BAR S2043 2009

Grabados rupestres de la fachada

atlántica europea y africana

DE BALBÍN BEHRMANN ET AL (Eds)

Rock Carvings of the European
and African Atlantic Façade
Edited by

Rodrigo de Balbín Behrmann

Primitiva Bueno Ramirez

GRABADOS RUPESTRES DE LA FACHADA ATLÁNTICA

Rafael González Antón
Carmen del Arco Aguilar

BAR International Series 2043

2009

11/12/2009 10:32:41
 Table of ConTenTs
1. INTRODUCCIÓN. GRABADOS RUPESTRES DE LA FACHADA
ATLÁNTICA EUROPEA Y AFRICANA. ROCK CARVINGS OF
THE EUROPEAN AND AFRICAN ATLANTIC FAÇADE 1
2. LIVING STONES.DECORATION AND RITUAL IN 4TH AND 3RD
MILLENNIUM BC IRELAND. Muiris O’Sullivan 5
3. NUEVAS REFLEXIONES SOBRE EL ARTE RUPESTRE DE
INGLATERRA, GALES Y ESCOCIA. Richard Bradley 13
4. L’ART GRAVÉ A L’AIR LIBRE DURANT LA PREHISTOIRE ET
LA PROTOHISTOIRE EN BRETAGNE (FRANCE) . Michel Le Gofic 27
5. UN NUEVO MILENIO PARA EL ARTE RUPESTRE GALAICO.
Antonio de la Peña Santos 45
6. A CONTEXT FOR THE GALICIAN ROCK ART. Ramón Fábregas Valcarce 69
7. CIEN AÑOS DE INVESTIGACIÓN DE ARTE RUPESTRE AL
AIRE LIBRE EN LA MESETA CASTELLANO-LEONESA. DE LAS
PINTURAS DEL “PEÑÓN DE MIRABUENO” A LOS GRABADOS
DE LA COMARCA DE LA SOMOZA 1908-2008. Juan A. Gómez-Barrera 85
8. THE POST-PALEOLITHIC ROCK ART IN BEIRA ALTA (CENTER
OF PORTUGAL).André Tomás Santos 109
9. ROCK ART AS LAND ART. A DIACHRONIC VIEW OF THE CÔA
VALLEY (NE PORTUGAL) POST-PALAEOLITHIC ROCK ART. Luís Luís. 129
10. CONSTRUCTORES DE MEGALITOS Y MARCADORES
GRÁFICOS. DIACRONÍAS Y SINCRONÍAS EN EL ATLÁNTICO
IBÉRICO. Primitiva Bueno Ramirez, Rodrigo de Balbín Behrmann y
Rosa Barroso Bermejo 149
11. L’ART RUPESTRE DU HAUT ATLAS MAROCAIN : SA PLACE
SUR LA FAÇADE ATLANTIQUE. Alain Rodrigue 173
12. MANIFESTACIONES RUPESTRES PROTOHISTÓRICAS DE
LANZAROTE: VIEJAS Y NUEVAS ICONOGRAFÍAS EN UN
DIFERENTE CONTEXTO CRONOLÓGICO, CULTURAL E
INTERPRETATIVO. Pablo Atoche Peña y Mª Ángeles Ramírez Rodríguez 187
13. GRABADOS Y POBLAMIENTO PREHISTÓRICO EN EL
ARCHIPIÉLAGO CANARIO. Rafael González Antón, Mª Carmen
del Arco Aguilar, Candelaria Rosario Adrián, Mª Mercedes del Arco
Aguilar, Laura González Ginovés, Carmen Benito Mateo, Rodrigo de
Balbín Behrmann y Primitiva Bueno Ramírez 211
14. GRABADOS RUPESTRES EN TENERIFE. ESPACIOS DE CULTO.
Mª Carmen del Arco Aguilar, Rafael González Antón, Candelaria
Rosario Adrián, Mª Mercedes del Arco Aguilar, Laura González
Ginovés, Carmen Benito Mateo, Rodrigo de Balbín Behrmann y
Primitiva Bueno Ramírez 231
15. SEA-LAND RELATIONSHIPS IN THE ROCK ART OF THE
PREHISPANIC CANARY ISLANDS. Rodrigo de Balbín Behrmann,
Primitiva Bueno Ramirez,Rafael González Antón , Mª Carmen del Arco Aguilar. 249
16. L’ART RUPESTRE POST-PALEOLITHIQUE EN PLEIN AIR DU
PRESAHARA MAROCAIN.- Renate Heckendorf 275
17. LES MANIFESTATIONS RUPESTRES DANS LA REGION DE
SMARA (SAHARA OCCIDENTAL) ET SA PROBLEMATIQUE. UN
EXEMPLE: ASLI BUKERCH. Agnès Louart. 285
18. RECUPERACION DE UN YACIMIENTO DEL SAHARA
OCCIDENTAL: LEYUAD. Rodrigo de Balbín Behrmann.
Primitiva Bueno Ramirez 293
19. FOTOS 333

i
 sea-lanD RelaTIonsHIPs In THe RoCK aRT of THe
PReHIsPanIC CanaRY IslanDs.

