Il National Park of Rock Engravings was established in 1955, the first archaeological park in Italy, for the protection and enhancement of one of the most important complexes of rocks with prehistoric and protohistoric engravings in the Val Camonica. It extends over an area of 143,935 sqm in Naquane locality, on the left hydrographic slope of the Val Camonica, between 400 and 600 meters above sea level.
National Park of Rock Engravings in Val Camonica, UNESCO Heritage
Inside it houses 104 rocks, in sandstone smoothed by glaciers, engraved with some of the most famous depictions of the rock art repertoire of the Camonica Valley, recognized by UNESCO in 1979 as a world heritage site (site no. 94 “Rock Art of the Camonica Valley”, the first Italian site listed) for the uniqueness of the phenomenon and for the importance of the scientific contribution that the study of the engravings has brought to the knowledge of human prehistory. Rock art developed in the Camonica Valley between the end of the Upper Paleolithic (between 13,000 and 10,000 years ago) and the Iron Age (1st millennium BC), a period of particular flourishing of the phenomenon, which however persisted also in historical, Roman, medieval, and modern times.
The Park was established with the aim of protecting, conserving, enhancing, and promoting the knowledge of the rock art heritage. Furthermore, as a place of culture, according to the definition of the Cultural Heritage and Landscape Code (Legislative Decree January 22, 2004, no. 42, art. 101, c. 2, e: “archaeological park”, a territorial area characterized by important archaeological evidence and the coexistence of historical, landscape, or environmental values, equipped as an open-air museum), it is intended for public enjoyment and performs a public service (art. 101, c. 3). In addition to the archaeological restriction, there is also a landscape restriction, established by Ministerial Decree of 14.04.1967.
The Park is state-owned and managed by the Superintendence for Archaeological Heritage of Lombardy, a peripheral body of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism.
The Val Camonica is famous worldwide for its extraordinary complex of engravings on rocks, mostly dating back to Prehistory. While the iconographic heritage of these ancient populations is well known to the general public, the aspects of their daily lives are less known, having emerged only in the last 30 years thanks to numerous preventive archaeology and research interventions carried out in the Valley. Various settlements, workplaces, places of worship, and burials can be attributed to these communities, who from the Iron Age will be known as the Camunni.
National Museum of Prehistory of the Camonica Valley, Capo di Ponte
The National Museum of Prehistory, in Val Camonica, housed in the ancient building of Villa Agostani in the historic center of Capo di Ponte and inaugurated on May 10, 2014, integrates, with the exhibition of artifacts, the heritage of images engraved on rocks and reassembles, into an inseparable whole, the identity expression of the Camonica Valley.
