(Photo: Austin Donisan)
This enormous sculpture reminiscent of the giant stone head from the movie Zardoz is a monument to Decebalus, the last king of Dacia before its conquest by the Roman Empire in 106 A.D. Dacia is the area now known as Romania (for the Romans thoroughly Romanized it) and Decebalus is a symbol of national identity to modern Romanians.
For 10 years, starting in 1994, stone carvers climbed a boulder along the Iron Gates, a gorge along the Danube near the Romanian-Serbian border. The face is 141 feet tall and 82 feet wide. Here, King Decebalus stands once again to resist foreign invasions of the Romanian homeland.
This is one of 10 incredible monuments and buildings carved into rock rounded up by Kuriositas. You can view them all here.