Rodrigo De Balbín Behrmann1, Primitiva Bueno Ramirez2, Rafael Gonzalez Anton3,

Carmen Del Arco Aguilar4
1
Dpto. de Historia I y Filosofía/ Área de Prehistoria. Universidad de Alcalá de Henares rodrigo.balbin@uah.es, 2 Dpto.
de Historia I y Filosofía/ Área de Prehistoria. Universidad de Alcalá de Henares p.bueno@uah.es 3 Museo Arqueológico
de Tenerife. OAMC. Cabildo de Tenerife. rganton@museosdetenerife.org. 4Dpto. de Prehistoria, Antropología e Hª
Antigua. Universidad de La Laguna. cardarco@ull.es.

RESUMEN: La topografía de la isla deine una serie de lugares estratégicos de control sobre los accesos más fáciles el mar y sobre las
llanuras costeras más fértiles, que fueron señalados con la presencia de grabados rupestres. Su análisis en relación con el territorio
en el que se ubican, y en el marco cultural cuyas ideas relejan, sostiene el valor económico y simbólico de los temas relacionados con
la pesca y, especialmente, con la captura de escómbridos, en los sistemas de explotación fenopúnicos.
PALABRAS CLAVE: GRAFÍAS. TERRITORIO. MAR-TIERRA. ECONOMÍA. SIMBOLOGÍA. MUNDO FENO-PÚNICO

ABSTRACT: The topography of the island deines a series of strategic emplacements for the control over the easiest points of access
by sea and over the most fertile costal plains, which were marked by the presence of engravings. The analysis of these engravings in
relation to the territory in which they are located and to the cultural framework whose ideas they relect supports the economic and
symbolic value of the themes related to ishing and particularly to the capture of scombrids in the Phoenicio-Punic exploitation systems.
KEYWORDS: ROCK ART; TERRITORY. SEA-LAND. ECONOMY. SYMBOLOGY. PHOENICIO-PUNIC WORLD.

INTRODUCTION. would have been considered necessarily ahistorical or

The paper that we are presenting is part of the “Colonisation
and settlement of the Canary Islands” Project, directed by
the Museum of Tenerife. The results of this project over the
different stages of its development have served to provide
the Museum with new contents, as a result of the renewal
of the traditional interpretative perspectives thanks to the
methodological development of the historical sciences.
The multidisciplinary conception of the project led to the
inclusion of a research line dedicated to the analysis of
rock art as sites, in the broadest sense of the term (Bueno
and Balbín, 2000 a and 2000 b). The use of speciic
methodological procedures in their documentation included
surveys aimed towards the identiication of open air
engravings on the islands of Tenerife and Lanzarote (Balbín
1981 and 1987, Balbín and Tejera 1983 a and b, 1989,
Balbín et alii 1987) which up until the development of this
project had been considered inexistent. Indeed, the favoured
hypothesis was that only the islands of Hierro and La Palma
beheld engraved evidence (Hernández 1977). Atlantic
themes were identiied among these engravings (Beltran
1971 a and b, 1973) thus allowing them to be included
within this cultural framework. The remaining islands in
which engravings were supposedly absent were linked
to very different cultural phenomena, and any engraving
pastoril in the terminology of the time (Hernández 1977).
The Prehistory of the Canary Islands shares with the
peninsula some of the most classical assumptions such
as never proven absences, habitational voids in particular
periods, technical limitations, etc. which justiied not
undertaking work in particular islands. In brief, a long
list of well established prejudices which have hindered
considerably the diachronic analysis of this insular territory
(Bueno and Balbín, 2003).
In this case, insularity has not promoted theoretical
perspectives on in situ developments, early incomers or
other cultural characteristics related to this characteristic
(Renfrew, 1985). On the contrary, the Canary Islands have
been used as the basis for reductionist approaches which
display a presentist view rather than a true theoretical
baggage within the framework of the historical sciences.
It is obvious that all archaeological project carried out in
these islands is subject to this kind of ilter, thus producing
responses to the results that are quite unusual in other
contexts. We lived this type of situation irst hand following
the study and publication of Zanata Stone (Gonzalez et al.,
1995), although we acted with the conviction that it is the
scientiic hypotheses and the empirical data which move

