Argimusco
The Argimusco plateau is a naturalistic and archaeological site that rises close to the Natural Reserve of the Malabotta Wood, in the heart of the Abacenino Territory, near to the villages of Montalbano Elicona, Novara di Sicilia and Tripi.
The Argimusco plateau is one of the most mysterious and evocative places in all of Sicily. In this plateau millions of years old rocks stand out with particular anthropomorphic and zoomorphic shapes whose origin is totally shrouded in mystery.
It is believed that the action of atmospheric agents, mainly wind and water, shaped the large rocks and that only later did man begin to frequent this place and use it for observation of the sky, to decipher the movements. of the stars, coming to discover the changing of the seasons and lay the foundations for a practical and useful calendar. For this purpose many of the stones present in it were worked for specific purposes.
The site has already been defined by many as the Sicilian Stonehenge, but between the two archaeological sites there is a substantial difference: the English site is made up of megaliths, i.e. large stones used to build a structure, the Sicilian site instead presents natural stones some of the which ones you work.
At the beginning of the main path that leads to the discovery of the Argimusco megaliths, there is a map that illustrates the most significant rocks, among them: the rocks of virility that depict the male and female genital forms, placed one in front of the other, and which symbolize fertility; the eagle with a fairly recognizable shape and with its beak pointing in the direction of Etna; the warrior or priest where you can see a human profile, with a hole representing the eye, and growths representing the ears; the praying woman where the profile of a woman with her hands joined as a sign of prayer can be clearly seen and to which a legend is linked. And then again the mammoth; the monkey; the eye; the rock with sphere and many others.
