Mercantour,
the Valley of Wonders
Valley of Wonders,
the most comfortable means of access
for the lazy people that we are
In the north-east of the department, a superb discovery awaits us in the heights behind the famous highest peak in the region at least on the French side, that of Mt Gélas.
Centered around from its neighbor Mt Bégo, it is the Valley of Wonders.
It is of course part of the Mercantour National Park.
So named not only because of the beauty of this elevated site, but especially because of the innumerable rock engravings which are scattered there since their creation some 2000 or 3000 years before our era.
And which evoke, according to all specialists, the "spells" of nature, which here gives its meaning to the word "Wonders".
Several accesses are possible, from the south from Authion, from the west from the top of the Gordolasque valley.
We chose to visit the site, very well protected, from the east by St-Dalmas de Tende with a professional guide passionate about his region, among the few who have received official approval.
His name, Franck Panza .
It offers its own website on the Internet at the address "www.panzamerveilles.com".
For modest walkers like us, this is the easiest solution because the arrival at the refuge is done by 4x4.
He will take us there from our meeting point at the back of the old monumental station in the purest Mussolini style, which appears completely disproportionate for this village, but which does not lack allure.
We will take about an hour and a half to reach the refuge, first on an asphalt road then on a very steep, finally on an old mule track.
We overlook as we pass a dam lake, the one de Mesches at 1370m, built by Italy in 1915, below an old mine, the Minière de Vallauria.
It was since the Middle Ages (11th and 12th century) a silver lead mine and zinc, then resumed from the 18th century until 1927 for galena then zinc. The restored hamlet is now a stopover.
Perhaps the mine, which through its history seems to be rich in information and historical and technical testimonies, will soon be open to visit.
Then, the mule track traced by order of Duce around 1930, quite steep in the mountain, meanders between the slopes of larch trees encumbered with erratic rocks (deposited by the glacier when it melts, therefore unrelated to the nature of the rocks at the bottom).
Then down from the deep valley rises; The valley widens and lets small torrents meander. We finally enter the park, the limit of which is clearly marked, before reaching at the very popular refuge of the Valley.
It will often have been necessary for our driver-guide to maneuver with a skill that we feel very familiar and safe, to cross impressive pins hair treble that forms the track several times.
Impossible also that two vehicles cross; we trust the daily natural one-way (ascent in the morning and descent in the afternoon) as well as the to the small number of vehicles concerned.
Many, most (but not all) younger, more courageous and trained go up on foot, for a long time. We meet them on the track, breathless, we barely touched by a feeling of selfish and not at all guilty pleasurable comfort. Except for the noise and their dodging on the edge of the track to leave us the passage.
The entrance to the national park, here
Towards the refuge via the old stony track
Mercantour,
the wonders of the Valley
The Refuge by the Upper Long Lake
At the refuge begins for our small group (we are two couples with our guide) the quiet hike across the moraine plateau above the lake next to the refuge, Lac Long Supérieur.
The diversity of the color of the rocks, vivid as on the first day, is remarkable.
Here and there, a chamois observes us, grazes a little then leaves, serene.
Huge rocks threadbare, worn, polished, broken in the direction of movement of the irresistible and multimillennial ancient glacier, forming a fantastic sea "bellies of whales", as geologists call "glaciated rocks."
The surrounding summits erected reveal both the reasons that made the site a kind of inaccessible refuge, a natural fortress, but also those which made it inhospitable, reflecting the efforts of adaptation that it took to those who invested in it over the centuries.
In the distance, through other closer peaks, the massive cone of Mont Bego looms.
It is said to be so loaded with iron ore that thunderstorms here release 10 times more lightning than elsewhere.
The terrible the crash of thunder bouncing between the rock walls of the circuses, the streaked arrows of lightning that are said to be of incredible power, the rain, the clouds and the wind then make it, even according to modern testimonies, a spectacle of hell ... and spells (among the "wonders" of the Valley in question).
