Prehistory and Iberian art
From the bison of Altamira to the Iberian stone ladies – the oldest art of the Iberian Peninsula.
Spain has some of the oldest and most famous cave paintings in the world. At Altamira in Cantabria a ceiling is covered with bison in red and black, painted more than 14,000 years ago. The artists used the unevenness of the rock to give the animals volume. Around twenty other painted caves lie nearby, and at El Castillo a red disc has been dated to at least 40,800 years ago. The northern coast is therefore one of Europe’s most important regions for Ice Age art.
After the Ice Age the imagery changed. Along the Mediterranean coast people painted small, lively figures beneath rock overhangs: hunters with bows, dancing women and a person climbing to gather wild honey. At the same time farmers began to raise huge chambered tombs, such as Menga at Antequera. During the Copper and Bronze Ages fortified villages grew up in the south-east, and on the Balearic Islands towers were built of large stone blocks, known as talayots. Art became more closely tied to tombs, power and community.
In the last millennium BC Phoenician and Greek traders reached the coasts. They brought new techniques and models, and the native Iberian peoples created a sculpture of their own. The Lady of Elche, a limestone bust of a woman with large wheel-shaped ornaments at her ears, is its most famous work. When the Romans landed at Emporion in 218 BC a new era began, but Iberian art lived on for centuries.