Places to find traces of the ancient Ligurians
Flower Riviera, Genoa and surroundings, Gulf of Poets, Palm Riviera, Portofino and the Tigullio
Who were the ancient Ligurians? What did they leave us? Where can we find traces of their history? Here are six places where they still speak to us…
The ancient Ligurians left no obvious traces, but there are signs that you can still recognise in the territory. A pragmatic, proud people, they didn’t write and didn’t cultivate any art forms.
They did not erect temples, they did not build forums, they did not erect great funerary or religious monuments: they worshipped the forests, they followed the cycle of the sun and the energy of nature. They did not change their environment but adapted to it, modelling their land in their own image and likeness: dry stone walls, daring landings, houses leaning against each other, uphill cobbled creuze. As soon as you get there, you immediately realise where their land, Liguria, begins. Following their trail is an adventurous trip, not without its mysteries, through forests, Alpine passes and extraordinary wilderness areas.
A bit of history
Since we have no direct ancient sources, we have to trust what Greek or Roman historians tell us about the Ligurian people.
The Ligurians were a group of shepherd-warrior tribes that inhabited a large area between the Arno, the Po and Provence. They were divided into many tribes with strange names: Intemeli, Ingauni, Sabazi, Genuati, Tigulli, Ilvates, Statielli, Taurini, Vocontii, Salluvi and Apuani; they wore their hair long, had their own languages and customs and often, living in isolation, were quarrelsome among themselves and with “outsiders”, as is still the case today in some inland villages.
The Greeks called these ethnic groups Ligyes (Hesiod VII, B.C.) and perhaps this is the most probable origin of the name ‘Ligurians’, later also used by the Romans, who nicknamed them ‘capillati‘, i.e. ‘long-haired’. But the Romans soon realised something else: the Ligurians were skilled warriors. Indeed, their subjugation was long and difficult, costing Rome fierce battles and ending in mass deportation.
During the Second Punic War (218 BC), some Ligurian tribes (those from the west, the Ingauni, Intemeli and the Apuani) allied themselves with the Carthaginians; others (the Genuati and some tribes from the east) decided to support the Romans. Immediately things went well for the Ligurians: many of them fought with Hannibal when he defeated the Romans in the Battle of the Trebbia, while the Ligurian Sabazi hosted the Carthaginian ships of Hannibal’s brother Magone in the harbour of Savo (present-day Savona). In 205 BC, Hannibal’s brother razed Genoa, the capital of the Genuati, to the ground (probably since then in Genoa the word ‘magone‘ means ‘despondency, tragedy’)
But we know how it ended: the battle of Zama, Scipio Africanus, Hannibal’s defeat. The Romans acquired the territory and created the IX Region of the Roman Empire, ‘Liguria’, which stretched from the Maritime and Cottian Alps to the Po, Trebbia and Magra rivers.
However, the hostilities did not end: the Ligurians continued to fight. They struck the Romans with guerrilla-style actions and then took refuge in the tangle of the mountains, forcing the Romans to continuously plan military operations such as the one against the Statielli and especially the decisive one in 180 BC against the Apuani, which ended with the deportation of 40,000 Ligurians to Sannio and Lucania. The final subjugation came in the imperial period when, in 7-6 BC, near Ventimiglia, on the heights of La Turbie, the highest point of the Via Julia Augusta, the Tropaeum Alpium, a monument in honour of the Emperor Augustus to celebrate the definitive victory over 44 Ligurian Alpine tribes, was erected.
The stages
Menhirs and sacred sitesRock engravings
Polcevera Table
The castellaro
Lunigiana Stele Statues
The Golden Butterfly of Monti San Lorenzo
Menhir of Passo Teglia
Menhirs and sacred sites
The spirituality of the ancient Ligurians derived from their environment: their temples were often natural areas where the eye could connect the vastness of the sea to the grandeur of the Alps. One such place is Baiardo, a village in the province of Imperia, 900 m above sea level, once inhabited by the Euburati and Celtic populations. At its highest point is the Church of San Nicolò, a truly mystical place, probably built on an ancient place of sun worship: its vault collapsed in the earthquake of 1887 and today the blue of the sky stands out over the nave of the church. There is still a special energy about it today: it was in fact probably built on a place of worship dedicated to the god Abeglio (the same as Belenus, and the famous Ligurian filler word, one of the most obvious legacies of the ancient Ligurians).
Other special places are those with menhir or dolmen: grandi massi piantati nel terreno a scopo religioso large boulders planted in the ground for religious purposes or to demarcate territory. Most are directed towards the sun during the winter solstice and placed near burial sites and/or in transhumance areas.
In the province of Imperia, in the Park of the Ligurian Alps, between Passo Teglia and the Mezzaluna Pass, a place that even Italo Calvino wroteabout, an imposing menhir about two metres high, watches over a symbolic and charismatic area, the “Ciotta di San Lorenzo”: a natural amphitheatre along millenarian transhumance routes on the “Via Marenca”.
In Levante, on the heights of Lerici, on Mount Carpione in the Montemarcello-Magra Park , in the locality of Monti di San Lorenzo, a megalithic site has been identified where, during the summer solstice, at sunset, sunlight passes through a hole in a rock projecting a luminous silhouette in the shape of a butterfly: the golden butterfly.
Megalithic Road, Monte Beigua
Rock engravings
The people who carried out the extraordinary engravings on the slopes of Monte Bego in the Mercantour massif, now in France, was probably the same population who traced the signs of the Ciappu de Cunche, in the Finale area near Orco Feglino or the signs found on Monte Beigua a peak in the Ligurian Apennines, 1,287 metres above sea level.l.m.
