Research at Matacabras rock art shelter

Last July 18th, Malaga’s newspaper Sur published an article entitled “Matacabras, a jewel to discover”, echoing the works carried on in the painted shelter of  Matacabras of the team involved in the research project funded by the Spanish Ministry for Economy and Competitivity Nature, Society, and Monumentality: High Resolution Archaeological Research of the Megalithic Landscape of Antequera. The shelter, harbouring interesting rock paintings of the ancient Neolithic (sixth to fifth millennia BCE), is placed at the bottom of the North face of the mountain known as La Peña de los Enamorados, with direct visual relationship with the dolmen of Menga, which is oriented to this painted rock shelter. The pictorial elements of the shelter are being researched by an international team headed by Dr. Miguel Ángel Rogerio Candelera, from the IRNAS research group Environmental Microbiology and Cultural Heritage, using non-invasive techniques for the integral recording of the paintings. Matacabras shelter is one of the elements key for the recent inclusion of the Dolmens of Antequera in Unesco’s World Heritage List, jointly with the dolmens of Menga, Viera and El Romeral, the very Peña de los Enamorados and the natural formation of El Torcal, which includes the Neolithic habitat of El Toro Cave.

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