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Description: |
Engravings
Paintings
Painted engravings
High or low-relief
Sculpture
Traversella Municipality (TO-I), along the "Path of the Souls", local name Pera dij Cros (The Rock of the Crosses), Engravings executed by percussion, abrasion. Huge boulder with flat-irregular-convex upper surface. Shape oval. Engravings are concentrated along the middle upper part, oriented along the greater axis, pointed towards the overhanging waterfall and mountains tops. Under the rock there is a small shelter. Wide glacial striation north-south oriented (which is the direction of the valley). The boulder slided down before the last ice-age. The anthropomorphic figures are 12-35 cm high, with an average of 15-20. They have been executed by pecking, than smoothed. Peripheral traces of middle-size pecking. The engravings have been executed in the part of the surface devoid of green-rock veins, but also, partially, in the quartz. Many anthropomorphic figures are sexuated, male and female, some times with a narrow channel starting from a little cup-mark between the legs. In 3-4 cases the arms are engraved in an arch-shape, while legs are always positioned like a triangle. In some cases the feet (outside oriented) and also the fingers can be noticed. The head is round and marked by a little deeper cup-mark. A large cup-mark has diameter of 7 cm. The figures with arms in an arch-shape are exiles and show a lower deepness. The male sex is indicated from a line between the legs, the female one by a little cup-mark. Many figures have a typical enlargement of the body like a fiasco.
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Figures: |
total number 113
2 schematic anthropomorphs with lowered arms, 35 schematic anthropomorphs with horizontal arms, legs positioned like a triangle, 3 schematic anthropomorphs with raised arms rises, 3 isolated cup-marks, 17 incomplete anthropomorphs, 8 cruciforms with same size arms, 4 cruciforms with different size arms, 42 unclassifiable segments or pseudo cup-marks
29 peckings made with metallic instrument
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Chronology: |
Palaeolithic
Epipalaeolithic - Mesolithic
Neolithic
Copper Age
Bronze Age
Iron Age
Roman
Middle Age
Modern
Unknown
The anthropomorphic figures can be compared to the ones of the remedellian phase of the Copper Age (Valcamonica, stick body and triangle position legs, 2700-2400 B.C.) or to the ones of the end of the Bronze Age (Valcamonica, so called "praying figures", with triangle position legs, 1200-900 B.C.).
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Notes: |
It is possible to see the engravings only with natural grazing light (early in the morning). According to local sources (cited in the book "Valchiusella Archaeologica") the crosses would represent the Salassi warriors died during the battle with the Romans. The glacial striations represent a confirmation of the possibility of a long conservation of the engravings. |
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