Filter in use code="monfr018" found 1 record/s

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Name      
España    Parque Natural de Monfragüe., Site XVIII "Las Medusas". EuroPreArt - European Prehistoric Art

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Keywords: Monfragüe, stream, vertical rock wall, naturalistic zoomorph, fine line, ancor shaped anthropomorph, graphite line.
Institution: Asociación Cultural Colectivo Barbaón  
Record
proposed
by
Asociación Cultural Colectivo Barbaón, Extremadura -Spain
 
Location
Specific feedbackSpecific feedback

Country:

España

Locality:

Serradilla (Sierra of Santa Catalina. Sector: Cancho de la Cueva)

Region:

Extremadura, Cáceres

Area:

Parque Natural de Monfragüe.

 

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General view of shelter Las Medusas nº18 with part of the working
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Copyright. No commercial use of EuroPreArt content is allowed. Specific © for pictures and drawings is mentioned in the captions or owned by each Author or Institution.
Disclaim. The EuroPreArt project fully endorses the most recent documentation policies. It must be outlined the absolute forbidding of any disruptive method and the necessity of a total respect for archaeological sites. It is also to be noticed that no substances shall be applied to rock art for recording purposes. Some pictures of the EuroPreArt records are related to past recording techniques and may not fully match these policies. They are an historical documentation. Please refer to local archaeological official authorities for any recording purpose. Please take a look also over EuroPreArt guidelines.
 
Environment & Surface

Altitude:

480 m
Open-air   Shelter   Cave Portable   Megalithic

Geography:
The Natural Park of Monfragüe is located in the area were two rivers, Tajo and Tietar, come across, and presents low mountains, ranges with breach and narrow valleys, and some planes. It has a Mediteranean forest, with ilex and bushy vegetation -the most frecuent, cistus-. There is also landscape with eucaliptus, olive groves, and pasture land with ilex and corks. The paintings are located in a rock wall placed in the middle slope of a narrow valley and facing south-east. The land wild.

Proximity:

Close to a stream, the wall is sorrounded by bushes.

Geology:

Quartzite rock.

Surface:

The shelter is a wall with a corridor that delimitates the acess. Surface is rough and presents yellow and black lichens. Some parts are also blackened by smoke of bonfires.

Dimensions:
Length 4.00 m.  Width 3.20 m.  Depth 2.50 m.

 

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Art        

Description:

Engravings   Paintings   Painted engravings   High or low-relief   Sculpture
In this rock shelter, among several blots, remains of colour, incomplete bars and finger dots, we can point out other typified figures. There are several zoomorphs technically diverse, distributed among several groups of figures. The first one, found isolated, is composed by an horizontal thick line from where arise nine appendixes that indicate several anatomic details (ears, tail, legs and muzzle). It's 5,5 cm high and 9 cm length. On the other hand, we can see two more zoomorph schemes traced thinly. The firts is incomplete for headless, though we can distinguish the trunk, the legs an the curved tail. The second, placed right below, is quite depigmentated and shows hindquarters and tail and remainings of posible neck and head. Both are arround 2 cm high and 3 cm long and red coloured. Next, after an indeterminate blost, irregilar and clarly incomplete and degraded, we find a group of ancor shaped figures and two arrow shaped motives, between 1- 2 cm long and thin traced, among several indeterminate remains of colour. In one of the ancor anthropomorphs we can see a graphite line in its right side. Next two groups of badly preserved figures, depigmentated and affected by lichen, show no definible type. The sixth and seventh agroupations, though separated a few meters, show complex figures; first group, from up to down, has 4 ancor shaped anthropomorphs, thin traced and very stylized on their upper part, lower part is not defined for they end thick traced (1.5 cm thick- 4 cm long). Below, after a little oval and 3 vertical incomplete thin traces that could have been other ancor shaped antropomorph, there's a complex figure composed by two adossed lcomb-shaped figures of thin traces whose upper ends seem to have conected on each side two strange appendixes of much darker red colour. It is 2.2 cm long.-1.5 cm wide. Beneath them, after a blost, we see an oval smudge with over 30 thin appendixes, 0,2 cm wide, arising on the lower side. Next group contains, among horizontal curved thick lines 2 more oval appendixed figures -from 2,6 cm to 6,5 cm long;thin lines, from 1 cm to 3 cm long- and one stylized ancorshaped anthropomorph, 3 cm long, with legs and male sex indicated, next to 2 comb shaped motives, max 2 cm long, one on top of the other and several smudges. Last, we find severallong thick bars and other little comb-shaped figure.

