Riparo di Pale
Rock art paintings and engravings
Umbria – Foligno (Perugia)
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Pale rock art site
| Paintings | 22 in red colour |
| Engravings | 2 cruciforms |
| Site dimensions | 15m lenght, 4m depth |
| Site orientation | East |
| Site altitude a.s.l. | 550m |
This is a large rock shelter formed by two niches located near the 13th century medieval Hermitage and Sanctuary of Santa Maria Giacobbe. The rock shelter is oriented to the East and it looks at the travertine natural dam of Pale, a fluvial structure which is located approximately 500 meters in a straight line towards southeast direction that presumably caused the formation of a shallow lake between the 8th and the 1st millennium BC. Evidence of human occupation of the rock shelter are very limited (for example some parts of the walls are extensively blackened by fire smoke, such as in the Riparo del Riposo in Puglia). At the foot of Sasso di Pale (958m), Giuseppe Bellucci, a well-known 19th century archaeologist from Perugia, reported the discovery of Neo-Eneolithic lithic industry. On the top of the mountain there are the remains of a pre-Roman sanctuary that lately developed during the Republican age. Recently, some ceramic fragments dating back to the Middle Bronze Age have been found in the same area.
Other traces of paintings have recently been identified on the southeast slope of the mountain. The report comes from local photographer Giovanni Galardini and the geologist Roberta Galli, who have identified some red-painted signs on the walls of a not specified rock shelter. Unfortunately, the authors of this report did not provide further details on the exact location of these figures.
Pale rock art figures
The total number of painted figures currently identified in the main rock shelter is 22. They are all painted in red colour, presumably ochre. The figures were first noticed by the local climber and artists Mr. Feliciano Benci at the beginning of 2000s. They are positioned along the wall of the shelter and sometimes they are covered by flowstones (sheetlike deposits of calcite formed where water repeatedly flowed down the walls). It is interesting to note that the this speleothem covers the vertical axis of three out of the four schematic praying figures of this rock shelter. This suggests a special connection of these figures with water: these praying figures were intentionally created in correspondence with the lines of water flow. Water also has an important role in the historical period: in a nearby rock shelter some artificial channels were excavated on the rock surface presumably to collect water from the rock wall and divert this water into a cistern carved in a natural crevice located above the medieval hermitage of Santa Maria Giacobbe. This type of channels has also been observed in near the Riparo delle Mummie in the same region: here a small artificial channel collect water from seasonl spring in a niche in the rock wall and divert this water into a rock-carved basin.
The sampling and radio-dating of the carbonate concretion relating to a praying schematic anthropomorph of Riparo di Pale indicates that this figure was created between 5661±36 BC (1s, oZE934) and 1569±11 BC (1s, oZE933).
References
2020
Il Sasso di Pale di Foligno nel contesto antico della Bassa valle del Menotre : archeologia a scuola Book
Fabrizio Fabbri, Perugia, 2020.
2012
La datazione 14C delle concrezioni sigillanti una pittura rupestre del riparo di Pale (Foligno, Perugia) Journal Article
In: Preistoria Alpina, Museo Tridentino Scienze Naturali, vol. 46, no. II, pp. 165-166, 2012.
L'arte rupestre preistorica e protostorica dell'Umbria Journal Article
In: Preistoria Alpina, Museo Tridentino Scienze Naturali, vol. 46, no. II, pp. 155-163, 2012.
2007
L'arte rupestre in Italia centrale : Umbria, Lazio, Abruzzo Book
Ali&no, Perugia, 2007, ISBN: 9788887594997.