Barranco del Muerto

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Memory · Subcategory: Archaeological sites

This spectacular ravine located to the south of the municipality houses one of the most important archaeological sites in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. A place widely populated in pre-Hispanic times, the area has several zones of special interest from an archaeological point of view. The lower sector of the archaeological zone consists of a rock engraving station supported on a small basalt outcrop, with more or less flat surfaces on the stone blocks that make up the set. The site is located on the upper edge of the right bank of the ravine, about 100 metres south of the TF-1 motorway.

The archaeological station consists of about thirty panels with rock inscriptions, among which the predominant technique is incision - both coarse with abrasion and fine - as well as a few examples of pecking. Its themes are classified into two groups of motifs: geometric (quadrangular, cruciform, ovoid, reticular, triangular, rectilinear and others); and figurative (representations of boats, with details of the hull and sails). It also has several modern inscriptions made by trespassers and looters.

The upper sector corresponds to a stretch of the middle course of the ravine, which has vertical walls 10 to 15 metres high and landslides, whose debris forms true slopes at the base of the escarpments. On the right bank of the channel there is a cavity of some size resulting from erosion processes. On its floor, four large cupules and two smaller ones connected by channels are documented. One of the cupules has a concentric outer border, creating a lowered surface with the hollow in the centre.

A few metres to the north and on the same bank of the ravine is a large cavity - with several side passages - which must have had a residential use in the pre-Hispanic period; some archaeological material has been detected on the surface (ceramics, obsidian). However, the intense reuse it has suffered has almost completely removed the sedimentary fill.

At the bottom of the channel, upstream, there is a waterfall at the foot of which a large basin or "eres" was formed, which would allow water to accumulate for a long period of time and must have been an essential element in the water supply of the group settled in the ravine.

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