Programme Four: The Master of Paspardo Val Camonica, Northern Italy (photograph courtesy of Dr George Nash).
Italian archaeologists Professor Angelo Fossati and Dr Andrea Arca show Dr George Nash round the biggest rock art area in Europe. There are an astonishing 300,000 prehistoric carvings within commuting distance of Milan.
The images include dwellings that closely resemble English medieval houses and the world famous Bedolina Map, being studied by Englishman Craig Alexander.
But what does it record? Is it a real or mental map, marking out a cultural territory as modern graffiti does today? And who was the mysterious Master of Paspardo, who seems to have had a hand in so many of the drawings?
This is the Camonica Valley in the Italian Alps where rock art is, rather unusually, found exposed on high rock faces rather than inside caves. This is the view that the rock artist would have had from the mountain village of Paspardo, looking south across the valley. Photograph courtesy of George Nash.
A section of the world famous Bedolina Map, this is believed to be a topographic form of village scene representing a field. The rows of dots are thought to represent sheaves of cereal. This particular panel is part of a new section of the Bedolina Map, discovered recently. Photograph courtesy of George Nash.
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