Timeless Art of the Regional Reserve of the Rock Engravings of Ceto-Cimbergo-Paspardo, Valcamonica, Brescia, Italy
UNESCO HERITAGE SINCE 1979
The Regional Reserve of Rock Art Engravings of Ceto-Cimbergo-Paspardo, situated in the middle of the Valcamonica (Camonica Valley), in the province of Brescia, Italy, was founded by the Regione Lombardia (Lombard Region) in 1983 by initiative of the municipalities of Ceto, Cimbergo and Paspardo, and the Centro Camuno di Studi Preistorici (The Center for Prehistoric Studies of Camuno). Its task is to protect a wide area (2.900.000 square meters) that contains rocks with prehistoric engravings, and important ethnographic and faunal elements which attest to the evolution of the Alpine environment over the millenniums. The entrance to the Reserve is in Nadro, where the Museum is located, or alternatively from Cimbergo and Paspardo.
ARCHAEOLOGICAL ITINERARY - FOPPE DI NADRO
To facilitate visits to the Reserve, itineraries have been created which, in the space of a few hours (or days), build up a vision of the multiple aspects of the Reserve: archaeological, ethnographic, and environmental. The itineraries are way-marked with signs, whilst the most important engraved surfaces have pannels alongside which reproduce the engravings. My visit started at the Museum of the Reserve at Nadro. Heading north from Nadro, one encounters an old cobbled path which is bordered by high walls with areas either side that have been cultivated for centuries. A little further on the engravings begin, following these engraved rocks one comes to a vertical cliff under which have been found prehistoric shelters. Of particular importance are the figures from the Bronze Age (2nd millennium B.C. with a rich typology of weapons) and the phase of Etruscan influence. Just before the area that contains engraved rocks is a small plateau where an Iron Age village has been reconstructed. All the engraved figures are pecked in a hard Permian sandstone, heavily polished by the Würm glacier, a beautiful natural blackboard, collecting hundreds of thousands figures from various prehistoric periods.
VALCAMONICA ROCK ART CHRONOLOGY
I - Epipaleolithic period: Sub-naturalistic large animals
II - Neolithic, Calcholithic periods:
- Ancient topographical composition (3,400 - 2,900 BC)
III - Copper Age:
- Stelae and monumental compositions: Remedellian (2,900 - 2,400 BC)
- Stelae and monumental compositions: Bell beaker (2,400 - 2,200 BC)
- Composition of weapons and tools (2,000 - 1,600 BC)
- Spears and 'U' arms and legs, praying figures (1,500 - 1,200 BC)
- Spears 'L' arms and legs, praying figures (1,200 - 800 BC)
IV - Iron Age (80% of the Valcamonica Rock Art):
- Schematic. Hunting and fighting scenes (8th - 7th century BC)
- Pre-naturalistic. Hunting and fighting scenes, recent maps and big warriors (7th - 6th century BC)
- Naturalistic. Hunting and fighting scenes. Huts, writings, footprints (5th - 4th century BC)
- Static. Standing warriors, axes, knives (4th - 1st century BC)
- Decadence. Standing warriors, square body warriors (1st BC - 1st century AD)
The Regional Reserve of Rock Art Engravings of Ceto-Cimbergo-Paspardo is home to Europe's greatest open-air complex of rock drawings situated in sub-Alpine Italy, with approximately 350,000 petroglyphs dating from 8,000 BC. Since 1950, the imagery from thousands of rock surfaces has been catalogued in a vast on-going project of transcription and classification, and the number of new discovered petroglyphs raises every year. In 1979, UNESCO included the Reserve to its world-wide patrimony listing of rock art.
Jump to Gallery