There is a huge amount of prehistoric art in Portugal, including carved or engraved rocks (Portuguese: gravuras rupestres) as well as paintings (pinturas rupestres).
The most famous prehistoric art is the UNESCO World Heritage site of the Côa Valley, with open-air rock engravings dating back over 20 thousand years ago. The cave of Escoural has painted artwork that goes back to the Paleolithic period, some of the oldest in Europe. The famous painted dolmen of Antelas is a rare example of painting within a megalithic tomb.
There are many more sites, some visitable and some not, and more are also being discovered through the present day! In addition, there are smaller art objects which are displayed in museums around the country.
Use the map to the right to search for specific sites (highlighted map markers indicate sites that are described on this website), or browse through the entries below. More posts are added as they get visited!
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Fariseu Rock Art Site
The river flows quietly but steadily past the riverbank. The water laps softly against the jetty. Water flows past the rocky outcrops, relentlessly. Turning from their ancient engravings, you watch it head towards the ocean. Beneath the surface, the water flows over other outcrops of rock. Hidden below, more engravings remain unseen and unseeable. What…
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Côa Museum
As you walk down the cement canyon, the walls close in on you and the blue sky dwindles. Darkness encloses you and it seems like you are traveling into the bowels of the earth and back in time. Within, you are surrounded by art and artefacts of life as it was tens of thousands of…
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Necrópole Megalítica de Chão Redondo
ALSO IDENTIFIED AS: Dólmen 2 (or Anta 2) de Chão Redondo, or Monumentos Megalíticos do Chão de Redondo From a distance, it doesn’t seem very extraordinary. There’s a remnant of the large mound of stone and earth which originally covered the prehistoric tomb. The tomb itself looks fairly typical of an average-sized neo-chalcolithic chamber tomb.…