Carschenna

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Rock with drawings

The Carschenna rock carvings are located above Sils in Domleschg in Switzerland . The site can be reached from Thusis or the Sils train station on a marked hiking trail in about an hour. Copies of these can be viewed in the Rhaetian Museum in Chur.

location

The rock carvings are located on a hill to the east and above Sils on the edge of a chasm several hundred meters deep near an old path that leads to the Splügen and San Bernardino Passes .

On the rocks there are mostly concentric ring patterns with a bowl in the middle ( cup-and-ring marking ). Animals that cannot always be clearly identified are also shown. Likewise, a rider and pack animals with a load on their backs. Other subjects are crow's feet, bars or sun symbols .

origin

The 200 or so pictures were discovered in 1965 while a high-voltage line was being built under a lawn carpet and uncovered by the Rhaetian Museum. First ten rocks with pictures were found, in 1984 and 1996 two more rocks were found in the vicinity (Badugnas and Viaplana). The term Carschen contained in the place name means "rising moon" in Romansh , which suggests that the place could have had a cultic meaning.

It is believed that the drawings date from different eras; the cup-and-ring markings are likely to be the oldest. These are carved into the rocks in a manner that science attributes to the Bronze Age . The drawings are therefore around 1500 BC. BC originated. In his extensive studies, the Swiss archaeologist Urs Schwegler suspects prehistoric alpine shepherds, hunters and collectors to be the originators of these bowl and drawing stones. They are in the context of a large number of similar finds in the Alpine region or even worldwide.

The Carschenna hill served from pre-Roman times to the early modern period as a mule track on the right bank of the Rhine to bypass the so-called "Lost Hole", the northernmost of the two narrow gorges of the Viamala Gorge immediately before Thusis. Like the early medieval church ruins there in St. Albin and the fortified church in Hoch-Rialt, the drawings belong to a sanctuary where travelers stopped to ask the higher powers for help before passing the dangers or to thank them afterwards.

  • Rock on Carschenna

  • Possible altar with recess

  • Pack animal

  • Star and concentric circles, meaning unknown

  • Crow's feet?

literature

  • C. Zindel, 1970: Incisioni rupestri a Carschenna . In: Valcamonica Symposium , 1968, pp. 135-142, Capo di Ponte.
  • Paul Emanuel Müller: A Landscape of Symbols. The mysterious rock paintings of Carschenna. Terra-Grischuna-Verlag, Chur 2004, ISBN 3-7298-1140-1 .
  • Urs Schwegler: Bowl and drawing stones of Switzerland (= Antiqua. Vol. 22). Swiss Society for Prehistory and Protohistory, Basel 1992, ISBN 3-908006-14-7 .
  • Urs Schwegler: The rock carvings from Carschenna, community Sils im Domleschg. In: Helvetia Archaeologica. Vol. 28, Issue 111/112, 1997, ISSN  0018-0173 , pp. 76-126.

Web links

Commons : Carschenna  - collection of images, videos and audio files


Coordinates: 46 ° 42 ′ 4 "  N , 9 ° 27 ′ 50"  E ; CH1903:  754,875  /  174209