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Grabados rupestres de la fachada atlántica europea y africana
science, despite science being dependent on the society in
which it is developed and on the political establishments
which support it.
The present day tendency to separate each island of the
archipelago as an individual entity, discrete and distant
from the others, has shaped the idea of a similar situation
in the past. The overall etiological syntheses have been
labelled as pan-canary, if not imperialist, when they have
established relationships with the Mediterranean or with
the places of origin of the Spanish conquest of the 15th
century, thus creating a confusing amalgamation between
nationalist-autochthonist-africanist-insularist perspectives,
which continues to make dificult the knowledge of the
earliest past of the Canary Islands.
The project in which we are involved has provided
archaeological data framed within territorial analyses that
situate the Canary Islands within the geopolitical context of
the Punic colonisations. Part of this data relates speciically
to the study of rock art, the themes and techniques of which
can be recognised as those of the symbolic universe of these
populations.
One of the most surprising afirmations of the hypotheses
referred to above is that the irst inhabitants immediately
forgot their relationship with the sea from which they
arrived, had no knowledge of the techniques of navigation
and had absolutely no economic relationship with this
source of income, food and inter-reactions by which they
were surrounded (Verneau 1987, Berthelot 1980).
An approach to this issue based on the rock art is of greatest
interest in an island which, like Tenerife, had been thought
to lack this type of evidence (Hernández 1977). The
location of the sites is an attribute that may be assessed, and
in any case appears to be logical. Within the topographic
and geographic context with which we are dealing it is of
common sense to underline the visibility from and towards
the sea of the locations of considerable altitude. But if we
add to this the study of the themes, which is the object of
this paper, an important set of data is brought forward for
the reconstruction of the symbolic world of their creators.
THE MOST USUAL IDEAS UPON ORIGINS.
The origins of the Canary inhabitants have seen themselves
wrapped in a cloud of mystery which has much to do with
a romantic inheritance, still alive, and with a repetitive
rejection of the rationalist intellectual currents. With this
baggage a consensus on the past has been reached for which
the archaeological data has tended to be discarded when it
does not support this hypothesis (Bueno and Balbín, 2003).
The reconstructions of the 18th and 19th centuries have
survived until the present day, mainly in some long standing
and strongly felt nationalist afirmations. Reconstructions
such as that of the slaves who, brought to the island with
250
cut tongues, created different vocabularies in each island,
following a peculiar babelic process (Farrujia, 2004,
Alvarez Delgado, 1977). Or the idea that the canary
inhabitants originated from the last remaining Cro-Magnon
men who arrived in successive throngs and gained good
positions among the population thanks to their intelligence
and wealth (Schwidetzky 1963).
The Canary Islands also witnessed the end of the Near
Eastern Neolithic (Martín de Guzmán, 1984), acting
again as a cul-de-sac and the last bastion of the cultural
permanence of isolated insular groups which rejected
mutual contact and the sea that surrounded them on all
sides, and that was undoubtedly the origin of their arrival.
But the languages mentioned in the sources were Berber,
and since the 1940’s the proximity with the African
continent has become increasingly valued, with some
valuable attempts of pan-canary reconstructions (Alvarez
Delgado, 1964, Farrujia, 2004). The problem was that the
areas closest to the continent were precisely the most desert
areas of the latter, and thus not the most likely to have
originated large scale human movements. The African
component, however, was beginning to be taken into
account and would inevitably have constituted a new line of
interpretation which was able to change the most common
discourses, had it not become stagnate as in the previous
romantic interpretations as was inally the case. Much has
been written about the historiography of the origins of the
Canary inhabitants, and we do not intend to repeat what
has so often been said and has recently been systematised
(Farrujia, 2004, 2007). We shall therefore only indicate
some tendencies, none of which was based on empirical
research, that were the consequence of previous ideologies,
of general application despite the lack of evidence. Not even
the African components were sought for in their continental
lands, and the interpreters settled for suggesting inorganic
origins and relationships.
TIMES CHANGE.
In the 1980’s some empirical attempts were directed
at supporting the African relationships, based on
archaeological studies and the archaeological evidence of
interest to us here: the graphical evidence.
Not only in the Canary Islands but also more generally
in the studies of the Prehistory of the Iberian Peninsula,
Prehistoric Art had always been given a secondary and
adjacent importance, basically aesthetic in nature and
considered of interest according to its visual quality. And
this was true particularly of Palaeolithic Art (Bueno,
1993). The graphical evidence was interpreted as a cultural
outgrowth, was not linked to material evidence and lacked
a speciic path of social or historical understanding. This art
had not yet found its place as an expression of the deepest
cultural foundations of humanity.

