Tagus Valley Rock Art (Ocreza)
Iberia's largest open-air engraving complex, documented in a race against the rising Fratel reservoir — and in 2000 the Ocreza valley added southern Portugal's first open-air Ice Age horse.
Along the middle Tagus and its tributary the Ocreza, Portuguese archaeologists racing a rising reservoir recorded thousands of pecked engravings in the early 1970s — circles, spirals, human and animal figures spread across some 40 km of schist riverbanks near Mação, Nisa and Vila Velha de Ródão. The Fratel dam drowned much of the complex in 1974, leaving latex moulds as the chief record. In 2000 a headless Solutrean horse turned up beside the Ocreza's mouth — southern Portugal's first open-air Ice Age art — and fresh aurochs and horse panels found since 2021 keep extending the story. Guided walks from Envendos, booked through the Mação museum, reach the surviving rocks.
Notable Features
- ◦ Nearly 7,000 recorded figures across a dozen riverside sites
- ◦ The 'Horse of Ocreza' — a Solutrean outline found in 2000
- ◦ Most panels submerged behind the Fratel dam since 1974