MY HOLY MOUNTAIN

In 1991, a fire broke out on the top of a mountain, leaving it bare after millennia. It is the peak of Roccerè, in the Western Alps, not far from Turin. Here, a group of passionate researchers stumbled upon some of Italy’s most dazzling archaeological discoveries. A site just under 2 square kilometres in size contains artefacts that have spanned millennia of history: altars, cup-marks, sun calendars. The peak of Roccerè was one of the oldest astronomical observatories in the world, a place that over the centuries became a temple and a refuge. A past that still lives on in the most traditional customs of the surrounding areas. A past at risk since the site was downgraded from archaeological to special geological interest. How the Italian Stonehenge may have transformed the lives of some lucky discoverers and how perhaps among the granite rocks, hidden for millennia by the now burnt forest, a rock painting unique to Europe was revealed. As mysterious as the place that hosts it.