The Great Heroic Hunt

On the Big Rock n.12 in Seradina it is possible to see the imposing scene of a long line of horsemen armed with spears during a deer hunt with dogs.

The theme of the warrior-knight is frequently found in the engraved areas on the west side of the middle Valcamonica and it underlines the high social status of these persons, thanks to the presence of the horse, rare and precious all through the European prehistory.

The very few deer with 'solar' antlers are a reminder of older religious themes already engraved in monuments during the Copper Age (for example the statue-menhir's in the Naquane Park or the Cemmo's boulders).

Very clear are the differences with all the deer's found in the Naquane Park (on the opposite side of the Valley), probably made by a different artist or in different periods.

The Ploughing Scenes

The six ploughing scenes on this rock (it is the highest concentration of this subject known in the Valley) show us yoked horses instead of oxen, in some cases preceded by erotic scenes of a clearly ritual character.

The ploughing scenes in this area date all back to the Iron Age because of the horse, an animal that arrived in Italy and on the Alps only in the late Bronze Age. The oldest ploughing scenes (Copper Age) show instead the use of oxen and can be found only on the other side of the Valley or on the famous statue-menhirs.

The symbolic value of these figures is most likely linked to fertility rituals associating women to the land, to the cycles of death-rebirth (funerary cults of the afterlife) and of the foundation (sacred ploughing for the layout of an hamlet).

Other Themes

To these elements we have to add a great number of duel scenes and isolated engravings about ancient epic myths, like for example the one where a human being, armed with a big square-bladed axe, get hold of a big snake and tries to hit it.