Petroglyphs

Santa Rosa de Tastil Site Museum & El Duraznito

Santa Rosa de Tastil Site Museum contains a small exhibition of archaeological objects. The warm reception is in charge of Epifania, who invites the visitor to discover the exhibition and shares the first details. Then her cousin, the diligent Marcela, a local guide, tells a story about the drawings engraved in stone.

The "Tastil Dancer", a delicate figure of extreme femininity and subtlety, gets the maximum attention. This iconic piece was "repatriated" from the Anthropology Museum of Salta, in order to enhance the value of the Site Museum.

Right next to it are the "Musiqueros", two graceful figures playing a wind instrument, perhaps a bone or wooden ocarina. They are extraordinarily beautiful.

With his usual good fortune, @triptiticy_ was invited to see the other petroglyphs preserved on the hill before the village, in "El Duraznito". A short drive to paradise for an anthropologist and anyone who values the historical legacy of human existence.

It consists of a hike up the slope of the hill to discover, with Marcela's help, the stones with the most varied drawings: anthropomorphic figures; animals such as the suri (ostrich), llamas or even monkeys; a striking calendar; the sun in different versions and many other scenes representative of the cycles of life itself.

Marcela moves facing the wind from the heights as if she were still a child playing with her father, José Pedro Zalazar, the then guardian of the site.

The commotion is instantaneous when discovering that there, on one more arid slope of many that can be seen on the route, is this divine treasure of approximately one thousand years ago. There are many petroglyphs scattered on the hillside, all of them of a unique beauty, especially when just looking up the scene is completed with a rugged landscape and the pristine blue sky. It is an authentic open-air art museum and it is impossible not to travel back in time and think, in front of the stones, of the author or authors executing these masterpieces.

All of this generated a sense of conquest to have known such ancient and contemporary scenery at the same time. And while seeing them in their natural state is a privilege, the need for greater preservation of such richness leaves a little concern.

Hopefully all these valuable evidences of our past will be preserved and may be enjoyed forever.