Petroglyphs of Cerro Uruana in Atures municipality, Amazonas state, Venezuela. Photos: Philip Riris, José Ramón Oliver, Natalia Lozada Mendieta.
The Institute of Cultural Heritage (IPC), associated with the Ministry of Culture of Venezuela, issued a statement calling out the baseless reporting of Spain’s El País and other foreign media outlets about a series of petroglyphs in the Venezuelan state of Amazonas. These media outlets claimed that the rock carvings had been recently “discovered” by British and Colombian scientists. In reality, the petroglyphs were already widely known in Venezuela by both the people and academics. The statement was released by the Venezuelan Minister of Culture Ernesto Villegas on Wednesday, June 7.
On June 5, El País published an article initially titled “Colombian and British scientists find the largest rock carvings in the world in the Orinoco basin.” It caused controversy by implying that foreign academics had discovered a series of petroglyphs in the Uruana hill and other sites in the Atures Rapids zone of the Orinoco River. Meanwhile, the petroglyphs were already well known in Venezuela. The claim about the “discovery” was made by El País and not by the scientists, who had made it clear in their research paper that they had reviewed already existing scholarly publications “on the rock art of the Orinoco.” This is not the first time that a foreign mainstream media outlet made baseless claims about ancient Venezuelan art. In 2017, other media outlets published articles with similar claims.
On June 6, after the article caused serious controversy on social media, El País changed its headline to “Colombian and British scientists make new findings about the largest cave engravings in the world.”
Giant Petroglyphs in Venezuela Were Not ‘Discovered’ by the British, as Spain’s El País Claims
An unofficial translation of the IPC statement is provided below:
Cave engravings known as petroglyphs have existed in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela for thousands of years. They are among the ways in which our ancestors expressed their culture and way of life. These engravings can be found almost everywhere in the country. According to investigations, the engravings located in the Atures Rapids zone of the Orinoco River are about 2,000 years old. They include representations of animals, humans, and cultural rites.
In the last few days, several media outlets have reported that scientists “have discovered the largest rock engravings in the world in the Orinoco River Basin,” appealing to the normalized valuation in society about the importance of archaeological heritage only in terms of its discovery, antiquity, and monumentality. Therefore, it is essential to highlight that these petroglyphs have been studied by Venezuelan archaeologists at least since the 19th century. Data generated from these investigations have provided valuable information about the chronologies and the ways of life of our ancestors.
There is an extensive bibliography on this subject written by numerous archaeologists. These petroglyphs are listed in the Catalog I of the Census of the Cultural Heritage of Atures Municipality. They are of cultural interest and are protected by the Law of Protection and Defense of Venezuelan Heritage.
According to the information we have compiled, this news that is circulating on digital media is based on an investigation carried out on these petroglyphs of the Orinoco basin in which new technologies such as high-resolution cameras and drones were used to obtain area shots and software for the analysis of the marks and 4D reconstruction were applied.
It is emphasized that any investigation that complies with the site protection requirements outlined in the law is always welcome as it brings with it new tools and provides data that could not be gathered before. However, this type of news magnifies and spreads misinformation about these fundamental issues in the identity and cultural sovereignty of the people, especially when there are Indigenous communities that live in the area and consider these petroglyphs as part of their local history and life.
Finally, archaeology, as a science that studies material culture and the wide range of cultural phenomena that contributed to the formation of the multiethnic and multicultural nation that we know today, is an important source that nurtures the cultural identity of our people. The greatest, the monumental, the discovery, is that which summarizes a fragment or piece of material culture, which, however small it may be, is immense because it comes from the hand of our ancestors and shapes what we are today.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/SC/SF
