Because of the concentration of statue-menhirs this is unarguably one of the major sites of Corsican Prehistory. Filitosa offers an incomparable collection of megalithic monuments, real sculptures most often in anthropomorphic (human) form, which bear witness to the great civilisations which flourished on the island before our era, and which evoke still mysterious religious rites.
Questions remain about the significance of the menhirs and statue-menhirs. Were the first Neolithic monoliths phallic symbols erected by peasants in the hope of fertilising the earth? Or were they funeral monuments representing the Shardane warrior chiefs, shady figures seen overwhelmed in images engraved on the Medinet-Abu temple in Egypt?
The stonemasons, the megalithic sculptors have made this place the greatest centre of statuary art in Corsica and one of the most important in the Mediterranean. Filitosa holds half of all the arms-bearing statue-menhirs counted in Corsica, and close to a third of Corsican statues.
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