Tomorrow, at 6.30 pm, exceptionally in the Sala Azzurra of the Hotel Granduca in Grosseto, we will talk about a topic of extraordinary interest, which is attracting growing attention, mixed with pride for the further response given to those who think that the Maremma it is a land with little culture. In fact, we will talk about “Murali”, that is, the enigmatic megalithic walls that run for kilometers through the scrublands of Monte Leoni. The main protagonists of the “rediscovery” will speak, moderated by Giancarlo Capecchi: Umberto Carini, Carlo Cavanna, Marco Mori and Paolo Nannini, who have been studying and mapping these prehistoric structures since 2015. A topic rightly included in the program of summer talk shows at the Terme Marine and taken up by TV9, the local broadcaster, which will propose it again on Thursday at 9.25pm and beyond. “In reality we are not the first to talk about it and bring it to the attention of scholars and the news. Already in 1880 – explains Paolo Nannini, former official of the Superintendence for the provinces of Siena, Grosseto and Arezzo and coordinator of the 2018 “Monte Leoni Project” – 2022 – to be precise in Boston, on May 15th on the occasion of the annual meeting of the “Archaeological Institute of America” (AIA) which is still active today with annual conferences and the publication of ‘Archaeology’, one of the most important archeology magazines in world level, William J. Stillman, as a reporter for “The Times” opened his report on Monte Leone, as it was called at that time, with these words: ‘Gentlemen, I have the honor to report as to the ruins on Monte Leone, in the Tuscan Maremma’… His discoveries on the Murals of Monte Leone, which even made people think of a ‘large prehistoric city’, had considerable resonance in the academic world at the time as well as in the local news of the “Ombrone “popular Maremma magazine of those years”.
The second half of the nineteenth century was a time of great themes and great discoveries for archaeology: Schliemann had recently excavated Troy and Mycenae, while in Italy the debate on the location of the ancient Etruscan city of Vetulonia was raging and in May 1880 Isidoro Falchi went for the first time to Colonna di Buriano, today Vetulonia, intuiting its true origins. “Unfortunately, for various reasons, after these years silence fell on these first discoveries that were soon forgotten – adds Paolo Nannini -. To remain as oddities of large stones scattered around the thickets of the Mount, known only to hunters or mushroom hunters… We will therefore have to wait until our days to see, thanks to the determination of a group of enthusiasts gathered in three non-profit associations, the Maremma Naturalistic Speleological Society, Odysseus and Progetto Heba, the start, in 2018 of a project for the mapping of the ‘Murals’, directed and coordinated by the Superintendence for the Provinces of Siena, Grosseto and Arezzo which has given important results for the knowledge and dating of these as well as other prehistoric testimonies identified in the investigations”.
