capturing a moment with rock

petroglyphic palimpsests

It is a day as clear as a babies conscience. The sky is a cloudless topaz. Ochres of cadmium, terracotta & rich umber paint the mountains of the badlands. A desert located in La Hoya de Guadix, the northern part of Granada. Griffin vultures swoop over head. Mountain thyme grows bushy out of sheltered gullies, offering an aromatic perfume to the fresh thin air. Tufts of olive green are interspersed with viridian.

Plants grow stout & stocky, like the mountain people of the village we have travelled from. We walk up dusty tracks, looking out over a landscape that was once submerged by sea. In a blink, the landscape is transformed. Thyme replaced with kelp, glistening beneath cobalt waters. The rippling contours of the terracotta sandstone look as if they are water born; light illuminates form, gullies metamorphose into snakes, ancient beings that whisper the secrets of this place.

Wind & sun greet us at the peak of the Baños de Alicun. There is a silence here that speaks of ceremony. A weighted silence, thick with intention. Woven into the weft of these fibres are memories. Movement. Moments carried between atoms of time. Time is as thin as embroidered lace, squint, and you will see the ancestors, stood beneath the blue black cosmos, bodies painted in the hues of the terracotta mountains. They are singing & dancing. They are still with reverence.

Three sandstone boulders rest eastward, facing toward the rolling expanse of what was once a green & verdant land. Now, this region is desert. I trace my finger over the petroglyphs. 4500 year old marks. Here is inscribed a couple dancing. The sun & the moon. A bow & an axe. An offering bowl. I pour water into my hand & re-trace the marks. Hands touching the imprint of neolithic experience.