Prehistoric Rock-Art Sites in the Côa Valley

Registration Date

1998

Criteria

C i: Represent a masterpiece of human creative genius.The Upper Palaeolithic rock-art of the Côa valley is an outstanding example of the sudden flowering of creative genius at the dawn of human cultural development.
C iii: Bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization which is living or which has disappeared. The Côa valley rock-art throws light on the social, economic, and spiritual life on the life of the early ancestor of humankind in a wholly exceptional manner.

Justification

Report of the 22th Session of the Committee

Vale do Rio Côa
Gravura rupestre
Gravura rupestre

Brief Description

The Côa Valley Archaeological Park (PAVC) was created in August 1996 with the aim of managing, safeguarding, musealising and exhibiting the Côa Valley rock art.
The Côa art was listed as a National Monument in 1997, and was inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 1998.

Rock art

The Côa Valley is one of the world’s most significant rock art sites and the most important Palaeolithic open air rock art. About five dozens art specimens are spread along the last 17 kilometres of the river’s course, at it flows into the river Douro.
This extensive art gallery boasts engravings dating back to the Upper Palaeolithic Age (over 10.000 years ago); though the valley also bears witness to paintings and engravings from the Neolithic and the Calcolithic, engravings from the Iron Age, as well as from the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, when the millers, the last Côa engravers, abandoned the valley. Different men and women left their mark on the rock formations dating back 25.000 years. 

The territory 

In order to preserve engravings and their contemporary archaeological sites, the PAVC manages a total area of two hundred square kilometres corresponding to the last course of the Côa river valley where it flows in to the river Douro. This territory includes parts of the municipalities of Figueira de Castelo Rodrigo, Meda, Pinhel and Vila Nova de Foz Côa.