Ancient cave paintings damaged by vandals in Badajoz

CAVE paintings in the Risco de San Blas, in Albuquerque, Badajoz, which could be up to 5,000 years old, have been vandalised with the drawing of a stick man.

The town’s municipal technician, Eduardo Maya, reported that the author or authors of the act of vandalism had drawn a stick man over two of the anthropomorphic figures in one of the three caves in the area.

“They are paintings that have been there for about four thousand years which have now, incomprehensibly and treacherously been damaged” he said. The attack has been reported to the General Directorate of Heritage, which is studying how to remove the stick figure.

The painting has been done with an ochre colour, similar to that of the ancient paintings, and must have been done in the last month. When Eduardo Maya visited the area on December 21 he says it was not there.

The vandalised paintings date from the Neolithic period and the Bronze Age, and are part of an enclave in which at least half a dozen other cave paintings are located.

They are about 10 centimetres long in this area and were made at the time with a mixture of iron oxide and vegetable oils. The last to be discovered were located in the area at the end of 2018, specifically in the Risco de San Juan, a different set of caves from the one that has been damaged with graffiti.

The paintings of the Risco de San Blas, declared a Historic-Artistic Monument in 1924, are in three caves, but only one of them is fenced off.

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