Page 14 - ART AND NATURE IN PREHISTORY. THE COLLECTION OF TRACINGS OF CAVE ART OF THE MUSEO NACIONAL DE CIENCIAS NATURALES

the oldest blazons of the hispanic peoplemissing sitesUnfortunately, many of the original rock paintings cannot be visited in nature. e only witnesses left of their existence are the copies and reproductions displayed in this exhibition and kept at the MNCN (National Museum of Natural History).Some of the references of this period talk about the loss or about the partial or total destruction of the paintings in some localities, due to poor conservation, vandalism, etc.Cueva del Queso and Cantos de la Visera had already been described by Cabré 100 years ago. About Cantos de la Visera, he said:“Only some pieces of the rock paintings of this cove have been preserved, as they were destroyed by the water that wiped out the rst layer of the stone as it ran down the wall. e parts that have been preserved give an idea of how well executed and how elegant their lines were...”More than once, the artists of the Commission themselves removed some paintings in order to preserve them from unavoidable destruction. is is what happened in Roca dels Moros in Teruel:“ e tile maker himself wanted to know if there were interior rooms in the rock and when he could not nd the entrance, he blew it with a blast hole loaded with dynamite. In this case, the best three deer gures had been stripped o and subsequently preserved by the author in his private collection, as he feared there were no safe means to preserve them.”Cabré, 1915Hernández-Pacheco removed from Cueva de Villar a slab with a couple of human gures. All of them indicate that the fragments were sent to the Madrid Natural History Museum, but their whereabouts are currently unknown.art and nature in prehistory. the collection of rock art tracings of the mncn014