For the ancient Ligurians it was an important sacred mountain, as was Monte Bego. In addition to their name (allegedly derived from a primitive Alpine deity named Baigus) these two mountains are united by the presence of numerous rock engravings dating from the Neolithic to the Iron Age. The ritual or religious matrix of some of them is recognisable: many rocks are sacrificial altars and sacred wells of the water cult, which, combined with that linked to the fertility of the fields, is characteristic of many pastoral cultures. For other signs, however, suggestion has bee used more.
Among the most evident testimonies on Monte Beigua, which you can reach after a simple trek, is the Megalithic Road, a paved avenue, bordered by majestic beech trees and flanked by mighty stone walls, whose path reproduces the path of the sun on the day of the summer solstice. It is an hour's walk from Alpicella, following his route. Nearby there is also the Clock Stone that will fascinate you with its mystery: is it a real sundial or is it an excavation boulder on which suggestion has worked? On other stones there is the presence of radiating cupels that inspired magical and ritualistic meanings, but were probably simple sharpeners.
Polcevera Table - Photo: Giovanni Dall'Orto
Polcevera Table
here is little evidence of the existence of Ligurians and it all comes to us from Roman or Greek historians and geographers, such as Tacitus or Strabo.
One extraordinary document is the Polcevera Table. In 1506, while clearing his land near Serra Riccò, in the Metropolitan City of Genoa, a farmer found a bronze tablet bearing an important epigraph from 117 BC. On which a Roman sentence resolved a territorial dispute between the Genuati (the tribe living in the Genoa area) and the Vituri Langensi local populations of the Polcevera Valley).
The table establishes the boundaries of the respective territories as well as property and grazing rights, resolving disputes between the groups of Ligurians and clearly defining the borders between the two sides, listing rivers, mountains and localities. It is therefore a fundamental document for the history of Roman law, epigraphy and knowledge of the Romanisation of ancient Liguria as well as a bridge between ancient culture and local history.
The Genuati, allies of the Romans, enjoyed pre-eminence over the inland populations, while the Viturii, a population from the hinterland area, intended to consolidate and expand their presence in the Val Polcevera. The Romans had an interest in pacifying and administering the area because it was an important centre of trade with the Po Valley. Currently, the Polcevera Table is kept at the Ligurian Archaeological Museum in Pegli. Much interesting information on the Ligurians can also be found at the Museo Civico Archeologico of Diano Marina.
A Ligurian castellaro (suggestive image created with AI)
The castellaro
Quella del “ castellaro” è una delle tipologie di insediamento che rappresentano meglio il carattere e lo spirito dei liguri di ogni epoca.
Divisi in molte tribù e privi di uno stato strutturato che li difendeva dalle incursioni dalla costa, i liguri adottarono un sistema di fortificazioni, i cosiddetti castellari: insediamenti arroccati sulle cime di monti e colline costiere, costruiti con pietre e muraglioni a secco, che assicuravano larga visibilità sulla valle e quindi anticipo sulla difesa.
Risalgono circa al IV secolo a.C., ma ce ne sono di più antichi; sono a pianta circolare o ovale, ma potevano essere anche quadrangolari, protetti da una o più cinta di mura. Alcuni si trasformarono in veri e propri centri abitati con un'economia basata principalmente sulla pastorizia e l’agricoltura. Sono molti i luoghi, tra Ventimiglia e Sarzana che li ricordano, ancora oggi, nel toponimo: come Castellaro, in provincia di Imperia o Castellar nei pressi di Menton, ma anche altri meno noti.
Imponente il castellaro di Monte Caggio sulle alture di Sanremo, o il “Villaggio delle Anime” sulla Rocca di Perti nel Finalese, mentre a Levante il Castellaro di Zignago domina alcuni collegamenti montani tra la Val di Vara e il Castellaro di Pignone che separa i centri abitati di Pignone e di Corvara. Proprio lì fu ritrovata una rara moneta d’argento, probabilmente coniata dalla zecca di Genova, databile tra il 75 e il 50 a.C che testimonia la fitta rete di traffici commerciali delle popolazioni che lo abitavano.
Lunigiana Stele Statues - Lunigiana Stele Statue Museum - Pontremoli
Lunigiana stele statues
The stele statues of the Lunigiana are one of the rare and ancient artistic-religious expressions of the Ligurian peoples who inhabited the area between Liguria and Tuscany, mainly therefore the Apuani, between the 4th millennium and the 7th-6th centuries BC.
This is a group of more than 80 artefacts found in the basin of the Magra River: monolithic slabs between 2 and 3 metres high and carved on sandstone in a slender shape. They have a humanoid appearance with stylised details (U-shaped faces, weapons or bas-relief jewellery) and represent deities or ancestors, with symbols of economic and social power (daggers for men, jewellery for women). Distant relatives of the menhirs, they too were probably used as guardians of the land or religious symbols. The first discovery took place on 29 December 1827 at Novà di Zignago, in the upper Val di Vara (La Spezia).
They are true works of art from the prehistoric era, providing important information on the culture and religiosity of the Copper, Bronze and Iron Ages. Enigmatic and iconic, they tell of a different world, rich in influences between peoples, with mysterious aspects yet to be discovered.
They are largely preserved in the Museum of Lunigianese Stele Statues in Pontremoli (MS)
The Golden Butterfly of Monti San Lorenzo
In the dense woods of Monti San Lorenzo, near Lerici a structure composed of four carved rocks is transformed into an extraordinary stage during the summer solstice: the sun's rays passing through the tetralite project a beautiful, gifted butterfly onto the nearby rock. The phenomenon can be seen at sunset from 25 May to 29 July, but in a more definite form during the summer solstice, around 21 June. It was discovered by Professor Enrico Calzolari, an expert in archaeoastronomy: the area of Monte Caprione was once inhabited by Ligurian and Celtic tribes and used to celebrate rituals in harmony with nature.
