Grotta dell'Arco di Bellegra

The site

Grotta dell'Arco di Bellegra is a karst resurgence of about 1000m of length (Caves of Lazio n° 5/La). The "La Cona" stream that originates from this resurgence has an average flow of 5 liters/second. The cavity, explored for the first time in 1932 by the members of the Roman Speleological Club (Circolo Speleologico Romano 1932), currently can be visited on request as it is a touristic cave with opening timetables. Until 1955, the stream "La Cona" formed a small artificial body of water at the entrance of the cave. This water reservoir, created by a small wall that acted as a barrier and blocked the water, was used to produce hydraulic force for the mill of Mola Civitella. The presence of this body of water favored, over the decades, a massive accumulation of muddy sediments that extended upstream for about 200 meters from the entrance. The presence of mud sediments caused major access problem to the cave so that the first explorers of the cave probably could not carefully observe the walls of the cavity and identify the paintings.

The entrance of Grotta dell'Arco di Bellegra (from www.grottadellarco.com)

Plan and section drawings of Grotta dell'Arco di Bellegra

Grotta dell'Arco di Bellegra (from www.grottadellarco.com)

 

The rock art

Grotta dell'Arco di Bellegra rock art consists of 4 anthropomorphs in red color and 5 anthropomorphs in black color. The presence of this rock art depictions is traditionally known to the inhabitants of the village since the early 1900s. The black painting figures seem to have been covered by a thin deposit of white, soft concretion, similar to what is known in literature as Mondmilch which hydrated the pigment by dispersing it throughout its thickness and giving to the paintings an atypically fresh appearance.

Grotta di Bellegra, black anthropomorphs after DStretch (photo by T. Mattioli)

Grotta di Bellegra, black anthropomorphs (photo by T. Mattioli)

Grotta di Bellegra, red anthropomorphs after DStretch (photo by T. Mattioli)

Grotta di Bellegra, red anthropomorphs (photo by T. Mattioli)

Grotta di Bellegra, localization of the red paintings (photo by Tommaso Mattioli)

Grotta dell'Arco di Bellegra, black paintings (photo by Tommaso Mattioli)

Grotta dell'Arco di Bellegra, black paintings (after DStretch)

 

Bibliography

@inbook{RN19,

title = {Le pitture rupestri della grotta dell'Arco di Bellegra (Bellegra, Roma)},

author = {Tommaso Mattioli},

editor = {Giuseppina Ghini},

year  = {2010},

date = {2010-01-01},

urldate = {2010-01-01},

booktitle = {Atti del VI Convegno di Studio sul Lazio e la Sabina},

pages = {19-21},

publisher = {Edizioni Quasar},

address = {Roma, 4-6 Marzo 2009},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {inbook}

}