PETROGLYPH OF "LAXE DAS RODAS"

Rock carvings or petroglyphs are symbolic expressions of prehistoric communities, and can be considered one of the most interesting cultural manifestations of Galician prehistory.

The known petroglyphs of our municipality are distributed across most parishes, with a particular concentration in those of Serres and Louro; among them, two are singular within the ensemble of Galician rock art: Cova da Bruxa and Laxe das Rodas.

With the Guide to the Petroglyphs of Muros by Eiroa and Rey (1984), a catalogue was compiled of the known rock art sites at that time. However, it should be noted that in the late 1990s, a series of surveys revealed and catalogued approximately ten new stations, so that today more than thirty petroglyphs are recorded across the municipality.

To date, three rock art stations have been studied: Cova da Bruxa (October 2006), Laxe das Rodas (September 2007), and Naraio I (September 2008), research carried out by the "Group of Studies for the Prehistory of the Northwest (GEPN)", Department of History I, Faculty of History, University of Santiago de Compostela.

The petroglyph of "Laxe das Rodas" is one of the best-known in the Northwest, and has been the subject of several studies since its discovery in 1956 by Agustín González López. These studies offer various interpretations of different significance. Some authors interpret it as a multi-year calendar based on the cyclical movement of the sun and the lunar months.

The group consists of nine figures: two spirals rotating in opposite directions, completely surrounded by cup marks, which form the main group, and seven circular motifs with concentric circles. The fact that it contains a specific number of circles and cup marks leads to the suggestion that what is represented is a reckoning of time based on the movements of the sun and the moon.