Fig. 1 The Zinete Stone
The Canary Islands, where we published in the early 1980’s
the site of Aripe near Guía de Isora in the South of Tenerife
that was later destroyed conscientiously before the passivity
of the insular authorities, were no exception in this sense. In
the case of Aripe, the theme of the relations with Africa was
taken up again, this time speciically and in detail, taking the
graphical evidence as an example of group behaviour and
symbology, belonging to a group which may have populated
the Island of Tenerife leaving models and references to
how they lived in the neighbouring Africa, thus suggesting
interesting ethnic, cultural and chronological consequences
that had not previously been dealt with by the technical
bibliography of the Island (Balbín and Tejera 1983).
Elements of African origin were already known in the
great-canary mounds, in part of the local pottery, in the
Libico-Berber alphabet and in the names of many groups
of the Islands whose ethnonymes can be traced to the
Berber tribes of Northwest Africa, yet it was the irst time
that the graphical symbology was used to establish such
relationships, which on the other hand were simply logical
(Balbín 1981).
One problem remained to be solved, following the
obligatory methodology for the reconstruction of the
population of the island. Everything pointed to the continent
to trace the relatives of the irst settlers of the Canary
Islands, but we knew neither when this event had taken
place nor its cause.
There was some evidence of greater complexity that at the
time led Martín de Guzmán towards the Near East (Martín
de Guzmán, 1984) and that could not be explained by the
Berber connection alone. Once again the integration of
the analysis of the graphical evidence was able to provide
elements that helped come closer to the historical reality.
The Zanata Stone was discovered in 1992 (González et
alii 1995). Its study and interpretation were the object of
innumerable political responses, starting with its rejection
as an archaeological object, as part of a well-known
dynamic in the history of emblematic inds that channel
disputes that reach beyond science.
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Rodrigo De Balbín et alii
The stone (Fig. 1) displays the image of a tuna ish with
a superimposed inscription that reads ZNT in Berber
(Muñoz, 1994), a common ethnonyme of known origin
and wide diffusion. The sculpture and the inscription
are not only interesting in themselves but also because
the marine animal had been hidden in a volcanic cavity
at some altitude, en relation with the Teide. This object
directed us from the peaks to the sea, from the supposedly
herder interior of lush woodlands to the sea and one of its
most important and abundant resources in the “fortunate
waters”: tuna. The shape and the representation led from
the immediate reality of the Islands to a phenomenon of
greater dimensions and transcendence: the sea, its resources
and its travel routes in a period when tuna was one of the
most distinguished political emblems, as was the case of
the Gaditanian Confederation.
This archaeological ind enabled us to formulate a series
of hypotheses among which the importance of tuna for
the great business of the Phoenician-Punic settlers, the
garum industry, is particularly noteworthy. The possibility
of the Canary population originating from the North
African Berbers as a support for the obtaining of economic
resources, not solely ishing bur also wood and sustenance,
was another of our suggestions. We afirmed at the time
that the Canary Islands of the irst millennium BC were
not the closed world with which the Europeans came into
contact in the 14th and 15th centuries. On the contrary
the islands were the central branch and basis of one of the
greatest economic activities of the Ancient Mediterranean.
This world linked to the most important cultures of the
North and South of our interior sea was to suffer isolation
after the collapse of this business, probably some time after
the fall of the Roman Empire. From then on the dynamic
of increasing isolation and of an economy of subsistence
followed its course, in which the surrounding sea was
relegated to a secondary place and the connection of union
with the outside world became lost.
The consequences of the analysis of the Zanata Stone led to
the rereading of a series of other known but not suficiently
valued objects. Among these are the representations of
the goddess Tanit, Punic descendent of Ishtar and Astarte
Grabados rupestres de la fachada atlántica europea y africana
Fig. 2. Fish igure from Lomo Manco,Graan Canaria.Photo Valentín Barroso Cruz
(Arco et alii, 2000), of Tawaret (Balbín et alii 1987),
protector of fecundity, the local imitations of Punic and
Phoenician amphorae (González et alii, 1995), the neo-
Punic inscriptions (Muñoz 1994), the mortuary hypogea
present in several islands (Balbín et alii 1985). In sum, a
series of inds that indicate an intense relationship with a
sea easy to navigate from the North (González and Arco,
2007), that would have brought cultural, economic and
human foundations, the latter of North African origin,
passed through the Punic sieve.
This object also allowed us to resume our analyses of the
graphical representations of the archipelago, initiated some
time ago (Balbín, 1981 and 1987, Balbin and Tejera, 1983 a
and b, 1989, Balbín et alii 1987), with the new hypothesis of
their relationship with the sea, at least an important part of
them, and of their distribution within the territory, functional
in nature and a means of demarcation. On the basis of this
interpretation, and taking the graphical representations as
functional and representative of the group, we will present
a series of graphical sites of the island of Tenerife that have
been located by the ield surveys directed by the Museum
of Tenerife. Their presence predicts the presence of other
inds: the ish of Lomo Manco of Grand Canary (Fortunatae
Insulae 2004: 306, González 2005) (Fig. 2), for instance,
are very indicative of the symbolic value of the marine
resources in times that can be traced to the irst Phoenicio-
Punic settlements in the islands.
252
SOME EXAMPLES FROM TENERIFE
In the spirit outlined above we present a series of case
studies that are appropriate for the reconstruction of a
cultural space on the basis of its humanisation, in turn
expressed through the graphical evidence. We have chosen
the sites of La Pedrera of Punta Hidalgo in the North of
the island, Masca to the Northwest, Aripe near Guía de
Isora to the Southwest and the valley of San Lorenzo in
the South with the sites of El Roquito, La Centinela and
Roque de Bento. These sites surround the island and allow
us to perceive their relationship with the surrounding sea.
They provide an example of an island, among the others of
the archipelago, which follows a pattern that exists in other
contexts and that will be analysed by other participants in
this reunion. They possess the additional interest that they
belong to an area of the Canary Islands from which rock
art representations have generally been excluded since
Sabino Berthelot (1980) almost up until the present (Balbín
and Tejera, 1989). Thus they contribute towards breaking
the habitual frameworks of reference in the study of the
historiography of the Canary past. (Fig. 3)
-La Pedrera, Punta Hidalgo. (Fig. 4)
La Pedrera is a site located on a cliff some 175 m above
the sea, very close to the cliff edge, close to the village of
Punta Hidalgo. It was published by J.Perera in 1992 and
 Rodrigo De Balbín et alii

Fig. 3 Selected zones in the Isle of Tenerife

Fig. 4 La Pedrera in the northeast of Punta Hidalgo

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Grabados rupestres de la fachada atlántica europea y africana

displays two areas with engravings and one with remains

of habitational structures in a particularly abrupt area facing
North, under the Roque de los dos Hermanos.

The engravings display schematic forms of dificult

interpretation and other globular shapes that the author
interpreted as female igures and which form groups and
clusters of greater or lesser concentration. The reassessment
that we carried out in the 1990’s redeined the latter as
representations of ish, of which there are other references
in the same island as we shall develop further ahead. Some
of the ish may have suffered later transformations, by
means of the addition of internal lines in the form of a
cross that divide their internal space and decompose their
structure which appears as more schematic.

These lines may correspond to an addition to the original

igures or to their later transformation as has been observed
in aborigine Canary sites in the form of the Christianisation
of the locations. The same occurs in the Iberian Peninsula
and in fact the presence of crosses only reinforces the
evidence of the ancestral value of these locations.

