hours shorten off season. The circuit is on dirt paths over a granite spur, so proper shoes, and there is no shade at the statues.
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Challenge Location
XP Breakdown
Challenge XP
250 XP
France country bonus
+100 XP
Potential total
350 XP
Country bonus earned on completion of your first challenge in France.
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