Asphendou Cave petroglyphs

Asphendou Cave petroglyphs

Asphendou Cave on the island of Crete
Location	Asphendou village, Sfakia, Crete, Greece
Coordinates	35°14′07.0″N 24°13′00.6″E / 35.235278°N 24.216833°E / 35.235278; 24.216833
Altitude	740 m (2,428 ft)[1]
Type	Cave
Length	1.15 m (3.8 ft)
Width	0.8 m (2.6 ft)
History
Periods	Upper Palaeolithic-Bronze Age
Site notes
Discovered	1960s
Management	Local
Public access	Yes

The small Asphendou Cave in western Crete preserves a number of overlapping petroglyphs on a limestone speleothem that may have been made between the Upper Palaeolithic and the early Bronze Age. The oldest of these, that possibly dates from the Upper Palaeolithic, depicts a number of quadrupeds which may represent extinct Candiacervus deer. Overlapping some of these are a layer of paddle-shaped carvings. Patterns formed from rock cupules were added at some later point, likely around the end of the Neolithic or start of the Bronze Age. The final layer mostly consists of a few boats.

When first researched in the 1960s, the identification of the quadrupeds was uncertain. It was thought they might be kri-kri goats and date from the Bronze Age. A reanalysis in 2018 was able to clearly map the different layers, and draw on knowledge of Candiacervus that post-dated the petroglyphs' discovery to date the oldest layer to somewhere within the Late Pleistocene or Upper Palaeolithic. This dating would make the quadrupeds the first known figural art from Crete, and from all Greece, to pre-date the Neolithic period.