Cave Paintings With Rare Red Pictographs Discovered in Eastern Cuba
Three new cave painting sites discovered
By Orfilio Peláez
Granma
Three new Cuban cave painting sites were found in a nature reserve in Imías municipality, Guantánamo province, this past February [2012], by a multidisciplinary scientific expedition organized by the Cuban Speleological Society’s Pedro Borrás Group.
The discovery was verified in three small caves located east-southeast of Yacabo beach, in which a significant group of red-colored pictographs, symbolic expressions of the culture of the pre-Columbians who inhabited this semi-desert coastal strip long before the arrival of Spanish conquistadors.
As Dr. Efrén Jaimez Salgado, president of the Group, told Granma, the discovery takes on particular significance, given that the use of the color red was very rare in cave paintings in the country’s eastern region.
Suffice it to say that from the Sierra de Cubitas in Camagüey to Punta de Maisi, the easternmost point of Cuba, only one site has been reported with cave paintings in that color. In fact, the prevailing view was that the use of red was linked to specific events in the lives of the original inhabitants.
There are now 279 documented cave art sites at the national level, and 57 of these are located in Guantánamo province, the second largest after the province of Matanzas.
Cave art includes pictographs and petroglyphs intentionally elaborated in caves, rocky shelters, grottos and on open rock faces by indigenous groups or populations.
Source: Granma
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