However, it is possible that these lines may belong to the

structure of the original ish and to the representation of
their mains axis. Both the objects and the location of the
engravings, dominating the sea from this high point with the
remains of habitational structures, establish an immediate
relationship with the sea below. (Figs. 5 and 6)
Fig. 5 Engraved platform of La Pedrera over the Sea

Fig. 6 Engraved ish like form in La Pedrera

254

Fig. 7 Masca from the Sea
-Tarucho. Masca (Buenavista) (Fig. 7)
In one of the clifiest areas of the cliffy island, at a height of
900 m and within a location visible from the sea (Fig. 8), is
located the complex group of Masca that displays diverse
elements in a wide space with abundant remains of use and
passage. The site includes a large area in the lower part of
the site, a reddish stratum that usually contains water, that
is covered with cup marks and channels.
It is a complex group in which the cup marks and
concavities are particularly numerous. These are located
on the western face, at two different heights, alongside
two more complex groups displaying in one group ish and
channels into which liquid may have been poured and in
the other group crosses and channels.
In the inal elevation, Christianised, and on the walls that
lead to it facing east are the engraved igures of at least four
large ish (Figs. 9 and 10). The largest measures a length
of 136 cm and is the largest of a poorly preserved group.
This is not the only recognisable igure of the group
since, apart from the numerous series of channels and cup
marks, there are two circular igures with internal rays that
255
Rodrigo De Balbín et alii
resemble heliomorphs (Figs. 11 and 12). The representation
of the sun is frequent in the Punic graphical schemes, on
different materials, and has been associated with the divinity
Baal Hammon which is often associated with the main
goddess Tanit. Baal Hammon may adopt different forms
and vocations, but is occasionally identiied with Melqart,
son of Tanit, who dies and resuscitates every year and is the
conceptual basis for the sacriice of infants. Baal has also
been related to Saturn and Neptune (Lancel 1994, Février
and Fantar, 1965), and keeps a direct relationship with the
sea and its seamen, as does Melqart and Tanit herself, the
main goddess of this navigator people.
Niemeyer (1995: 493, 494) found a similar igure on the
loor of a room of Carthage that appears alongside the
igure of Tanit, as is usually the case of this igure described
by the German author as a rosette. This igure is related
directly with Tanit and with a marine symbol that usually
accompanies the goddess (Fig. 13). The representation of
the sun alongside Tanit, which is the occidental name of the
oriental Ishtar or Astarte, is relatively frequent in contrast
to the isolated heliomorph or rosette motif. The association
may be materialised through the marine animals, given
that these are linked with Baal-Hammon, Melqart and
Tanit in the polysemic representations so often used in the
Grabados rupestres de la fachada atlántica europea y africana

Fig. 8 The Sea and La Gomera at the back from Masca

Fig. 9 Big ishes engraved on the upper part of Masca

256
 Rodrigo De Balbín et alii

Fig. 10 Fish like form with interior cross on the top of Masca

Fig. 11 Heliomorph near the big cups of Masca

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Grabados rupestres de la fachada atlántica europea y africana

Fig. 12 Heliomorph on a exent piece of Masca

Fig. 13 Tanit and heliomorph from the house 1 south, under the Decumanus Maximus of Cartago (according Niemeyer et alii 1995
ig.10 a-d)

258

Fig. 14 View of the site of Aripe from the Sea
Phoenicio-Punic world (Picard 1991, ig.1, Fantar 1993:
403).
We are thus faced with the association of several important
motifs, the divine symbols, the ish and the area covered
with cup marks and channels probably used in libations.
Both the ish of Figure 16 and the highest point of this
site have been Christianised, and more crosses can be
found throughout the group thus indicating the interest
in superimposing catholic religious symbols over others
known to belong to pre-Christian activities.
All of this may again be linked to the sea which is visible
in the distance and is dominated from the nearby peaks,
precisely in the best spot to observe the shoals of tuna that
swim between Tenerife and La Gomera (González and del
Arco 2001 and 2007).
Tejera (1988: 14 and ff) writes about the associations
of the symbols mentioned above, which he interprets
very differently, and also refers to a funerary cave at the
site that we have conirmed in our visits and that links
topographically the engravings with a burial place and with
its symbolic connotations.
-Aripe (Fig. 14)
Aripe was discovered in 1980 and published shortly after
(Balbín and Tejera 1983 a) and raised doubts among the
researchers of the area, as has been the case with most of the
data that does not follow the traditional schemes. It is also
259
Rodrigo De Balbín et alii
true that there were at the time no specialists in the African
inluences and thus the researchers of the area were more
used to the local comparisons than to those that drew on the
neighbouring Africa.
This site is formed by a group located above Guía de Isora
in the South of Tenerife (Fig. 15) whose most interesting
components are the igures of several warriors dressed as
horsemen of the North African sphere with breastplates,
javelins, tunics and feather headdresses. Such igures had
never before been discovered in the islands (Figs. 16 and
17) and resembled the representations of the ancient Canary
inhabitants by Torriani (1978).
We established the relationship with the Sahara and with the
dates of creation of these igures on the continent, linking
these representations to a particular ethnic group and
arguing the presence of this group in the islands, speciically
in Tenerife. Later on and following the suggestions of
Torriani (1978) we put forward the ethnonyme zinete as
a denomination of the group on both sides of the sea that
separates the islands from the African continent (González
et alii 1995).
The group of engravings displays not only the igures
described above but also a horse, a very exotic animal in
the islands (Fig. 18) but common in the African group, and
many crosses as the result of the eager Christianisation by
locals and incomers after the conquest (Balbín and Tejera
1983 a).
Grabados rupestres de la fachada atlántica europea y africana

