It might sound dramatic but I went to Portugal to see something I almost couldn’t see. Literally. I’d been reading about Paleolithic rock art for the past 2 years, travelling last fall to see some of the caves in the Vézère Valley, and then after reading more, mostly about the Côa Valley east of Porto where panels of rock were incised with animals and a few abstract forms between 25,000 and 10,000 years ago.
There was one image in particular I wanted to see: some fine parallel lines, two sets of them converging, on a rock above the Côa River, near where the Ribeira de Piscos, a small creek, flows into it. I’d read about this rock last spring in Genevieve Von Petzinger’s book, The First Signs: Unlocking the Mysteries of the World’s Oldest Symbols. Her husband, a photographer, accompanied her on a quest to gather data on the abstract images that often accompany the animals depicted on cave walls or rock panels in open air. In her book, there’s an enhanced photograph of the lines, which she identifies as a meander. For some reason, I couldn’t forget this image.
The morning we drove with our guide Antonio to the Ribeira de Piscos site was quite a nice one, mostly sunny, with big tumbling clouds, though there’d been rain during the week and he warned us that the hike from the parking area to the rock art would be a bit precarious because the ground would be slick. There are some areas of narrow path skirting rocky slopes above the river. You wouldn’t want to fall….The path led through old olive groves, past wild fig trees, feral almonds, Pyrenean oak and cork oak, and the trees and grass were filled with birds: blackbirds, Iberian magpies, horned larks, robins, sparrows of some kind, and when we reached the river itself, swallows were swooping over its surface. I’d asked Antonio if we would see the meander on our visit and he seemed surprised I knew about it. I will show you at the end, he said, though it will be hard to see. Because of its location, and more, it wasn’t usually part of the visit.
Across the river, a shepherd was following his flock. The sound of bells was about as beautiful as anything I’ve ever heard, bells in quiet air, a riffle of water now and then as a cormorant lifted off. We saw the panels of rock engraved or pecked with horses, ibex, aurox, even a human figure with an enormous erection (no surprise there). We talked about style, context, the skill of the artists. We talked about how these animals were not necessarily part of the diet of those who took the time to make their likenesses in rock. The archaeological record seems to suggest that smaller animals were eaten, as well as fish, seeds, roots, and birds. Were they thresholds, then, a way to participate in something divine? We heard bells again as the sheep skipped down a slope with the shepherd at their heels.
When it was time to head back — this was a long morning, more than 3 hours, with a good part of the time spent driving in Antonio’s 4×4 to get to the parking area and back from Vila Nova de Foz Coa — he said he would show me the meander. John, who has an unreliable foot due to a surgical injury, didn’t feel confident about climbing a steep path to the rock. But I wasn’t going to miss it for the world. Antonio had a small laser light and when we reached the rock, he used it to trace the course of the lines delicately incised into the surface. Delicately incised into the surface something like 20,000 years ago. Can you see, he said, and yes, I could, but I knew there was no point trying to take a photograph with my phone. So much depended on sunlight and it was capricious, out for a few minutes, then moving behind the clouds. Can you see, and I could, holding my finger as close to the rock as I was allowed to, following the route. Turn, he said, and I did, looking down the slope to where the Ribeira de Piscos met the Côa.
Some of the signs in Von Petzinger’s book are abstract. We can guess at what they might mean but will we ever know? Will we? I don’t know. But this one, the meander, the two sets of lines converging on a rock set in a high place above the convergence of two water courses, feels like a sign I need right now. Maybe you do too? A sign to pay attention. To take the precarious route up the slope, to learn to concentrate, to focus, to see the gift of water as a kind of holy thing. A dry and sinuous landscape. A river runs through it, fed by another, and another. In the olive trees, Iberian magpies plucking the ripe fruit, larks calling, and everywhere the river.
...Theresa Kishkan 