Říp - Hora předků – Cílek Václav (2025)

This Czech-language monograph presents Říp, an iconic mountain with an important place in the cultural and social history of Czechia, surrounded by legends and stories that have helped shape the identity of the Czech nation. It is the first major study of Říp and its immediate surroundings, examining the mountain as a geological and historical phenomenon as well as the spiritual centre of a prehistoric and early historical sacred landscape. Modern aerial surveys and subsequent field archaeology have transformed our understanding of the Podřipsko region, revealing a land of the dead with numerous ritual structures and an entire sacred landscape containing large circular enclosures and long barrows, whose age and layouts recall Salisbury Plain and its famous Stonehenge. New geological research has also shown that Říp is the remnant of an extensive lava lake formed in the crater of a massive volcano several kilometres in diameter. The authors connect the latest scientific findings with cultural and mythological traditions to create a unique portrait of Podřipsko as a sacred “land of the ancestors.”