Ancient menagerie

In keeping with the menagerie theme, here are photos that we took of the Paleolithic rock cliff drawings/etchings in the Valley ofFoz Coa, Portugal...

This first one features a vast number of etchings, one on top of the other. They are from different periods in the Paleolithic. Often, drawings will be on top of each other like this, even though there is plenty of empty rock face near by. They don't really know why, may be a sacred site, maybe this is where the animals came to drink from the river. We may never know. There are aurochs (extinct giant bull..2 meters tall at its neck!), horses, and a goat or two here.



This is a close-up of the beautiful head of a goat. The drawings of goats were generally our favorites.



There are four animals pictured here, two horses and two goats, one of each facing each way. See if you can find them!



This is the head of a horse. I particularly like the ears...



Finally, this is a very large drawing of a horse. For scale, check out the olive leaves in the lower left corner of the photo.