Figures:
total number 79
3 Zoomorph, bar, blot, upside down U-shaped, angle, indeterminate, finger spots, 3 oval appendixed figure, reticle, 3 comb-shaped figure, swallow-like ancor anthropomorph, ancor anthropomorph.

Chronology:

Palaeolithic   Epipalaeolithic - Mesolithic   Neolithic   Copper Age   Bronze Age   Iron Age   Roman   Middle Age   Modern   Unknown
4.000-600 BC.

Notes:

General paintings found show us pigment remainings. Just a few appears with good conservated pigment, and analysis about the composition of the red ones have shown mineral procedence from iron oxide, very common on the area.The rock wall was discovered during the prospection made by Colectivo Barbaón in 1997.
 
Bibliography        





European total bibliography, by EuroPreArt partnersTotal (Europe)
España EuroPreArt general bibliography, by Asociación Cultural Colectivo BarbaónGeneral (country)
Specific Parque Natural de Monfragüe., Site XVIII Specific (site)
Rock Art Studies: A Bibliographic worldwide Database (external link). Compiled by Leigh Marymor. Copyright (C) 2001-2002 by the Library, University of California, Berkeley Bibliographic
Rock Art
Database

 

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Conservation        

Status:

Public   Private   Park   Classified site

Risk:

Damaged by lichen.

Conservation:

Good   Quite good   Mediocre   Bad

Intervention:

Three recording campaigns (1997,98,99) have taken place at Monfragüe, covering most of its sierras and stream breachs, in order to record all schematic art sites. The works, not finished, had given a number over 100 shelters with art, and the record consist in digitalizated tracings, pictures and descriptions that are also being compiled in several unpublished volumes. Monfragüe is a Natural Park where no human intervention is nowadays allowed, neither the presence of people near most of the art sites. The latter means the art is strictly preserved of any anthropical action wether it is damage or conservation works.

 

By          

Compiler:

Montserrat Girón Abumalham; J.J Pulido Royo

Institution:

Asociación Cultural Colectivo Barbaón  
 
         Record n. 187 / 807
No commercial use is allowed. Specific © is mentioned in the captions or owned by each Author or Institution  
 
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NEW: Alpine rock paintings
enter the Balma dei Cervi Virtual Museum and surf the Virtual Tour: spherical pano-views,
hi-def flat photos and tracings


EuroPreArt, European Prehistoric Art, is a web-based archaeological project funded by the European Union which aims to establish a lasting data-base of European prehistoric art documentation, to launch the base of an European institutional network and to contribute to the awareness of the diversity and richness of European Prehistoric Art.
It is proposed by: Instituto Politécnico de Tomar (IPT, Portugal), CUEBC - European University Centre for Cultural Heritage (Italy - Europe), Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (España), Asociación Cultural Colectivo Barbaón (España), Université de Liège (Belgique), Gotland University College (Sverige), University College Dublin (Eire), Cooperativa Archeologica Le Orme dell'Uomo (Italia), Study Centre and Museum of Prehistoric Art of Pinerolo (Italia), The European Centre for Prehistoric Research in the Alto Ribatejo (Portugal), ArqueoJovem - a youth NGO (Portugal).
Instituto Politécnico de Tomar - Portugal CUEBC - European University Centre for Cultural Heritage, Ravello - Italy CSIC - Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid - Spain Orme dell'Uomo - Footsteps of Man, Valcamonica - Italy Asociación Cultural Colectivo Barbaón, Extremadura -Spain Liège University - Belgium Gotland University - Sweden University College Dublin - Ireland CeSMAP - Centro Studi e Museo d'Arte Preistorica. Pinerolo, Italy Arqueo Jovem

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