Parque de la prehistoria de Teverga
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Cave of Caves

The Cave of Caves is a space to discover the magic of paintings within the twilight of their natural framework, in the same environment as the original paintings and engravings are found.

It is a subterranean enclosure faithfully representing the emotional and sensorial world inside the caverns.

In it are shown the real size reproductions of three significant sets of European Palaeolithic rupestrian art:

 

Polychrome Hall of the Tito Bustillo Cave (Asturias)

This shows the Polychrome Hall, called in this way due to the use of several colours: reds and blacks (with shades of purple). Also with this variety are the two techniques used: painting and engraving, the latter used both to perform some outlines and to detail and highlight eyes and tails.

The most represented animal is the horse, in this case the Tarpan type, a horse subspecies that existed in this region in a glacial age in which the temperature was between 0 and 5 degrees. The image of some reindeer with fur on their necks also stands out, together with the representation of some signs, in particular a quadrangular engraving in the shape of a grill.

The Polychrome Hall is one of the best examples of overlapping and reiterated and deliberate use of space in European rupestrian art. The same panel includes representations dating back 23,000 years up to its last stages 13,000 years ago.

  

Panel no. 4 of the Black Hall of the Cave of Niaux (France)

The base of the stone is not coloured and the range is restricted for the figures: black and some red for a few of the signs.

The predominating animal is the bison, represented in the upper part of the panel.  The bison standing out in the left central part is usually catalogued as a female, due to the shapes presented, such as the scarcely prominent hump. By contrast and in opposition to this is the male, found on the right-hand side and showing a more prominent hump.

The lower part of the wall represents several horses which, with painted hair, represent a member of the equine family with a great amount of hair, the Przewalski. The bestiary is finished off with two goats, one represented in a very natural manner and the other in a totally schematic manner.

The panel is dated as being 13,000 years old.

  

The Camarín of Candamo (Asturias)

The cave of San Román de Candamo is the one with paintings from the Upper Palaeolithic that can be found at the most western point of the Iberian Peninsula.

Camarín comes from the word cámara (chamber) and consists in a hollow which, given its location in the cave, makes up a sanctuary in itself. It is found in a place difficult to access 12 metres from the ground, a magnificent example of an envisaged and chosen location that giving an idea of not only the importance given to the geological formations but also to the lighting.

In the centre of the composition there is the figure of a horse in a sienna colour and in the Solutrean style and another three equids whose execution is incomplete, together with an urus, an animal that became extinct in the 17th century and which was the predecessor of the bull.

The paintings of the Camarín are dated as being 21,000 years old. They are not the only paintings to appear in the cave, although they are the best preserved. It should be highlighted that the Candamo Cave, that of Tito Bustillo and another three Asturian caves (Llonín, Pindal and Covaciella) were declared monuments of mankind by the UNESCO in summer of 2008, stressing the importance of these unique and unrepeatable representations which, although on many occasions are closed to the general public, can be admired and enjoyed by means of exact replicas such as the ones shown in the Prehistoric Park of Teverga.

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