The prehistoric muralists of Greater Nicoya

The Journal

Any surface to draw on: The prehistoric muralists of Greater Nicoya


By Frederick W. Lange*

Ever since people began to draw, and before the invention of paper and textiles, they have looked for natural surfaces upon which to engrave large-scale images. Many Guanacaste Journal readers will be familiar with the famous Lascaux Cave in France; the dynamic murals of the great Mexican muralists David Alfaro Siqueiros, Diego Rivera, and Jose Clemente Orozco; and more recently the giant images of famous sports and entertainment stars on the sides of downtown buildings in many of North America’s largest cities.

Greater Nicoya was no exception to this tendency and for hundreds, if not thousands of years, anonymous prehistoric artists covered slabs of rock with their designs. Most of this artwork was on horizontal surfaces, although one of the most important examples in Greater Nicoya, on Isla Muertos in Lake Nicaragua, is on a horizontal platform. This leads us to our first realization that our real understanding of the thousands of petroglyphs that dot the boulders and rock panels in the region is very limited because there is no written documentation from the time of the Spanish invasion that recorded their significance. Is a vertical petroglyph more important than a horizontal one, or did it make any difference to the Native American artists or religious practicioners? We do not know.

Also, just as here in California we find some pictographs in association with village sites, while others appear in quite remote locations, the same is true of petroglyphs in Greater Nicoya. In the Rio Naranjo region of Guanacaste, petroglyphs were found on boulders immediately adjacent to habitation sites, while at the Maritza Biological Station a few kilometers away, hundreds of petroglyphs are found on small boulders scattered throughout a field on the upper slope on the flank of a volcano, but there are no indications of habitation.

If the petroglyphs overlap, we can surmise that new images were added from time to time without regard for the symbols previously placed there. Does this suggest a new culture moving in without knowledge or respect for the images of the past, or simply a prehistoric gang placing anti-social graffiti on any available surface? Again, we do not know.

Another interesting dimension of petroglyph symbolism is that many of the patterns, both abstract and realistic, are also found on ceramics, jade pendants, and stone column sculpture. This speaks to a central body of cultural symbols that various artisans utilized in various media of expression, or does it? Perhaps one school of artists worked in petroglyphs, another school worked on ceramics, another on jade, and another on columnar stone sculpture. We do not know.

On Zapatera Island in Lake Nicaragua, there are numerous petroglyphs carved onto flat surfaces of boulders that are slightly underwater, but still visible. Are these some sort of water offering, or has the lake level simply risen a half meter or so since they were carved? At the impressive site of Guayabo near Turrialba, Costa Rica (now a national park), small boulders with petroglyphs on them have been incorporated into many of the stone mounds. Are these intentional inclusions of glyphs of protectors of the mound, or simply the re-use of a previously carved-on boulder? We do not know.

I have spent over 500 words describing some of the more interesting aspects of petroglyphs in Greater Nicoya and elsewhere, but also I have been forced to admit that we still know very littkle about what they mean. Because they are found on boulders or panel surfaces that are not covered by archaeological debris, it is often very difficult to place an age on how old the petroglyphs are. Efforts to cross-date petroglyphs by the common symbols on the more easily dated ceramics, jade, and stone sculpture are risky at best, as the petroglyphs may precede or come after the other kinds of artifacts, rather than having been contemporary.

For many years there has been talk of a formal catalogue of as many petroglyphs as can be recorded in the different countries of Central America. Unfortunately, very little progress has been made, but now with the availability of all kinds of digital imaging equipment, hopefully some adventuresome souls will take up this project in a serious manner.
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* Dr. Frederick W. Lange has a doctoral degree in anthropology, awarded by the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1971. He is the author of the recently published book Before Guanacaste, a popular account of the first 10,000 years of this wonderful place. BG is available at the Jaime Peligro Book Store in Tamarindo, the Café Britt Book Store at Peninsula de Papagayo, and in Libreria Internacional bookstores in San Jose and throughout Costa Rica. Fred’s e-mail is: hormiga_1999@yahoo.com.