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Rock Drawings in Valcamonica
Site number:
94
Type of site: Cultural
Date: Prehistoric
Date of Inscription: 1979
Location: Europe, Italy, Lombardy, Province of Brescia
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Description: One of the world's greatest collections of prehistoric petroglyphs is found in Valcamonica, situated in the Lombardy plain. Carved in the rock in a period of 8,000 years are over 140,000 symbols and figures that depict themes related with agriculture, navigation, war and magic. -- Source: UNESCO/BPI at UNESCO (whc 1979) – 94 [http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/94]

Val Camonica is a valley in the lower Alpine regions of Lombardy, Italy. It is the upper valley of the river Oglio, upstream from Lake Iseo. Most of Val Camonica lies in the northern part of the province of Brescia. It is home to the greatest complex of rock drawings in sub-Alpine Italy, with approximately 350,000 petroglyphs drawn by members of the Camunni tribe on hundreds of exposed rocks dating from about 8000 BC; cosmological, figurative, and cartographic motifs are featured, in some locations forming monumental hunting and ritual `scenes´. It includes also scenes of zoophilia. The best-known drawings were first discovered in 1909 by Walter Laeng, a Brescian geographer. He announced his finding of two carvings on two boulders on the Pian del Greppe near Cemmo. Since the 1950s, the imagery from thousands of rock surfaces has been `catalogued´, in a vast, on-going project of transcription and classification. In 1979, UNESCO included these samples to its World-wide Patrimony listing of rock art. --WHMNet paraphrase from the description at WHC Site, where additional information is available. For 360 degree imaging of this site, click here.

Source: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/94
Reference: 1. UNESCO World Heritage Center, Site Page.
 
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