ENGRAVED SMALL PLAQUE  
Tossal de la Roca (La Vall d’Alcalá, Alicante)


Clayey Limestone
l: 10.5 cm; w: 6.5 cm; th: 3 cm
Upper Palaeolithic
End of the Upper Magdalenian

 

Small trapezoidal shaped piece of a stone plaque, with a naturally smoothed side, decorated with a deer’s head amongst a chaos of indecipherable lines. It is covered with a reddish ochre colour which highlights the incised decorations. The dear is in a state of alertness with one of its ears raised and the other is slightly turned downwards. It has a long neck and muzzle which have been sketched with simple wide lines, which have been deeply incised with a U-shaped profile. Inside the figure the details of the mouth and eye have been picked out and the line of the maxillary and of the forehead and beginning of the nape appear to have been shortened. The simplicity of the decoration really stands out. The incised geometric patterns are formed by a series of lines parallel to a main axis line on which small perpendicular incisions have been made.

The decoration is characteristic of prehistoric Mediterranean moveable art due to the simplicity of the design, as well as the central animal figure theme, which is represented in el Tossal de la Roca by the large number of drawings of deer. The design’s naturalistic style with schematic influences dates the object to the end of the Upper Palaeolithic and the beginning of the Epipalaeolithic periods.
C.S.: 1234
CACHO QUESADA, C. & RIPOLL LÓPEZ, S., 1987.