Parco Archeologico di Asinino-Anvòia

On the plateau of Ossimo, Copper Age communities raised aligned stones carved with faces, collars and daggers — sanctuaries open to the sky. Excavated over fifteen years, the Anvòia site now shows its monuments in the meadow where they stood, 4,500 years ago.

Why it matters

Valcamonica's engraving fame rests on valley-floor rocks, but the Ossimo–Borno plateau preserves something different: true megalithic sanctuaries of the Copper Age, third millennium BC, where cult areas held alignments of stele and boulders for ceremony and rite. Four cult zones are known on this plateau — Anvòia, Pat, Passagròp and Ceresolo di Malegno — and the sanctuary this park excavated and now presents is the Anvòia one. Official tourism material for the valley counts the site among the rock-art itinerary's eight dedicated stops. Informational panels document the digs directed by Francesco Fedele of the University of Naples Federico II between 1988 and 2003, a research arc that turned a mountain pasture into one of the clearest windows on prehistoric ritual in the Alps.

What to notice

The layout is the message: four boulders were found aligned north–south, three of them facing east with their main carved surfaces. The stylized faces combine parallel lines drawn as U or T shapes, overlapping triangles, spectacle-shaped pendants and collars, a vocabulary of anthropomorphic sacred imagery. Only the largest monolith, M3, bears weapons: daggers with triangular blades and half-moon pommels of the Remedello type, dated between 2800 and 2400 BC, which anchor the sanctuary's chronology. The excavation found votive deposits, post holes and piles of pebbles hiding stele fragments — stones that may have been broken deliberately. Resin copies of the originals, removed for conservation, and a scale model reconstruct the sanctuary as it appeared 4,500 years ago.

Context and history

The sanctuary belongs to the same Copper Age world as the Massi di Cemmo, but with its own character: monuments raised, carved and arranged rather than boulders engraved in place. Finds from the related Ossimo-Pat area — a six-strand necklace of stone rings and a double-spiral copper pendant — are shown at MUPRE in Capo di Ponte, where they echo the carved imagery of the Pat 1 and Pat 2 monuments. After the 1988–2003 excavation campaigns, the Comune di Ossimo established the open-air museum as part of the valley's rock-art heritage, alongside Naquane, Seradina-Bedolina and other components of UNESCO site n. 94.