An historic petroglyph has been forcibly eliminated within the Mexican state of Coahuila. The drawing of a hand, now gone, was one in all greater than 150 motifs courting from between 500 and 5,000 years in the past on a big rock floor at La Cueva Pinta, situated within the Sierra de Australia mountains in Cuatro Ciénegas. The overlapping drawings seem to have gathered over 1000’s of years, created in a big selection of colors by lots of of generations of native peoples.
After the vandalism was reported, archaeologists decided that somebody had additionally tried to dislodge at the least two different historic drawings from the identical rock. The marks on its floor level to the usage of an electrical noticed to chop into it, a reckless technique that precipitated important injury. Fragments of painted rock discovered on the bottom level to the likelihood that the hand drawing itself was chipped within the course of.
“That is an irreparable loss,” Francisco Aguilar Moreno, director of the Nationwide Institute of Anthropology and Historical past’s Coahuila Heart, mentioned in a press release. “These work will not be simply fairly footage; they’re a direct hyperlink to our ancestors, a significant a part of our historical past and cultural identification.”
The La Cueva Pinta petroglyph earlier than it was vandalised Nationwide Institute of Anthropology and Historical past (INAH)
La Cueva Pinta is also known as a dwelling museum of the desert’s cultural heritage.
Mexico’s cultural ministry condemned the actions of the would-be looter or looters and has filed a proper criticism with the lawyer normal’s workplace in an try and deliver the vandal(s) to justice and stop future injury to this and different necessary archaeological websites.
“It is a profound disrespect to the traditional individuals who as soon as referred to as this desert residence,” a ministry of tradition spokesperson mentioned in a press release. “We are going to pursue this matter with the total drive of the regulation. Our nationwide archaeological heritage is protected by federal regulation, and it’s the duty of each Mexican to respect, preserve and defend it.”
