page_title: Cup and ring mark
section_title: Italy
hierarchical_section_title: Cup and ring mark / Italy
caption_attribution_description: English: Mamoiada (Sardinia – I), Sa Perda Pintà (“the painted stone”)
context_page_description: Cup and ring marks or cup marks are a form of prehistoric art found in the Atlantic seaboard of Europe in Alpine valleys and Sardinia) and Greece (Thessaly and Irakleia (Cyclades)), as well as in Scandinavia (Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland) and in Switzerland (at Caschenna in Grisons). Two studies published in 2019 found that the population which built Britain's Stonehenge descended predominantly from Fertile Crescent, South Slavic, Anatolian, and Aegean farmers (see also Neolithic Agricultural Revolution), and while female lineages were varied, male lineages belonged almost exclusively to Eastern European and Mediterranean males of I2a genetic lineage.
  Similar forms are also found throughout the world including Australia, Gabon, Greece, Hawaii, India (Daraki-Chattan), Israel, Mexico, Mozambique and the Americas. The oldest known forms are found from the Fertile Crescent to India.
  They consist of a concave depression, no more than a few centimetres across, pecked into a rock surface and often surrounded by concentric circles also etched into the stone. Sometimes a linear channel called a gutter leads out from the middle.
context_section_description: Numerous cup-marked stones have been found in quite all the alpine valleys, comprising Val Camonica (Italy), associated with rock drawings. Regarding western alps (Piedmont), the best known are distributed along the Chisone, Susa and Viù valleys; also the La Bessa site is to be cited.
  Strictly referring to cup-and-rings, it is possible to cite in the western Alps only the Novalesa stone, in the Cenischia Valley, near the Italian-French border. Found in 1988, it shows 4 concentric circles, with a central cup-mark; all around a network of 20 cup-marks and channels.
  Sardinia is rich in cup-and-rings stones: the best known is the Perda Pintà (the "painted stone", which is carved, not painted) or Stele di Boeli, at Mamoiada: an impressive stela or menhir 2,67 m high with various concentric circles patterns crossed by engraved channels and central cup-marks.
caption: Sardinia mamoiada perda pinta
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