La Roca dels Moros - El Cogul Cave Paintings

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About the site

The cave paintings at La Roca dels Moros (El Cogul, Les Garrigues) in the Set River valley are among the most notable examples of rock art in the Mediterranean Basin. The site was the first collection of prehistoric paintings scientifically documented in Catalonia and has been regarded as an archetype of prehistoric art ever since its discovery in 1908.

The paintings feature 48 human and animal figures in the Levantine and schematic styles. The most impressive element is the central scene, which stands out not only for its technical excellence but also the themes it presents. It consists of the depiction of various female figures dancing in pairs around a naked man with a disproportionately large penis and seems to be connected with a fertility cult. The scene, which is unique in rock art in the Mediterranean Basin, has drawn international attention to the paintings of La Roca dels Moros.

Most of the images were painted during the transition between the Palaeolithic and the Neolithic, a period known as the Epipalaeolithic, approximately 10,000 years ago. The Set River valley was inhabited continuously from the Palaeolithic onwards and the La Roca dels Moros rock shelter was used as a place of worship for 5,000 years. The last hunter-gatherer groups (8th-5th millennia BC) created the Levantine paintings here. The schematic human and animal figures were drawn later (5th-2nd millennia BC) by Neolithic peoples.

The rock art at La Roca dels Moros was declared World Heritage by UNESCO in 1998.

The collection of art here also includes eleven engravings and more than 256 signs in Iberian, Roman and Latin inscriptions. The presence of these later works and their distribution across the rockface suggests that those who produced them were aware of and respected the existence of the cave paintings, a fact explained by the sacred nature of this place.