Cup marks, paintings
and petroglyphs
Rock Art in western Alps is
taking an important place in Alpine Rupestrian Archaeology.
New research methods and groups, new recent discoveries are step
by step focussing on an interesting particularity which cohabits
at the same time with surprising resemblances with Valcamonica
Rock Art.
| One
of the most active research groups is GRUPPO RICERCHE CULTURA
MONTANA (GRCM),
in Turin: it studies Alpine culture and heritage, and also
Rock Art, the most in Susa Valley, west of Turin, near the
border with France.
This group is a voluntaristic one, and it is working in
Rock Art research from 1976.
His logo is taken from a figure engraved at the end of the
last century by an hermit stonecutter living in summer in
a mountain rock shelter. He engraved an entire rock surface
with dogs, goats, and fantastic figures (perhaps referring
to some carnival ones).
Footsteps
of Man too worked in western Alps, the most
in Susa Valley (Turin) and Albedosa Valley (Alessandria),
recording and tracing Iron Age Rock Art |
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One of the most diffused Rock Art elements in western Alps are
cup-marks. It is very difficult to interpret them.
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Cup-marks at Susa
have been undoubtedly made during late Iron Age: they
denote an execution by metal tools and they are covered
by a III century AD roman wall.
Recently it was found that cup-marks at Rupe
Magna (Grosio, Valtellina) cover every other figure,
and they too belong to Iron (Middle) Age.
Cup-marks in Albedosa
Valley have been recently recorded by Footsteps of
Man under commission of Archaeological Superintendence.
Also here they denote an execution by metal tools. Very
interesting the footprints,
which in Valcamonica take place in Middle Iron Age Rock
Art (often near etruscan inscriptions). In the Albedosa
valley the largest rock is named Saingiu dei Strie,
meaning Rock of the witches. It can denote a lost link
to pagan rituals.
New figurative elements
have been recently found in Susa Valley. Paintings
and engraved signs show warriors, weapons, spirals and
meanders.
Iron Age rock
paintings have been found in 1989-1991 in Susa Valley,
at 100-1200 m of altitude.
They consist in warriors with arch and shield, sometimes
riding a horse. The bi-triangular style of some figures
and the context of the scenes
let suppose an Iron Age dating of the paintings.
The X-ray diffractometry analysis found in the white paint
weddellite, gypsum and calcite. No organic matter were
found.
Two
groups of figures are known, at 1000 and 1300 m of
altitude.
Engraved meanders
and spirals are diffused on
limestone surfaces. In this region they seems to belong
to a Final Bronze Age - First Iron Age periods. Some of
them in Haute Maurienne, the
nearest French Valley, are related with topographic engravings.
Axes presents a typical half-moon
shaped blade, which is clearly related with the axes
of the Final Iron Age, like the Ornavasso (Piemont) ones.
The rocks are actually studied and recorded by commission
of Archaeological Superintendence.
Anthropomorphic figures superimpose
meanders
and can be related to some Roman-Celtic
plaquettes. |
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Anthropomorphic
figures are rare, but well present and diffused in many
valleys, with some surprising resemblances with Valcamonica.
The Pera dij Crous
(The Stone of the Crosses) in Valchiusella shows about
50 anthropomorphic figures (Copper Age). Big anthropomorphic
figures lies, always on limestone, in Valgrana.
closely linked to some French paintings (Ardèche)
and to anthropomorphic figures of Bronze Age in Valcamonica.
New engraved rocks have been found by GRCM in summer 1995
in Valcenischia: warriors
with swords and square body.
At last (but not at least...) middle Iron
Age warriors, with spear and triangular body have
been studied, with much more figures, in the rocks of
Haute Maurienne by F. Ballet and Filippe Raffaelli, Musée
Savoisien. |
| An interesting
hunting scene, with a probable inscription lies at more
than 2300 m of altitude in Haute Maurienne. The "Steinboks
rock"lies very closely to an high-mountain path:
here the evidence of how old are most alpine trails.
There is a close likeness with Valcamonica middle Iron
Age hunting scene (V-IV century BC). |
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Mount
Bego is on the most important Alpine Rock Art area:
the French équipe of Prof. H. De Lumley in 20 years
of work (and tracing) counted more then 30.000 figures.
Mount Bego (Maritime Alps, France) engravings (Neolithic
- Ancient Bronze Age) have been first and greatly studied
by C. Bicknell, in the first years of this century. They
were later studied by C. Conti, who counted more than 30.000
figures, and excavated the rock shelter called Gias
del Ciari, founding Cardial Neolithic material.
The engraved rocks lies over 2000 m of altitude, till 2500.
The most figures are horn-shaped, then it's easy to find
daggers and halberds (Bronze Age), topographic figures (round
and reticulated), not many anthropomorphic ones, with some
interesting agriculture scenes (with plough and oxen), few
spirals.
Reference book: DE LUMLEY H., 1995, Le grandiose et
le sacré, Aix en Provence. |
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