THE ROCK ART AT 'EL ENCANTO', CHILE

El Valle de El Encanto is not situated in the Atacama Desert, but in the semi-arid area south of it, some 22 km WSW of the town of Ovalle (see map). Fortunately, El Encanto is now a National Monument and is under permanent guardianship. The rock art is found in the river gorge of the Espinal. This river (in dry times a small stream) has eroded away the loose earth exposing enormous granite boulders and outcrops. Many of these boulders have been engraved (and in some cases painted) with a large array of images. Dominating the imagery are anthropomorphic figures that have been pecked out of the rock in a very superficially way. Actually, only a very thin layer of the patination has been removed. Many of the human figures have headdresses in the form of radials emerging from the head, as can be seen in the third photo. This (only partially illustrated) panel has also one of the few instances where superimpositioning has been recorded at El Encanto. The second picture shows part of the engravings on a large isolated boulder at the west end of the rock art group, where an enormous boulder 'El Penon' dominates the landscape.

The valley of El Encanto is also well known for its enormous number of stones (more than 80) with 'tacitas', which, confusingly, is the Spanish term for both cupules and grinding hollows. Cupules however are smaller and non-utilitarian hollows, the size of a ping-pong ball, whereas grinding hollows are much larger, often deeper and oblong in shape and have been used for practical or ritual reasons like grinding food or dye. There are stones at El Encanto that have both cupules and grinding hollows but my surveys of the valley revealed that there are also many stones with only cupules. The first photo shows a stone with two oblong grinding hollows next to a unique circle of faint and short radiating grooves. These grooves might enclose an area in which materials ritually grinded in the oblong depressions were put to have them separated from the Ordinary World. The second photo shows several oblong grinding hollows associated with smaller cupule-shaped depressions, the latter of which may also have served as a ritual storage areas. Just to the west of this horizontal stone is a large boulder that has one cupule on its vertical top (invisible in the photo) and a cluster of cupules on its east side (just visible at the bottom of the photo). The third photo shows a large number of grinding hollows that seem to be connected to straight grooves of uncertain nature (natural or anthropic?). The fourth photo gives a detail of an enormous boulder in the waterfall at El Encanto. This part features very faint rings (because of the action of running water at wet times) and a water-worn ringmark with central cupule and with two or three radial grooves, the whole forming a keyhole design.

El Encanto is best known for its beautifully engraved depictions of 'masks'. Unlike the other engravings that are superficially pecked out, many of the masks are carved in deep outline that clearly show up in slanting sunlight. The best examples, several of them illustrated here, are found at the 'waterfall' just east of a small pool in the river Espinal. It is also obvious that there are several stages in the style of the 'masks' indicated as well by different degrees of weathering, as the last photo clearly shows. Three of the five 'masks' at this panel are visible in the second photo, the others being obscured by the shadow of another rock.

NEW ...... The web site of RUPESTREWEB features my survey about cultural depressions at two rock art sites near Ovalle, Chile.