Title: Shepherds who write : pastoral graffiti in the uplands of Europe from prehistory to the modern age /
Authors: Bazzanella, Marta; Kezich, Giovanni, 1956-; Rowlands, M. J.
Year: 2020
Subjects: Graffiti Europe History.; Rock paintings Europe.; Shepherds Europe History.; Antiquities; Graffiti; Rock paintings; Shepherds; Europe Antiquities; Europe
Abstract: In a number of significant sites of the vast ancient pasturelands of the Old World, generations of wandering shepherds have left their testimony in the form of graffiti drafted on the rocks, sometimes in their tens of thousands, over a period of hundreds of years from ancient to modern times. The phenomenon is a conspicuous one, and has considerable significance for two reasons. On the one hand, the study of such pastoral graffiti may convey fresh ethnoarchaeological information as to the circumstances of the pastoral activities and the pastoral economy of the past. On the other hand, these signs, which can be often fully alphabetic as well as drawing upon ancient symbolic repertoires, can be of some aid in the interpretation of rock art as a whole genre of human expression, and projected back, in their significance and their modes of appearance, the earliest times of prehistory.
Contents: Preface / Michael J. Rowlands -- Introduction: Shepherds who write. A new frontier for ethnoarchaeology / Marta Bazzanella and Giovanni Kezich -- Petroglyphs and graffiti in the Syunik highlands/Armenia--summer pasture for thousands of years / Franziska Knoll -- Caves and shepherds' engravings on the Majella mountains / Edoardo Micati XXX Trial of the distribution of the shepherds' writings in the Mont Bego region (Tende, Alpes-Maritimes, France) / Nathalie Magnardi -- Moving beyond the Bego God / Jules Masson Mourey and Nicoletta Bianchi -- Igniting fire under mobile conditions and other Late Neolithic-Bronze Age shepherding traces / Giorgio Chelidonio -- Rock art in relation to pastoral villages in medium and high-altitude sites, in Valcamonica and in the Alps / Ausilio Priuli -- Pastoral Graffiti in the Val Grande National Park and in the areas of Natural Parks of Ossola Valley. Results of a first mapping / Fabio Copiatti and Elena Poletti -- Pastoralism and quarrying: possible typological divergences in the production of historical rock art in accordance with the sites intended use / Federico Troletti -- Beyond cup-marks: Writings, engravings and ethnography in Val Malenco: a first glimpse (Sondrio, Italy) / Cristina Gastaldi -- Ethnoarchaeology of pastoralism in Valcamonica high pastures / Jessica Bezzi and Mara Migliavacca -- Pastoralism without writing? The case of Monti Lessini / Mara Migliavacca -- Compass-made circle engravings from Giau Pass and Mondeval (S. Vito di Cadore, Dolomites, Veneto region, NE Italy) / Fabio Cavulli and Francesco Carrer -- A painted mountain: the figurative rock art of the shepherds of the Fiemme Valley / Marta Bazzanella -- A sign for every shepherd, for every shepherd a family: The signs of the house in the inscriptions of the shepherds of Mount Cornón in Val di Fiemme / Giovanni Barozzi and Vanya Delladio -- The symbol of the cross on the rocks of Mount Cornón in the Fiemme Valley / Giacomo Fait, Desirée Chini and Marta Bazzanella -- The mountain and the cross as centre of the maso / Gianfranco Bettega.