Rock art of the Iberian Mediterranean Basin in the Valencian Community
The Levantine Art was cave art carried out by Mesolithic and Neolithics groups of the Spanish Levante that chronologically would be between 10,000 6,500 years before the present. The end of the period covered by this art coincides with the beginning of what is termed as Iberian schematic art (6,500 to 3,500 years before the present, the also credential expression of the farming and livestock peoples, radically different from that of the predatory groups authors of Levantine Art, with fundamentals in abstraction, as can be verified in the spatial coincidences that occur in some territories of both. Currently and on the basis of new discoveries in lands of Alicante, it is believed that this type of art was made by groups of the Neolithic period and has its flowering in the Metal Age, some radiocarbon measurements, date these paintings around 5600 B C, Can reach, as in La Gasulla, late of the Bronze Age, almost at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. Both Levantine and Iberian Schematic art are considered, therefore, parallel and contemporaneously). It was discovered for the first time in the Province of Teruel in 1903. Juan Cabre was the first to study this art, defining it as a regional Paleolithic art. Then it was considered that it would be an art parallel to the paintings of Paleolithic groups found inside caves. In that case, it would be carried out by a supposed Capsian group from North Africa. Beltrán was the first to place the beginning of this art in Epipaleolithic or Mesolithic groups, placing its apogee in the Neolithic period. Accepted his Postpaleolitic age, Ripio made in the decade of the 1960s a new chronological scheme, dividing the art into four stages: naturalistic, stylized static, stylized dynamics and a final phase of transinition to schematism.
Location
Regions
It is mainly limited to the Spanish Levante coast and some inland areas. This would go from the Province of Lleida to Eastern Andalusia (specifically Province of Almeria). In the interior it would be extended by Province of Huesca, Province of Teruel, Province of Jaén, the mountainous area of Province of Cuenca, etc.
Locations
It is usually found in rock shelters (protected by a natural cornice) and in shallow caves in which the sunlight can penetrate without difficulty. There is no clear preference about the place where it is represented: it can be in the middle or high part of any of the rock shelters. Due to its situation in general, these sites have a bad conservation.
Features
The Levantine art presents an undeniable originality in other prehistoric artistic circles, from the technical, artistic and thematic point of view. The figures are made in two phases. A first where with a more or less thick line is outlined the same and a second where it is filled with flat ink.
The human figure (anthropomorphism) which is scarce in the Paleolithic Art acquires a great importance in Levantine Art, so it can be seen with some frequency that it is the main theme, and when it appears in it scene that the animals clearly see that it is the human figure that runs them. There are scenes of men performing common tasks of that period such as: hunting, dances, fights, performing agricultural tasks, of domestication of animals, of honey collection, etc. In the representation of the human body there are drawings of heads with certain characteristics: the piriforms and the hemispherical and ovoids. They are represented [...] at least thorax and sometimes with a kind of pants sometimes you can see [...] and there are phallic representations.
The instruments represented in the illustrations are usually arrows, sticks, quivers and bags. These objects always appear associated with the human figure. The vegetation is very little treated in Levantine art.
Usually the nature and especially the fauna (zoomorphism) that is the object of representation is protagonist, you can find out from some paintings how there is a correspondence with some of the current species: deers, goats (it is the animal most represented in the illustrations), bovids (they are very doubtful and they are almost an interpretation), that they appear alone or grouped in herds. Canids are rarely represented and they appear to be helping in a hunting scene (Barranc de la Palla). The representation of the animals is very curious in which the animals are usually drawn in profile but with the horns and the hoofs front.
Levantine Art Signs in the Valencian Community
Alcoleja
- Barranc d'Alpadull. Rock shelter IV
Alcoy
- Rock paintings of La Sarga. Rock shelter I
- Rock paintings of La Sarga. Rock shelter II
Alfafara
- El pantalet
Ayora
- Rock shelter of Tortosillas
- Rock shelter of El Sordo
- Rock shelter Pedro más
Barranc de la Valltorta
- Rock shelters in Tirig, Albocàsser, Coves de Vinromà, Ares del Maestre...
Benissa
- Pinos
Castell de Castells
- Barranco de Famorca. Santa Maira (Rock shelter VI)
- Esberdal by Miquel El Serril. Rock shelter I
- Pla de Petracos. Rock shelter I
- Racó dels Sorellets. Coat II
- Cova Alta. Rock shelter II
- Cova Alta. Rock shelter III
- Racó del Gorgori. Rock shelter V
- Barranc del Galistero
Castielfabib
- Rock shelter of la Loma de Abril.
Confrides
- Port of Confrides. Rock shelter II
- Port of Confrides. Rock shelter III
- Barranc de Covatelles
- Penyó de les Carrasques. Rock shelter I
- Penyó de les Carrasques. Rock shelter II
- Barranc del Sort. Rock shelter II
Dénia
- La Catxupa
Jalón
- Cova del Mansano
La Vall d'Alcalà
- Rock shelter del Racó de Condoig
La Vall d'Ebo
- Rock shelter les Torrudanes
La Vall de Gallinera
- Racó del Pou. Rock shelter I
- Barranc de Benialí. Rock shelter III
- Barranc de Benialí. Rock shelter IV 1
- Barranc de Parets
- Benirrama. Rock shelter I
- Benirrama. Rock shelter II
- Barranc de la Magrana
La Vall de Laguar
- Barranc de l'Infern Set VI Rock shelter I and II
Morella
Five rock shelters in the masia of Morella la Vella:
- Cova del Barranquet
- Cova del Llepús or Partició
- Coveta de la Cornisa
- High gallery of the masia
- Gallery del Roure
Penàguila
- Port of Penàguila. Rock shelter I
Planes
- Barranc de la Penya Blanca. Rock shelter I
- Coves de la villa
Tàrbena
- Barranc del Xorquet
Tormos
- Barranc de la Palla
References
- El arte rupestre en la provincia de Teruel, Beltrán A., col. Cartillas Turolenses 5, Teruel, 1989, pp. 7.
- www.arterupestre.es Rock Art of the Iberian Mediterranean Basin.
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Bibliography
- Anna Alonso Tejada and Alexandre Grimal: Las pinturas rupestres de la Cueva de la Vieja, City Hall of Alpera, 1990, ().
- Anna Alonso Tejada and Alexandre Grimal: Introducción al Arte levantino a través de una estación singular: la Cueva de la Vieja (Alpera, Albacete), Asociación Cultural Malecón, Alpera, 1999 ().
- Anna Alonso Tejada and Alexandre Grimal: L´Art Rupestre del Cogul. Primeres Imatges Humanes a Catalunya, Publisher Pagès, LLeida, 2007, ()
- María Luisa Cerdeño and Gerardo Vega; La España de Altamira : prehistoria en la Península Ibérica. Madrid, Temas de Hoy, 1991.