keltská viereckschanze u Mšeckých Žehrovic Archaeological site

Welcome to the place where time has stopped and where the earth under your footsteps touches ancient history. You are standing in front of one of the most important archaeological sites in our region, in a place called Mšecký Zahrovice. Perhaps all you see around you now is the quiet landscape of the Rakovnik district, the green fields and the silence that only breaks the wind. But if you stop and begin to perceive the atmosphere of this place, you will realize that here, beneath the layers of the earth, there are traces of human life that formed their community here more than 2,000 years ago. This space is not just an ordinary field, it is a place that once formed the center of life, a safe haven and a home for people who knew the rhythm of nature much deeper than we do today.

Let's go back together to a time when this county looked quite different. Imagine the period around the first century before our present marking. At that time, there was Latin culture, a fascinating society of Celtic people who were masters in crafts, trade and building solid settlements. What you see now is a remnant of their double, square castle space, which we professionally call viereckschanze. This name sounds foreign, but basically it means a simple and brilliant solution: a reflected square-shaped space that served as the basis for their housing and protection. The Celtic settlement in this area was not random. These people chose places that offered them not only safety, but also connections with the surrounding landscape, which they were able to make great use of.

Now pay attention to what happened here in the very heart of this settlement. Even though you don't see tall walls or wooden gates today, which were obviously part of the defense system at the time, archaeological surveys allowed us to see through the earth. If you look at the structure of the terrain, you can perceive clues that once formed solid boundaries. In the period between the second and the first century before our current marking, basic structures began to be built here. Imagine a large building that probably served as the center of the castle, perhaps a meeting place or a place where the gods worshipped each other. And around it were placed smaller, into the land of the cottages. These cottages, which we call deep buildings, were a very practical solution. Thanks to the fact that their floor was in the ground, they kept warm in cold days and pleasant cold in hot days. It was homes where they cooked, slept, and told stories by the fire.

In this history, however, there is one name and one object that has made this place unique. It's a story that happened much more recently, in the year one thousand nine hundred forty-three. Something unexpected happened here. In a random discovery, an incredible thing happened in the ground - a stone head. But it wasn't any head. It was the carved face of a Celtic druid, a spiritual leader and a scholar, made of a fine, brighter stone called optheka. This artifact was not just an ordinary find, it became a symbol of this entire era and its beauty and mystery immediately captured researchers around the world. Imagine the moment when someone in the earth finds the face of a man who lived here a thousand years ago, a face that looks at you through the dust of centuries. The head reminds us that Celtic society was not only about survival, but about deep spiritual life and artistic expression.

However, in order to speak with such certainty about these matters, we must thank the people who have dealt with this place with patience and great passion. These include, above all, an expert who, in the years between a thousand and nine hundred seventy-nine and a thousand and nine hundred eighty-eight, conducted extensive archaeological surveys. It is thanks to her work and her leadership that we are now able to understand how the trenches were deployed here, how the structures of the chatrooms looked and how exactly this settlement was organised. Without these excavations, this place would only remain a vague legend, but science is a living history for us to study and admire today.

Now, I want to invite you to think a little bit about a mystery that still surrounds this place. While we know about the existence of large buildings and chat rooms, there are still many questions that remain unanswered. Why did they choose this place? What kind of ceremonies took place here in those sunken cottages? And what else is under your feet? Every inch of this country can hide other fragments of ceramics, tools or traces of lit fire. There's something magical about it that even though people are long gone, their presence is still so strong. That druid head we mentioned is just the tip of the iceberg in the sea of information this place offers us.

Let me now leave you in peace so that you can explore this space for yourselves. Take a walk around the area, feel the silence and try to imagine those Celtic people moving around among their huts, building their fences and praying to the forces of nature. Let yourself be driven by imagination and look at this landscape not through the eyes of today's visitor, but through the eyes of a man from the time of Latin culture. Thank you for coming to see this precious memory, and we hope that this short journey to the past has enriched you. We will brighten up a pleasant continuation in discovering the secrets of our world. Goodbye.