PREHISTORIC
PART
4 –
Ch.XXII
Prehistoric
monuments of metallurgic art in Dacia
Chalkeios Kion – The tall copper column
from
the region of Atlas mountains (Olt)
A second important monument
of metallurgy from the northern parts of Istru had been in prehistoric times a tall copper column, erected under the
ridges of Atlas mountains.
Dionysius Periegetus writes about this column, based on
some older geographical sources:
“Near the western Ocean, close to Gadira of the extreme parts, under the
far reaching ridge of Atlas
mountains, stand as end markers the columns
of Hercules, a great miracle. Here also rises to the sky a tall copper Column, covered in thick
clouds” (Orb. Descr. V. 63-68).
As we know, Atlas,
the famous mountain of the legends of antiquity, was in the country of the Hyperboreans (Apollodorus, Bibl. II. 5. 11. 2). It represented especially the
southern chain of the Carpathians, which the river Olt, called Atlas by
Herodotus (lib. IV. 49), cuts and separates in two important groups. And the
Columns of Hercules (see Ch.XVI. 1) and Gadira (see Ch.XVI. 6), the extreme
points up to which navigation was possible in prehistoric times alongside
Atlas, were on the western parts of the famous Oceanos potamos, or Istru,
called very often simply Oceanos
(see Ch. V. 4).
This copper column
was therefore situated in the western region of today
We don’t know
anything else about this column. We don’t know to what divinity it was
consecrated, if it had been poured from a single mass of metal, or composed of
several sections, if it had any inscription, or was decorated with religious
symbolic figures.
In any case this
column appears as a colossus of Hyperborean metallurgy, because the
Situated close to
the cataracts of Istru, it appears to have been the masterpiece of the
metallurgical workers from Baia-de-arama
(see Ch.XX), a monument from the flourishing epoch of these mines, destined to
perpetuate the memory of the first beginnings of copper fabrication in these
parts.
An analogous
example is offered in the history of Rhodos
island. In the most remote times this island had been inhabited by the famous
metal workers named Telchini, who,
as Greek authors tell us, produced here iron and copper (Strabo, Geogr. lib. XIV. 2. 7).
Both the name Rhodos of this Pelasgian island, and
the Greek name of another neighboring island, Chalcia (Pliny, H. N.
lib. XVII. 3. 6), also tell us that in ancient times there existed here a
flourishing metallurgical industry. At 300-285bc these metallurgists erected
near the harbor of Rhodos island a real metallic colossus, a copper statue which
represented Helios (Sun), 70 ells high, which had been by right considered as
one of the seven wonders of the antique world (Pliny, lib. XXXIV. 18. 3).
The copper column
from near Atlas mountain also had a considerable size, thing confirmed by the
fact that it had become famous in the antique world and had acquired a
geographical significance [1].
[1. In Latin language raudus and rodus means a metal piece, especially of copper. In Mehedinti
district (
From the characteristic epithet Helibatos
given by Dionysius to the
copper column from near the Atlas mountain it might appear that this monument
had also been consecrated to the Sun (Helios)].