Hradiště Butovice Hillfort

Welcome to the place where time seems to be stopped and where the earth under your footsteps begins to tell its oldest and deepest stories. You are standing in front of the castle of Butovice, an archaeological site that is much more than just a part of the Prague landscape. It's a place where millennia clashes, where human destiny rips, and where every trail in the field can be the key to understanding our ancestors. If you are looking around you now, you may see only the green slopes, trees and quiet landscape of Prague in the fifth part. But try to look at it differently. Imagine not only seeing the present, but looking through the layers of time at a place that has been a strategic point for thousands of years, home and fortress.

Look at the surrounding terrain and notice how the ground naturally rises here. This edge, as we call it, was not chosen by chance. Nature provided him with everything that people at the time needed to survive and protect. Notice how this place is surrounded by water. The Prokopian and Dalek streams here act as natural dykes that create an insurmountable barrier on the sides of the island for anyone who tries to enter illegally. This strategic position, where the high platform falls sharply into the valley, was crucial. The height difference between the day of the creek and the place where you are is up to 70 meters. Imagine the superiority, the power this hill had for anyone who watched it from below.

Now let's go deeper into history. Although the most significant trace of this place is linked to the early Middle Ages, the roots of the fort go much further into the dark past. Imagine the year 3,000 BC. At that time, in the period of native culture, people had already lived, built and formed their first community ties. This place was already inhabited in late stone time, making it one of the longest inhabited sites in the region. This incredible continuity of settlement shows us how much this place was natural and safe for man.

Subsequently, probably in the eighth century of our current era, this is where the early medieval castle was established. The people of the time used what the country offered them and built a new, organized structure on the site of the older estate. The total area of this castle is significant, it is divided into nine hectares. If you now tried to draw a map of this place in spirit, you would see a clear distribution. The whole area is divided into two main parts. The first is the acropolis, the most important and highest-laid part, which occupies approximately four and a half hectares. The second part is the prefix, which has a slightly larger area, i.e. four whole six hectares. An internal cross-wall was built between these two zones in the past, separating the inner, safest space from the outer zone. Even if you don't see these walls today as monumental buildings, their presence still defines the shape of this entire landscape.

Now pay attention to how we learned about this place. The history of the castle of Butovice is not only about the people who lived here, but also about the people who tried to reveal their secrets. The first significant survey was carried out in the year one thousand eight hundred eighty-four Břítislav Jelinek. Thanks to his efforts, we managed to find the first traces of the past in the form of prehistoric and early medieval ceramics and stone tools. These tiny objects, these shards and stone pieces, are for archaeologists as letters in a book that allow us to read the story of life back then.

Another fundamental step in our knowledge was made in the year of a thousand nine hundred sixty-four archaeologist Norbert Mášek. His research was crucial to understanding the structure of the castle. It was he who revealed the remains of the stone fence and identified the early medieval vanuvian object, which gave us a much clearer idea of how people moved in this space and what buildings could have happened here. And science doesn't stop anytime soon. In the year two thousand sixteen was completed the modern non-destructive research of the space foresaw. Thanks to these modern methods, we can now explore what lies beneath the surface of the earth without having to destroy the very structure of the castle. It's a fascinating combination of the ancient world and modern science.

You may now ask what is the greatest mystery in this place. It's the invisible force that has drawn people here for thousands of years. Why was this particular hill, surrounded by streams, so important to them? What did people feel when they met at the inner wall in the eighth century to defend themselves from danger, or when they formed their first instruments here in the Stone Age? This continuity of life, this constant call to this place, is the greatest mystery the Butovice Castle offers us. It's a place where human life has been constantly transformed, but where the basic need for safety and home has remained the same.

Now I want to invite you to continue your walk and let yourself be carried away by this feeling of connection to the past. Take a look at the surrounding terrain, see the atmosphere of this place and try to draw in your imagination the old walls that once stood right where trees or grass are now. Every step after this edge is a step after history that shaped our country. Thank you for sharing this story with us. We will brighten you a pleasant further journey in the footsteps of our ancestors.