Archaeologists, historians, scientists who have looked at the site say that successive generations of occupants from the end of the Neolithic then from the Bronze Age, pastoralists grazing their cattle in the thick meadow by the lakes, were so impressed that they wanted to engrave in their own way in the rock their belief: a sort of terrible god, a local Zeus, the Thunder, whose Olympus would be Mount Bego.
With in counterpoint other engravings dedicated to Mother Earth, her pastures and her herds.
On abraded surfaces orange shale or sandstone, up to 100,000 engravings have been listed between the valleys of Merveilles and Fontanalbe.
Their cultural and historical value is such that the site is declared a "Natural Historic Monument" in 1989, the largest open-air rock carvings site in Europe. Engravings mentioned from 16th century.
Mont Bego 2872m
The Refuge "of the Savants"
The Mont des Merveilles 2720m
The toponymy of the places also illustrates this ancient "infernal" perception: "Val d'Enfer", "Pic du Diable", "Lac Carbon" (black lake), "Lac du Tram" (of the tremor) ...
Even in more modern times, the site still looked so ominous that its pastures were the only open access areas in the region.
Under this very estimable status of "Natural Historic Monument", the site is extremely protected, especially since before becoming it, it was the object of vandalism.
A good-natured guard with a sharp gaze, posted out of habit on a rock, carefully scrutinizes the behavior of visitors, who are prohibited from leaving marked trails, unless their guide indicates when they have one.
Valley of Wonders,
some of the rock carvings
With the rudimentary tools of their time, between 3900 and 1900 BC, by percussion and hammering, pastors and farmers therefore marked hard stone here. (we believe that it is easy to peel off the engraved layer: this is not the case) symbols often repetitive, which flourish, simplify, sometimes become a chain of bare symbols evoking Hittite, Mayan or those writings. ancient African peoples, without however arriving at a syntax organized, established, intelligible.
The most explicit petroglyphs have been named according to their support, their location, the supposed or invented nature of what they represent ...
The bull's head with disproportionate horns that we would take for those of the deer "Megalocerus giganteus" if it had not disappeared 5000 years before JC, plots of land, simplified human silhouettes ... become for specialists " horny" "," anthropomorphic "," in daggers or plagues ", ... or simply" not representative ".
Some have hypothesized a religious language that others dispute.
Slideshow of rock engravings
of the Valley of Wonders
STORY GOES HERE
Bull's heads, anthropomorphic figures on the left, and other engravings with clearly visible cups
Those that we have been able to see (limited to the Valley of Wonders alone) repeat motifs that the exegetes have, with the great archaeologist Henry de Lumley, analyzed, listed, classified statistically.
The main ones are gathered in the attached table.
The whole thing is complicated because other more recent engravings, but no less estimable, probably of the High Middle Ages come to disturb interpretation and testify to other passages in the area.
They are found in a sort of trough parade, on the route of the visit. There stands on the left in the direction of the rise a real wall of black rock polished by the old glacier, at the foot of which passed and still passes today the path, that of the pass.
In addition to the fine and barely visible engravings that we say of the Middle Ages, passers-by gave themselves to their hearts content, leaving their name, sometimes the date of their arrival, mainly in the 19th century.
Franck Panza explains to us that some were smugglers, shepherds, priests, bandits (like Bensa in 1829), other passing soldiers, still others perhaps peddlers.
The fresco is in any case almost moving, more explicit than the petroglyphs, however just as touching in their total and ancient anonymity.
After having crossed two or three marmots and another chamois, the well-marked path where the foot seeks its support between the shards of rocks which seem detached from the day, threads between flowers, dwarf mushrooms of stones and small clumps of grass and moss which sometimes patina the stone like fault rust.
The return from this busy day will be after a break at the refuge by the same path with our robust 4x4.
Thanks Franck.
An "erratic" rock on an abraded sandstone bottom
