Fuerteventura

TRACCE no. 12 – by Werner Pichler

Two enigmatic petroglyphs on Fuerteventura/Canary Islands.
As a result of an one years research project in 1993/94 the author was able to document about 780 panels of rock art exclusively on Fuerteventura, one of the eastern islands of the Canarian Archipelago.

Thus it was possible for the first time to examine the typology and frequency of motifs for a whole island. The most astonishing result was the nearly total absence of manifestations of human beings and animals. The linear signs are dominating, followed by geometric signs like pentagrams, circles or triangles. There even are a lot of iconic signs like footprints and ships, but not one drawing which clearly could be attributed to the subject of human beings, inclusively of aspects of their environment (dwellings, weapons etc.).

This result is quite astonishing if one compares with the rock art of adjoining regions like Northern Africa or the Iberian Peninsula.

Two of the documented panels are totally off the beaten track and have no similarity among the others, even not in comparison with the rock art of all the Canary Islands.

So: What’s your opinion about these two enigmatic petroglyphs? Does anybody know comparable motifs in other rock art areas?

Werner Pichler
Institutum Canarium
Wagrainerstr. 9, A-4840 Vöcklabruck

back to index TRACCE no.