The Region of Murcia has 150 documented rock art stations, many of them still in the study phase, since it is a continuously growing heritage: in the last 5 years the number of sites has increased by 25% and, since its statement in 1998, 108%, that is, more than double. But, in addition, the existence of new techniques to study the paintings and that allow us to appreciate motifs that are not invisible to the naked eye, is completing the knowledge of the wall art panels known and studied to date.
This rock art includes, in addition to paintings, petroglyphs (art engraved in the rock) which, as experts recognize, are little or not represented in the list of cataloged assets. It covers from the Paleolithic period (all the representations discovered in the Region to date are in Cieza) and with around 15,000 years until historical times (16th and 17th centuries). In the Region it is represented, above all, in inland mountains, with the exception of Cueva de la Higuera in Cartagena (the closest to the coast), and there are cataloged in the municipalities of Blanca, Jumilla (Buen Aire stands out, with a scene of war between two human groups that is disconcerting), Mula, Ricote, Abarán, Calasparra, Cartagena, Lorca, Caravaca de la Cruz, Totana, Cehegín, Yecla, Moratalla (the two shamans of La Risca deserve special mention) and Cieza , these last two municipalities with the highest number and density of shelters, respectively.
However, to date there are 110 rock art stations included in the updated list of Unesco World Heritage Sites, within the Rock Art of the Mediterranean Arc of the Iberian Peninsula (Arampi) asset. It is a huge cultural heritage and the largest in the world (the entire Levant, from the Pyrenees to Eastern Andalusia, and neighboring inland communities such as Castilla-La Mancha, closely linked to the Region by the Segura basin, and Aragon). In it, the first artistic manifestations of the homo genre are represented and highlight, in addition to the precocious abstraction and symbolic capacity of the ancestors of modern man, the existence of rituals, daily customs, the transition from hunting and gathering communities to women farmers and ranchers, and the prehistoric domestication of animals, such as the ‘Canis familiaris’.
Although no rosette stone has been found to decipher the meaning of schematic paintings (groups of dots, cruciforms, phi or anchor-shaped figures, parallel and star lines,…), not even that of vivid scenes or animals that are perfectly recognizable and Naturalistic or Levantine in style, its appearance in sites associated with the trace of human presence over the millennia has allowed us to deduce some of the messages painted or carved on the stone by our remote ancestors, as well as the type of diet they followed, industrial activity they developed, the materials and tools they used to make the paintings and the type of relationships they established between them.
In addition, rock art is intrinsically linked to the natural environment in which it was created, which helps to interpret their livelihoods, their migratory itineraries (seasonal or not) and, through the study of the paleoenvironment, the surrounding conditions, which is preserved in many cases. This interpretive advantage also becomes a disadvantage. Being in a forest area is also its main threat due to the increasingly recurrent fires, perhaps the greatest risk for the conservation of this prehistoric heritage. This threat therefore requires preventive actions to avoid disaster, as well as a plan and a protocol to act in the event that, despite the prevention measures, fires break out in the areas of the paintings, as already happened in the Los Losares area in Cieza.
Coinciding with the 25th anniversary of the declaration of the Arampi as a UNESCO World Heritage Site (it was on December 2, 1998), LA VERDAD selects, with the collaboration of experts from the Region in this art (Joaquín Salmerón, Miguel San Nicolás, Joaquín Lomba, Liborio Ruiz Molina and Ignacio Martín Lerma), the essential stations of regional rock art according to criteria of accessibility and visibility, as well as the uniqueness and spectacularity of the represented motifs and the site itself. And, although they are not all that are, they are all that are.
Shelters of the Calasparra Well
They can be visited by booking at [email protected] or by calling 968 745325. With a descent down the Segura and a stop at the shelters, it can be booked at Qalat Aventura (650 94 02 94 or [email protected]).
The Serreta de Cieza
To visit the chasm, contact Stipa (stipaturismo.com or 658 641 101).
Edges of the Yecla Visor
Reserve guided tours of the cave paintings of Cantos de la Visera (Yecla) at 968 790 901 or at the Cayetano Mergelino Archaeological Museum.
Cañaica del Calar and Fuente del Sabuco de Moratalla
Visits through the Moratalla Tourist Office (968 73 02 08).
Coats of the Jackdaws of Cieza
To visit the shelters, contact Stipa (stipaturismo.com or 658 641 101).
Mule Kite Wrap
The visits, which are normally managed from the Mula tourist office (968 661501 or [email protected]), have not been possible for a year. The fall of a stone on the access prevents it and the execution of the works is pending. However, in the permanent exhibition of the Ciudad de Mula Museum ‘Mula’s legacy in history’ includes a section dedicated to the Milano Coat.
art and nature
The Paleolithic paintings discovered to date in the Region, which represent the artistic origins of the genus Homo, deserve a separate chapter. Located, all of them, in caves and shelters in the Ciezano area of Los Losares. As a preview, the Cueva de Jorge (found in 1993 by the speleologist C. González López) is a small karstic siphon on whose walls stands out a huge horse, 43 cm.
In the Cueva del Arco I y II, a group where a huge cave has just been discovered that has remained intact for tens of thousands of years, the paintings were found in the 1990s by the Almadenes Speleology Group. There is a hind of almost 40 cm and three horses, as well as two goat heads seen from the front. Something very unique and unique in the southeast of the peninsula that allows us to date them between 12,000 and 14,000 years ago. Something similar has only been found in France, since frontal animals are practically non-existent in the Paleolithic and demonstrate the mastery of the perspectives of the artists.
In Las Cabras, there is a horse, a bull with enormous horns, a goat and an unidentified quadruped; They are quite well preserved and were discovered by speleologists José Olivares and Constantino García in 1993.
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