Fig. 15 View of Aripe from the interior of the isle

Fig. 16 Central zone of Aripe with a warrior dressed in berber

style, with skirt, breastplate,javelin and feathers headdress
Fig. 17 Other of the warriors of Aripe with the same dress

260

Fig. 18 Engraved horse in the site of Aripe
On the continent these igures are related to the cultural
phase of the horsemen and horses, which in peninsular
terminology would correspond to the Iron Age or the irst
millennium BC in conventional chronology. This was the
time of arrival to the North of Africa of Mediterranean
peoples with horses and combat chariots, and also the time
of origin of the social groups that have become known as
Berber.
The location of the site is once again indicative. Although
no engravings of marine animals have been identiied
at the site, the altitude of the location enables the visual
control over the South of Tenerife that offers an area easy
to approach from the sea and with great resources for
ishing. It also constitutes an element of ethnic relation of
key importance which has since been conirmed by other
inds and graphical evidence on the island (Figs. 19 and
20). In 2005, A.J.Farrujia and S.García published the ind
of an anthropomorphic igure at the site they named Aripe
2 with crosses, lines shaping steps, lozenges and another
anthropomorphic igure similar to those published in 1983.
There is an interesting study of the municipality of
261
Rodrigo De Balbín et alii
Isora, including the rock art sites and their topographic
relationships with diverse cultural expressions, including
the funerary sites. This study mentions the associations
between Aripe I, our Aripe and the site of Chajaja III, a
mortuary cave with scarce human remains and a destroyed
wall at the entrance, located on the left hand slope of one
of the ravines to the South of the engraved site (Chavez et
alii 2007: 95).
VALLE DE SAN LORENZO
The South of the island is easily approached by sea but
certainly even more so were the groups of engravings of
the area of the valley of San Lorenzo, located upon a series
of high points within an area open towards the sea above
the ports of Los Cristianos, Las Américas or El Médano.
Their condition of dominant hillocks and their location in
the Southern area of Tenerife makes them one of the most
indicative and clearest examples that we have chosen. These
high points are also located close to areas of pasture, which
despite the dryness of the South provide abundant grazing
for the herds of goats present in the area even today.
Grabados rupestres de la fachada atlántica europea y africana

Fig. 19 Warrior from La Esperanza in the Tenerife Museum Fig. 20 Warrior from La Esperanza in the Tenerife Museum

Fig. 21 San Lorenzo Valley from the Sea

262

Fig. 22 Roque de Bento towards the Sea
The South also displays a concentration of sites that
may be linked to the human occupation of the area and
the distribution of the population in relation to ishing,
although this remains for the moment a hypothesis since
little is known about this issue and the South has been the
area of greatest development and touristic transformation
of the landscape, thus the possible costal sites will always
be dificult to document, with the exception of the point of
Rasca and its settlement and area occupied by troughs for
the obtaining of salt and possibly the treatment of salted
ish products (Arco 2004).
The surveys began in the 1980’s under the direction of
R. de Balbín, P.Bueno and A.Tejera, and after the public
presentation of the irst results the inds promoted the
survey activities of amateurs like Juan Martín and Miguel
Angel Hernández who showed us most of these sites.
The following sections describe briely some of the
engraved locations of the Valle de San Lorenzo (Fig. 21).
-Roque de Bento
This site belongs to the westernmost hill of the valley which
it closes to the West (Fig. 22). The hill is of some altitude
and displays 8 slabs on its summit that were used for the
263
Rodrigo De Balbín et alii
decoration. On the southern edge of the peak there is a
vertical area of 6 m2 covered with cup marks and channels
and nearby another vertical surface with pecked engravings
(Fig. 23). The other six surfaces are vertical and display
igures depicted by pecking, incision and abrasion over a
total surface of approximately 15 m2.
The main decoration contains images of marine elements
with a very interesting formal variation, based on
pecking, incision and abrasion (Figs. 24 and 25). It seems
an appropriate decoration for a place close to the sea
and its products, from which it was possible to observe
the movements of the shoals of ish and probably to
communicate this information to the ishermen in charge of
catching them. As mentioned above, this peak also belongs
to an area suitable for grazing and could therefore fulil a
double function. Let us not forget that the requirements of
water and food supplies would also have been of greatest
interest to the Punic navigators and the most accessible and
practicable pasture of the South of the island was precisely
this one.
La Centinela (Fig. 26).
This is the central site of those belonging to the valley
and has been quoted many times for its Libico-Berber
Grabados rupestres de la fachada atlántica europea y africana

Fig. 23 Top platform of Roque de Bento

Fig. 24 Linear,picking and abrasioned engrevings on the top of Roque Bento, with oblong igures probably ishforms

264
 Rodrigo De Balbín et alii

Fig. 25 Double abrasion in form of ish on Roque Bento

Fig. 26 Aerial photo of La Centinela

265
Grabados rupestres de la fachada atlántica europea y africana

Fig. 27 View of La Centinela towards the Sea

inscription that was the irst to be discovered in the island

of Tenerife (Balbín and Tejera 1989). It is located opposite
the hill of Cabuquero at approximately 200 m above sea
level (Fig. 27).

Its higher surfaces are mostly vertical and are oriented to

the East and the South as the result of the fractures in the
rock and have been used to engrave a number of motifs with
incisions and abrasions.

