Ancient cave painting in Chile have been irreversibly damaged by idiots who have spray painted over them .
Therecent discoveryof the graffiti scribble across 1,400 - year - old cave paintings in the Anzota Caves has make outrage at both the vandal and the lack of protection by officials of the ancient land site .
Discovered in the 1960s , the Cuevas de Anzota are located in the Arica province of northern Chile and have been costless and open to the world since . The surrounding area had been rebooted to encourage touristry to the orbit and the visitant have indeed visit , flocking to see the delineation of animals and water vessels that portrayed once local tradition , on the cave walls .
However , the current state of the painting was recently brought to light by Chilean musician Felipe Sandoval who shared photo of the walls with spray - paint graffito scrawled across them on Twitter .
Worse , when he notified the authorities , it turned out the graffito was n’t raw , they ’d known about it and still had n’t put up any protection around the cave to forestall further damage from happening .
“ Outrageous . The rock paintings of camelids , belonging to the Tiwanaku in the cave of Anzota , Arica civilisation ( 600 d. C approx . ) were scratched with sprayer paint , ” Sandoval write .
“ Irreparable terms to our heritage . How long ? ”
The Anzota caves are in an area sleep with to have been used as a colonization by the Chinchorro people of South America who live between 7000 and 1500 BCE . The famousChinchorro mummies , the oldest example of mummification known so far ( pre - dating Egyptians by about 2,000 eld ) , were regain nearby .
The cave picture , however , were by the Tiwanaku , a Pre - Columbian people who live the area around 600 CE . The Tiwanaku endure from 300 CE to 1150 CE and come from Bolivia into present - daylight Peru and Chile .
Although there were signs outside the caves state it as an " Archaeological Site preserved for future work and enhancement " , no protections were actually in place to keep any harm from happening to the caves and to ensure the painting were preserved .
Thankfully , Sandoval ’s highlighting of the matter has mean that the Chilean Council of National Monuments has now visited the caves and is plan to do a report of the remaining art .
Officials have admit that the scratching and spray painting are not late representative of vandalism but that they did n’t strip the graffito off “ for discreetness ” , according toEL PAÍS .
Archaeologist Marcela Sepúlveda also told EL PAÍS that the harm done is “ irreparable ” and that " any intervention to cleanse it will also affect the instrument panel " .
Hopefully , the sentience and outrage raised will force the government to improve its game when it come to preserving and protect national monuments of cultural importance , so this post does n’t arise again .
