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

on the coast opposite Muros peninsula, on the Barbanza peninsula, there
is a minor concentration of rock art sites at Porto do Son, both groups
marking the entrance of the Ria de Muros. This resembles the
situations at Poltalloch, Bute and Loch Fyne in Scotland, where also
two groups of rock art are found opposite each other at the entrance
of an estuary or a landing place, but also the situations at Millstone
Burn and Rothbury in Northumberland, where two groups opposite each
other mark a pass through the hills.
What is completely different from the British Isles, however, is
that the Muros peninsula completely lacks prehistoric monuments
within the region of the petroglyphs. The special mix of menhirs,
burial tombs and petroglyphs noted at Kilmartin, is absent.
This absence sets the tone for the whole of Galicia; only
incidentally a menhir or burial tomb is located within the same area
as the engraved rocks and only in a few cases there also appear
petroglyphs on menhirs (e.g. at A Lapa: Alén & Peña 1980: 83) or
stones in burial structures. In burials, however, mainly angular art
like zigzag-lines predominates. Just possibly one stone slab, Pedra
da Bouza on the Barbanza peninsula, decorated with cup-and-rings,
could have been erected to serve as a menhir or once was part of a
destroyed burial (Costas, Hidalgo, Veiga & Taboada 1995: 61). The
Barbanza peninsula is moreover one of the few areas in Galicia with
a larger than average concentration of burial tombs and menhirs,
but is almost devoid of circular art. It is however, one of the few
coastal areas in Galicia with a large concentration of animal
engravings, especially near Rianxo.
1.3.1.1 THE VALDEXERÍA VALLEY
The Muros peninsula is a suitable study area to illustrate some of the
specific characteristics of the distribution of Galician rock art in a
coastal position. The small group of the Pedra da Chula, located in the
Valdexería valley, will serve as a pivotal site offering a lot of
information, but frequently other sites from outside the Muros
peninsula will be discussed for comparative reasons.
1.3.1.1.1 Most striking about the Pedra da Chula was its
“invisibility” at the time of my visit. It took me quite some time to
locate the rock with these complex engravings, whereas nearby I
discovered without difficulty two previously unreported simple
cupmarked rocks before I realised that I had been walking across the
rock with the complex engravings at least three times without noticing
them. This happened because the complex engravings (Fig. 36, inset A)
are rather superficially carved out and badly weathered. They
moreover sit on a slab that slopes to the SE facing the escarpment, and
therefore, in the morning sun, it was only possible to vaguely make out
the patterns of the left hand figure (Fig. 37). Also, larger rocks
M. van HOEK: 59 GEOGRAPHY