Petroglyphs

The main rock art station in Taboexa are the petroglyphs of the A Coutada, engravings that allow us to see different themes located on the western slope of the Sanomedio mountain (694 m), with a wide visual domain over the valley of the Tea and Miño rivers.
It is an area close to the current habitat - the places of Millaxendo and A Coutada - which has had a varied and continuous use since the Palaeolithic period. Nowadays it is dedicated to vine plantations, woodland and grazing. Until the 20th century, extensive agriculture and use of the water from the Regueiro da Hedreira for milling, washing and irrigation. In recent prehistoric and historical periods they were used as a place for graphic representation with figurative and abstract art.

Petroglyphs da Coutada

A Coutada I

(IEM - Xunta de Galicia)

Here we find abstract geometrical figures, half-spheres and circular combinations. There are also occultic idols and several anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figures, mainly horses.

These engravings date from different periods, with the occultic idols and human figures being the oldest, specifically from the Neolithic period (4,500-2,500 BC). The rest of the figures can be dated to the Iron Age (800 BC - Year 0) and even to historical times (from the change of era to the Middle Ages).

It is a complex group because it is an iconographic typology that is not very abundant and insufficiently studied, with certain close parallels in the largest engraved surfaces in Galicia, located very close to here: O Esperón (Gargamala) and Pé de Mula (Sabaxáns), both in the municipality of Mondariz.

A Coutada II

(IEM - Xunta de Galicia)

It seems that there are several hands that engraved on this rock, perhaps evidence of different times, but with a common iconographic motivation, since all of them show humans using horses to capture and domesticate other animals of the same species. A horse hunting scene that shows the dominance of men and women over the natural environment, which may be graphic evidence of an important hunting practice for that community.

Next to the main support we find a higher protrusion of the stone that was used to engrave four animal figures in a schematic manner. Here we can see another horse engraved with only the essential traces: long tail, absence of horns and anatomical details, etc. As it is next to a panel with equids, we assume that it is also a horse; if so, it would be the largest documented in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula to date.

In addition to 25 free horses, we can also see a rider riding a domesticated equid, four more anthropomorphs and even dogs supporting what could be a hunting scene. Specialists believe that this scene could date back to the Iron Age, that is, to the time when the Altamira hillfort was first inhabited.

A Coutada III

(IEM - Xunta de Galicia)

Made in different periods, this support contains groupings and alignments of vines, with schematic human figures and crosses of Christian typology that were possibly engraved in the historical period. The support appears to have been altered by traditional stonework, as well as by diaclases or natural fractures in the outcrop, which are like wrinkles in the skin of the granite. The individuals depicted here are identified with ‘prayerful, a motif characteristic of prehistoric schematic painting in the interior of the peninsula and which also appears in Group I.

A Coutada II

What are petroglyphs?

They are rock engravings made in stone during prehistoric times, mostly during the Bronze Age (between the 3rd and 2nd millennium BC), and are considered to be the first artistic expression of what is now Galicia. There are also engravings from the historical period that were made during the Middle Ages, many of them inscribed on the same supports as the prehistoric motifs.

The petroglyphs show a variety of iconography and styles, indicating that the different human communities that lived in Taboexa over time engraved on the rocks for centuries so that, in the future, we would know a part of their lives.

Part of the petroglyphs at A Coutada are made up of naturalistic figurative motifs such as human figures or horses that were engraved using the stylistic technique of body casting. These prehistoric artists also used single and double lines to define the profile of the figures. Geometric and abstract motifs were made by means of a single line. In both cases, the authors engraved on the rocks by means of the technique of piqueteado and abrasion, that is, by abrading the surface of the stone-support using harder stones.

A Coutada II

Why were they made?

These engravings are important because they allow us to get closer to a prehistoric society about which we still do not know many things: how they thought, what their belief system was, how they hunted, how they organised themselves socially, etc.

We do not know the answer to one of the main questions that these engravings throw at us: why did these societies of the past invest so much time and effort in their creation? Archaeologists have been able to formulate some hypotheses to answer these questions: to control transit areas, to appropriate the territory, to set up posts to watch over livestock, and even to use them as places for rituals and astronomical observation.

Other engravings

Those of A Coutada are not the only engravings found in Taboexa. Other prehistoric rock art stations are known in this parish, such as those of O Coto Ribado, featuring coviñas, simple and concentric circles and a serpentiform motif more than 2 metres long. Among the petroglyphs that have yet to be studied are several reticulated ones located in the area around the Sanomedio mountain.

Researchers

The work of the researchers Xoán Martínez Tamuxe, Alejandro M. Míguez Álvarez and Xosé Álvarez (Pepe Buraco) should be highlighted. For decades, they discovered and made known many rock art sites in our parish.