Maarten van Hoek The Geography of Cup-and-Ring ... - StoneWatch

doubtful ones at O Ramallal, both near Campo Lameiro, but all these
instances are hafted and the ones at Caneda could even be pestlestones.
Anati (1968: 56) has reported an outcrop of granite at Coto dos Mouros
on the coastal area just south of Barcelos, on which he noticed three
engravings of axe-heads (Fig. 175), but
he seems to have been the only one to
have seen this outcrop as even after
intensive searches by others it has
never been retraced. These alleged axeheads
were said to measure between 18
and 25 cm. They have been interpreted
by Peña & Vázquez (1992: 91) from
FIG. 175: MOUROS.
Anati’s illustration as simple pieces of
metal of the Early Bronze Age, although the larger piece could be
slightly earlier.
The site at Coto dos Mouros is, however, too controversial to be
included as true representations of Galician axe-heads. For that
reason, later researchers often claim that true axe-heads have not
been depicted on rock surfaces in Galicia (Peña & García 1998: 236),
although real metal axe-heads, often occurring in hoards throughout
Europe, are commonly found in Galicia.
On balance, one could state that axe-heads do not belong to the
repertoire of prehistoric weapon imagery of Galician rock art. In this
respect the discoveries of two petroglyphs resembling axe-heads
represent an anomaly.
When surveying the area at Gargamala in the south of Galicia (Van Hoek
1998b: 98; see also this CD-ROM Chapter 1.3.2), I noticed a small
inconspicuous horizontal granite outcrop (site 16) just below ground
level. On it appears the single
image of a possible axe-head,
carved in recess, with pecking
clearly visible (Fig. 176). It
measures 30 by 18 cm and is
approximately 0,5 to 1 cm deep.
There is no sign of a haft and
there are no other engravings on
the outcrop, although many other
rocks in the immediate area
feature a large number of
FIG. 176: GARGAMALA 16.
Neolithic cupules, most of them
surrounded by ringmarks, such as site 4 (Fig. 120). The rock with the
possible axe-head is found at the margin of this rock art concentration
and may have served as a boundary marker.
M. van HOEK: 214
GEOGRAPHY