https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4707-8094
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ABSTRACT
Levantine rock art sites were discovered in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and, since then, the preservation of this delicate prehistoric heritage has been a considerable challenge, both for the scientific community and for heritage managers. The extreme fragility of this art and the natural bedrock used as the substrate, together with the location in the open air, most of them without physical protection (fence) and dispersed over a large territory, are factors that have contributed to the natural deterioration of most of the sites. This deterioration has also been accelerated by human action over the last century. The international recognition as World Heritage (in Kyoto in 1998) was a turning point in terms of protection, conservation, and management, incentivized by public authorities. As a result of this boost for recognition and research, the inventories of the sites discovered in the different territories are being updated and preventive conservation actions are being carried out, protective barriers are being installed, and the first direct interventions on the painted surfaces are beginning. These practices, which in many cases have improved the stability and visibility of the sites, have not always been supported by agreements reached by interdisciplinary teams and have aroused a degree of controversy. They have sometimes even involved the removal of items of possible archaeological interest (flowstones and layers of oxalate) or the addition of materials that could interfere with archaeological research on past raw materials. This highlights the need to make an inventory of rock shelters where such work has been carried out and to review the treatments and products applied, assessing the possible effects they may have generated on the rock surface and/or the paintings in the 20 years since they were applied. This historical review is intended to offer an updated assessment of the initiatives that have been carried out over a century in Levantine rock art conservation, drawing attention to the need to establish future protocols for action supported by scientific research to achieve a balance between research, conservation, management, and current uses of this ancient heritage.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
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Notes
1 Some of the first prestigious institutions to show interest included the Institute of Human Palaeontology in Paris, the Commission for Palaeontological and Prehistoric Research in Madrid, and the Institute of Catalan Studies in Barcelona (Martínez-Valle Citation2002; Mateo-Saura Citation2018).
2 This local museum and visitor reception center provides an essential previous step to discover one of the most famous complex of sites with LA: la Valltorta ravine.
3 Guillamet headed the Andorran Conservation Services in 1975 and 1992, a period when it began as a forerunner of the first conservation and restoration work on rock surfaces, with examples of art. After years as a in other specialist areas such as easel painting, altarpieces, and painting on stone, he trained for two years in the specialist area of wall paintings at the Central Institute of Rome (ICR) under conservator Paolo Mora. From this experience he intervened for the first time on Paleolithic cave paintings in 1988, at Font-de-Gaume (Aquitaine, France), assisted by researchers Jean Vouvé and Pierre Vidal. Next came Rouffignac, Chauvet, and Arcy-sur-Cure (Guillamet Citation2000, 119; Andino Pol and Fernández-Azcona Citation2004, 64–66). In 1995, he started leading direct restorations of rock art of the Mediterranean side of the Iberian Peninsula.
4 In Europe, the water circulation diversion technique using silicone beads was used for the first time at Font-de-Gaume cave (France) in 1988. The silicone used in these karstic areas is particularly resistant to humidity, although the physical and chemical characteristics of the product are not specified. It was also used at Niaux cave (France). In this last cave, due to water leak problems that led to the loss of many representations, flows were diverted and the paintings were then fixed with synthetic resins.
5 The first time watercolours were used to reintegrate incised graffiti was in the Palaeolithic paintings at Font-de-Gaume cave (France) in 1988.
7 Materials were analysed in the laboratories of the Valencian Institute for Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage – IVCR + i.
9 The rock was characterized at the Scuola Universitaria Professionale della Svizzera Italiana (SUPSI) and the Central Support Service for Experimental Research (SCSIE) at the Universitat de València (UV).