Natural Site
MovileThe Movile Mounds are a unique natural formation located in the Iacobeni commune of Romania. These mounds were formed approximately 12,000 years ago due to geological processes involving landslides and erosion. The site is not only geologically significant but also rich in local legends and biodiversity, with the landscape offering a mosaic of plant communities. Despite natural destruction from agricultural activities, the Movile Mounds remain a fascinating destination for visitors interested in both natural history and cultural heritage.
Natural Site
MovileThe Movile Mounds are a unique natural formation located in the Iacobeni commune of Romania. These mounds were formed approximately 12,000 years ago due to geological processes involving landslides and erosion. The site is not only geologically significant but also rich in local legends and biodiversity, with the landscape offering a mosaic of plant communities. Despite natural destruction from agricultural activities, the Movile Mounds remain a fascinating destination for visitors interested in both natural history and cultural heritage.
According to legend, a giant once played in this area, filling his work apron with sand. Due to a hole in the apron, a mound formed wherever the giant stopped. When the first Transylvanian Saxon settlers founded the village, they needed a name for their new home. Known for their stubbornness, the settlers met every Sunday on a hill, slaughtered a sheep, and discussed the new village name but could not agree. Eventually, sheep skins hung on each hill without a name being chosen. Upon collecting and counting the skins, they found there were 100. Thus, they named their new home Hundertbücheln (Hundert - 100 and Bücheln - Mounds), after the hundred hills surrounding the area. They built their church on the hundredth hill where their last meeting was held.
Geologists have tried to explain the formation of the mounds in Movile, hypothesizing that they are natural formations. They concluded that these mounds resulted from a process of stepped landslides on a slope, combined with the action of torrents that individualized these hills. This process occurred about 12,000 years ago, between the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene. The pyramid shape and the creation of external agents, surface erosion, and micro-slides contributed to their formation. The surfaces consist of clay, which does not allow water infiltration into the inner layers, presumed to be a mixture of harder clays, marl, and cemented sands.
Large agricultural companies from Germany have used bulldozers to level the mounds that gave the village its name. These mounds, formed by landslides over 10,000 years ago, exist in only a few other villages in the Hârtibaciu Valley. In place of these mounds, there are now extensive rapeseed crops.
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