Our heritage
of our past and a part of our present.
The stones here speak, because they are a part
of our past and a part of our present.
La Vall de Gallinera
Pintures rupestres de Benialí
The ravine of Les Basses del Racó, a site discovered in 1981 by the institute known as Centre d’Estudis Contestans, is the most important ravine in terms of rock art shelters in the valley called La Vall de Gallinera. There are five shelters with representations of macro-schematic, schematic, Levantine and engraved art, located on both sides of the ravine.
At the height of the channel carved into the rock, on the left side, one can see Shelter I. Within this shelter, although it is not possible to climb towards it due to the risk involved in doing so, from the path one can see a prehistoric engraving consisting of vertical serpentine shapes and closed geometric shapes, executed using the pecking technique (Hernández; Ferrer; Català, 1988). Judging by the engraving, and since there haven’t been any more in-depth studies to prove it otherwise, it is possible to consider this art as pertaining chronologically to the Neolithic or the Bronze Age.
The shelter which can be visited is Shelter IV, where one can see excellent and enormous figures belonging to the macro-schematic art form, specifically the serpentine shapes. In addition to the macro-schematic artworks, the shelter also contains samples of schematic and Levantine art. Belonging to the Levantine style, although difficult to see, there are fine strokes, the head of a goat-like animal and two human figures with pear-shaped heads that represent a nursing scene.
What stands out among the schematic artworks is the figure of a goat with incomplete hind legs, two front legs, a triangular body, a triangular-shaped head, and two parallel and curved horns pointing backwards. The most interesting aspect of this shelter, which is also what makes it highly significant, is the fact that within one of the serpentine-shaped motifs corresponding to macro-schematic art, there is a gap where the aforementioned fine strokes belonging to Levantine art were later made. This demonstrates, according to scholars, that macro-schematic art is older than Levantine art.
Macro-schematic art is a style of rock art exclusive to the mountain ranges of the areas of La Marina Alta, El Comtat and L’Alcoià, of which there are only 19 known shelters. The paintings are dark red, dense and pasty in appearance, and the motifs are large in size with thick lines. Macro-schematic art is characterised by its parallels with the portable art of the ancient Neolithic period, especially with the cardial decoration of ceramics.
Some authors have related the figures with the wheat ears brought around the 5th millennium BCE by the first Neolithic settlers to this area, who were already farmers and herders. It is also likely that they began the colonisation of the Iberian Peninsula here in this area.
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La Vall de Gallinera
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