Galego | English

Non fiction

Soberanía e santuarios na Galicia castrexa

By Marco V. García Quintela

About this book

This historical essay presents arguments to sustain to interrelated thesis. On the one hand, we are shown the existence of an ideology of nobility, or sovereignty in Roman Gallaecia, similar to that present in Celtic territories in Ancient times.

On the other hand, we examine the location of archaeological remains, specially petroglyphs. These two ideas mean that social forms and archaeological forms in the Iron Age in Galicia were not just “castros” (settlements). This is a complex and integrated society with polymorphous religious forms that in many cases changed in a historic process to constitute the fundamental segments of current folklore and the tradition linked to the Road to Santiago.

Book fragment

There are hardly any studies on the paedomorphus engravings of prehistoric rock art in Galicia. The reasons for this have to be found in the scarcity of such representations though some authors seem to think that they are quite recent if we compare them to horseshoes or simply when they are seen in the context of all relatively recent periods, though we are not sure what the basis for such statements is. In this work we will focus on paedomorphal designs that we could identify in the field. In particular, we will include five figures carved and one created trough erosion but related with an interesting popular tradition that we will use as a conclusion to this analysis.

When we speak about petroglyphs, we try to move beyond mere direct observations but this may become a chimera. Generally speaking, the point of arrival an analysis of rock art is close to the point of departure. But we must remember that the analysis of an archaeological registry cannot be an end in itself. Therefore we try, though it may sound utopian, to search what rock art can contribute to the knowledge of past societies.