Programme Two: Graffiti Gorge George Nash meets Dr Mila Simoes de Abreu, whose bitterly-fought campaign saved thousands of prehistoric tribal rock carvings from being lost under the waters of a proposed reservoir in the Coa Valley, Portugal.
Here they see warriors on horseback, and what appear to be a mammoth and even a giraffe, all drawn on very inaccessible rock faces, well away from Palaeolithic public gaze.
The process appears to be much more important than the product, and artists returned again and again to the same special place, all of which has a very familiar ring for Manchester graffiti artist, ‘Kelso’.
Above: In the Coa valley in Portugal there are many rock carvings of the animals that would have been grazing the hillside 20,000 years ago, such as horse and bison. On the left is a Palaeolithic carving of the head of a red deer.
At the same site there are later carvings superimposed over the older images. On the right is an acetate tracing of a carved warrior on horseback dating from the iron age (500-1000 BC).
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