Ice Age Cave Art With 280 Engravings Found In Catalonia

(MENAFN- USA Art News) Archaeologists have uncovered one of the most extensive collections of Ice Age rock art ever documented in the Iberian Mediterranean, revealing new insights into Paleolithic populations and regional artistic expression. The discovery, made in 2019 at the Cova de la Font Major, a tourist attraction in Catalonia, was detailed this month in the journal Antiquity.

Previously, experts believed that Paleolithic rock art was rare in northeastern Iberia, despite more than half of Europe's recorded Paleolithic rock art being located on the peninsula. The find at Cova de la Font Major, which includes 280 figurative and nonfigurative engravings, challenges this assumption. It suggests a larger ancient population than previously thought, possessing its own unique artistic traditions.

The Cova de la Font Major has a long history of human visitation, with numerous engravings and graffiti dating back at least 900 years. Although its main entrance collapsed during the Roman period ( 2nd–5th centuries CE ), an inscription from 1199 confirms access in the second millennium CE, possibly through an alternative fissure. Sporadic visits are recorded after 1853, when entry was made via a private well, until 1956 when the Centre Excursionista Pirinenc explored and surveyed it. In 1957, the town council of Espluga de Francolí cleared the entrance for visitors, and by 1993, the cave was converted into a museum. Researchers confirmed in 2011 that part of the original entrance, destroyed in 1957, had survived, leading to the site's inclusion in a 2018 research project. The Ice Age engravings were found during the project's excavation campaign the following year when an author identified some markings among existing graffiti as Paleolithic.

The engravings, located in small galleries within the cave, depict various animals and abstract marks, including a distinctive composition of hundreds of loop-shaped incisions. Notably, the artists incorporated the cave's uneven conglomerate rock, which is typically considered unsuitable for such art, into their works. They used junctures of different rock types as ground lines for figures or transformed fissures into water surfaces, such as in a depiction of drinking deer. Vergès added,“The Mediterranean art of western Europe is now enriched by a new body of rock art, which allows us to characterize in greater depth a Mediterranean graphic tradition with an identity of its own.”

Source: ARTnews

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