Calartoco in northern Chile is a heavily disturbed rock art site, because it was crossed by several types of infrastructure. This paper offers a limited view of some of the petroglyph boulders that have been “rescued” near the original, destroyed site.
By Maarten van Hoek
This short paper reports the unexpected destruction and violation of an important rock art site – El Vagón – in the Moche Drainage of northern Peru. In 2019 I published a full account of this site, based on several surveys by my wife and me. In 2017 there was no destruction visible, but in August 2024 I found (via Google Earth) out that the site had been destroyed by heavy machinery. This short paper discusses the damage, often referring to my earlier publication. It is sad that the site survived from the Formative Period (2000-500 B.C.) up to at least 2022, and was then recklessly and shamefully violated and destroyed in a few days, apparently without any warning or any official archaeological survey. Permission should never have been granted!
By Maarten van Hoek
Especially in this time of a dangerously increasing amount of online (deep) fake-news, outrageous lies, falsified photos and misleading information that are used to – for instance – “justify” a disgusting and horrible war in Europe, it should not be tolerated that similar false illustrations are being used in scientific publications by academic professionals. In the following two publications I expose and criticize some of those incorrect illustrations in rock art publications, focusing on the Majes Valley in Peru (Revised September 2023).
By Maarten van Hoek
Many rock art sites are easily destroyed, also in Peru, especially because of road constructions or mining activities. This paper describes three petroglyph sites near the village of Huaca Blanca in northern Peru. Especially Huaca Blanca has already been partially destroyed by unwanted quarrying. This paper offers a brief inventory of what is (was!) available during our surveys. The thumbnail to the right shows a prehistoric petroglyph next to recent damage.
By Maarten van Hoek
Very recently several petroglyphs at the rock art site of Guelta Oukas in the Anti Atlas Mountains of southern Morocco were severely damaged. However, the mutilation was limited to two panels with mainly depictions of cattle and – moreover – to specific body parts of those zoomorphic images. In this paper I argue that this is not just another case of unwanted vandalism. Instead, I propose that the mutilation at Guelta Oukas could represent an instance of ‘negative’ rock art, involving the desecration of the images.
by Maarten van Hoek
On line petition (please sign it!) to the Turkey Ministry of Forestry and Water Affairs. Discovered in 1994 by the Berlin archaeologist Dr. Anneliese Peschlow-Bindokat, these rock paintings date back to the 6th and 5th millennia B.C. They are now greatly endangered by increased stone quarrying in the area: the exploitation of feldspar is causing the drastic metamorphosis of the Latmos from a sacred mountain into a source for bathroom installations!
by APB (online petition)
The goal of this paper is to offer the interested reader a digital restoration and interpretation of the images of a vandalized petroglyph boulder located in the Atacama Desert, northern Chile. Its damaged face underscores the urgent necessity to ([photo])graphic record rock art sites in general. It is hoped that very soon a complete survey will be made of the Chiza petroglyph site and that the official survey will be made available to rock art researchers.
by Maarten van Hoek
The UNESCO’s World Heritage List now registers almost a thousand properties. Only two percent of the World Heritage List comprises rock art sites. Regrettably 44 of those properties are in danger, which proves that being on the World Heritage List is not a guarantee that nothing will endanger the site. I will focus the discussion mainly on rock art sites in the deserts of western Peru.
by Maarten van Hoek – rockart@home.nl
I have been studying rock art in the American West for over 10 years, concentrating my research on public sites, and how they have been “developed” for public visitation. I have drawn a number of conclusion about site selection, and procedures for preparing a site for public visitation.
by Ronald D. Sanders
A new act states by now that the Italian Cultural Heritage is no more inalienable: please help!
I rischi della nuova legge sulla “Patrimonio dello Stato spa”: aderisci alla richiesta di sospensione.
by Marco Collareta, Donata Levi
TRACCE no. 11 – by Márcia Dantas Braga
Conservation Project of Rock Art at the outbacks of the state of Bahia, Brazil.
My first contact with rock art happened during a mural painting conservation course that I was doing in Rome, at ICCROM. Lectures about Lascaux had fascinated me. A few months later, back in my own country, I volunteered to work as a conservator within the archaeological team of Dr Maria Beltrão.
TRACCE no. 10 – by M. Leigh Marymor
Looking Back at Four Years of Advocacy for the Ring Mountain Petroglyphs – California (USA).
In the Fall of 1993, the Bay Area Rock Art Research Association (BARARA) began an effort to insure protections for the Ring Mountain petroglyphs in Tiburon (Marin County), California .