The irst was the inscription mentioned above (Fig. 28). The
second is a deeply abraded ish, located in this case upon
an eroded horizontal surface and accompanied by several
incisions under its belly that suggest ventral ins (Fig. 29).
The third of the panels, one metre in length, contains a
human igure similar to those of the site of Aripe although
somewhat more simpliied yet displaying a breastplate,
body, legs, head and elongated arms (Fig. 30).

Once again, as is the case of Masca, the lower area of the

panel is covered with channels and cup marks, located in
this case too in a porous and reddish stratum through which
water usually ilters.

This group contains the fundamental range of elements,

very indicative of their cultural condition, which includes
Libico-Berber inscriptions, armed warriors as a symbol of
the group that occupied the area and ish as an essential part
of their economic activity. There are further ish engravings
and variations upon the abraded form of this animal group.
Fig. 28 Libico-berber inscription on La Centinela

266

Fig. 29 Fishlike abrasioned igure on La Centinela
El Roquito (Fig. 31)
Located close to Roque de Jama and above the village
of Valle de San Lorenzo (Fig. 32), El Roquito displays a
central vertical surface oriented to the North on the peak of
the elevation that is decorated most profusely over a surface
of approximately 10 m2.
The eastern side of the valley displays a similar organisation
to that of the previous sites: a high peak with various
representations among which the abraded and incised ish,
some of them part of a consecutive series, are particularly
noteworthy, accompanied by abraded circular motifs
and other rectangular elements in the shape of a net, the
symbolic value of which may be precisely that of their
function (Balbín and Tejera 1989) (Figs. 33 and 34). The
group also displays the modern addition of a cross, again
in an attempt to Christianise something recognised as non-
Christian.
A GENERAL OVERVIEW
Despite the established afirmations of the Canary
historiography, suficient elements are now known in the
islands that link the aboriginal population with ishing and
marine activities that had previously been undervalued
and even avoided following blindly the established
tradition, with few noteworthy exceptions (González
and del Arco 2001 and 2007). The island of Tenerife has
yielded a signiicant collection of ish-hooks, displayed
267
Rodrigo De Balbín et alii
at the Museum of Tenerife (Meneses 1992) and of course
the Zanata Stone (González et alii 1995). All of these are
examples of an economic activity of greatest importance
to the commercial world that dominated during centuries
the production of garum. We know of the survival of this
activity in the Canary Islands at the site of Bebedero de
Lanzarote (Atoche 1993, Atoche et alii 1989).
We do not claim to be the irst to uncover this data, since
there has been known evidence of these behaviours, even
present in the written sources (Torriani 1978; Santana et
alii 2002). It is our objective here to establish some of the
parameters of this cultural relationship with the surrounding
sea by means of a series of examples of rock art that this
activity has left on the island of Tenerife, some of which
refer to divinities and others to social symbols, and others
to the central resource of this activity: the ish, which for
the garum industry were mainly scombrids.
It may be argued that for the documentation of ishing
activities it is not necessary to resort to engraving, warrior
igures nor religious or ritual references, and this may be
true in the modern age but not at the time of maximum
development of the large-scale ishing activities. The
Phoenicians and their Punic and Gaditanian successors
combined their economic and religious activities in a
bond similar to the caption of the American Dollar bills:
In God we trust. Their economic centres, i.e. banks, in a
society which in practice invented the coin and the silver
standard, were temples that occasionally, as was the case of
Grabados rupestres de la fachada atlántica europea y africana
Fig. 30 Anthropomorphic dressed in berber style.Photo J.Farrujia
Gadir, constituted the true centre of the city in the temple
of Hercules-Melqart, patron of the seamen and of their
travels by sea. All of their activities therefore maintained
a narrow and inextricable relationship, often religious in
nature, before the gods whose fury needed to be calmed.
Tenerife offered ish, wood and supplies of water and food,
goats and skins, as well as the fury of the Gods in the form
of the Teide.
As is presented in more detail in other papers of this volume
(Gonzalez et al.), the island was populated by the Zinete,
a human group known in the Algarve and in Huelva in the
early irst millennium BC, and some years later in the North
of Africa, close to Carthage. This was an important ethnic
group among the Berber of the North of Africa, which as
well as leaving engravings that depict their physical and
warrior appearance, were later on the centre of an important
episode of the history of the Maghreb and were described
by the renowned Ibn Jaldún (1999). Their association with
268
the Punic world seems insured (Blazquez, 1961, Blazquez et
alii 1999) and their presence on Tenerife remains written on
the stones alongside the symbols of their marine activities
and the references to the Punic divinity.
The sites described above and their thematic associations
suggest an analysis of the locations in which there are two
different kinds of site located on high points: those that
occupy the highest locations of the mountainous areas, of
which Masca is the best example, and those that are situated
on mid-height platforms, as is the case of La Pedrera and
Aripe. The peaks of Valle de San Lorenzo display an
intermediate situation: although they do not correspond to
the highest points the sites do correspond to the peaks of the
hill ranges that deine topographically the valley (Figs. 35
and 36).
All of the sites stand out visually and offer places from
which to control the lower areas in which it would be
 Rodrigo De Balbín et alii

Fig. 31 El Roquito with the Roque de Jama in second place and the Sea at the end

Fig. 32 View from El Roquito on the Valle de San Lorenzo

269
Grabados rupestres de la fachada atlántica europea y africana

Fig. 33 Oval picking,linear and abrasioned elements on the top of El Roquito

Fig. 34 Ensemble of chained ishforms, asociated to a rectangular net

270
 Rodrigo De Balbín et alii

Fig. 35 Heights of the sites with engravins

Fig. 36 Preferent sites and heights

271
Grabados rupestres de la fachada atlántica europea y africana
logical to expect archaeological evidence of economic
activities and occupational areas. The visual relationship
with the sheltered ishing areas is also noteworthy.
The engraved enclaves themselves are of strategic interest
since they enable the control over the movements in the
sea and also in the lowlands, as well as over the areas that
provide water in the hottest months and in which the herds
may gather.
The association of all of these graphical sites with traces of
human activities reiterates the theoretical expectations that
we expressed at the beginning of this paper. The rock art is
but a form of cultural evidence that usually deine places
used by the human groups by which they were created.
Thus if we survey their surrounding areas, applying the
most basic of the methodologies of site analysis, we shall
surely document other evidence of activities (Bueno and
Balbín, 2000a and b).
The selected sites display varied cultural associations,
including funerary evidence in the case of Masca and Aripe.
A graphical representation usually possesses a meaning that
transcends the motifs that it uses, from a social or symbolic
perspective.
In the South of Tenerife we have found no artiicial caves
or other type of man-made tombs, although volcanic caves
are numerous and were used for the same purpose. These
cavities, used in the past as tombs, are not dificult to ind
throughout the ravines of the region. We therefore sought
to establish closer spatial relationships within the sites in
order to establish veriiable symbolic relationships, as is the
case of Masca and Aripe.
All of the sites of the area of the Valle de San Lorenzo are
located close to areas suitable for grazing and to a series of
constructions that in the past served as houses. This is also
the case of La Pedrera, to the North, and it is not surprising
since the space of the ancestors corresponds to the area
that afirms and provides cohesion to the group and the
houses are usually found in the areas close to the burial
sites, occasionally on top of them, as is so often the case in
the megalithic world (Bueno et al. 2004).
We may thus afirm that in all of the cases we have
documented signiicant evidence of human activity
associated with sites with rock art. The necessary sequence
of diachrony and synchrony will only become possible to
solve with further studies. Nonetheless, the relationship
between Masca and Aripe and their respective burial sites
its without dificulty within the cultural and symbolic
patterns of the engravings and tombs, thus suggesting a very
interesting link between the two.
The presence of ish at La Pedrera and of warriors at La
Centinela repeats some of the symbolic contents of Masca
and Aripe, thus providing cultural arguments that support
272
the idea that all of the sites described above correspond
to systems of territorial occupation created by the human
groups that arrived alongside the Punic groups.
We do not claim that our model should cover all of the
possibilities of location and representation. We have chosen
a series of sites that are representative of the relationship
with the sea and in which there are recognisable and
interpretable motifs, albeit in minority in an area in which
the representations are mostly geometric and non-igurative.
The engraved igures must therefore possess diverse
values: irstly, their capacity of representation of real and
group elements and secondly, their communicative role
to the group itself and to others, indicating the presence
of the social group and its control over the territory. This
territory is usually marked by the ancestors and the houses
that enter into these multiple meanings of the symbolic.
The references to the group, the identiicative signs and
the spaces claimed by the group persist over time and still
preserve their value even after the radical changes in the
social superstructure over time.
This is the case of all of the sites that we have described
above and that at their time possessed an important social
and symbolic value. This value was maintained after the
European conquest that had to afirm itself over the symbols
of the past by means of new engravings and symbols,
mainly the cross of Christ. Something of the past must
have survived that pushed old and new Christians to impose
publicly their symbols over those of the defeated society.
The establishing of different phases in the graphical
elaborations of the islands is another important issue,
since the rock art that we have analysed forms a group
that can be linked to the cultures of the Iron Age, although
it will be necessary to analyse the likely coexistence of
manifestations belonging to diverse periods. In this regard
recent studies in the Iberian Peninsula conirm the existence
of open air anthropomorphic representations in the Iron Age
(Luis, 2009) that were created in contemporary moments to
the use of signs in the Atlantic sphere (Martin Valls, 1983,
Martín Valls and Romero, 2008) in identical territorial
contexts to those of the earliest periods, as is the case in
the area of the Douro. These long sequences are also present
in Africa (Lhote, 1975) where the igures belonging to the
cycle of the horses coexist and are superimposed over
the Neolithic rock art. The exact duration of the Canary
sequences remains unknown, but it is indubitable that
they must have lasted at least from the Phoenicio-Punic
colonisations up until the European conquest, with the
consequent formal changes.
The straightforward antiquity suggested by the traditional
perspectives is being replaced by sequences that relect
a more complex state of the question than that usually
accepted. And it is in this direction that the empirical
knowledge of the insular population will grow.

In Tenerife, the remains that we have presented tell us about
their presence and activities, their control of the high places
that enabled them to dominate the sea and their relationship
with the Punic populations. It is true that this interpretation
rises from the hypothesis that we defended in relation to
the Zanata Stone (González et alii 1995) that the cultural
behaviours are not causal, that the presence of particular
signs in particular places indicates activity, organisation
and preferences, and that our examples are not the only
cases that lead to these conclusions. Indeed, there are many
more cases that we have cited without further detail since
the objective of this paper was to deal with the meaning of
the graphical markers in the insular territory of Tenerife,
a territory that leads us to the sea of provenance, transit
and commerce that was the basis of the population of the
Canary Islands in Antiquity.
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FIGURES
The aerial images come from Google