Cova de l'Aranya is a prehistoric site famous for its Levantine cave art. It holds the "Man of Bicorp", a painting depicting a figure that it is gathering honey.
1. COVA DE L’ARANYA DEL
BICORP By Roxana Denisa
2nd of Bachillerato B.
2. LOCATION
Cova de l’Aranya del Bicorp is a group of three caves located between Escalona river and Caroig
Mountain, in the town of Bicorp (Valencia). The relief of the area is steep and rough, due to the cliffs
that isolate the zone.
3. CHRONOLOGY
This site, discovered by J. Poch and examined by Eduardo Hernández Pacheco in 1920, is dated to
the Epipaleolithic, the intermediate period between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic (9,000 - 7,000
years ago).
4. ART EXAMPLES
The paintings of Cova de l’Aranya belong to the Levantine cave art. They are schematic and
monochrome paintings, with a predominance of red colour, and they represent scenes of ordinary life,
such as hunting or gathering products, and the human figure is present too.
Two holes host the cave paintings, although the biggest one is divided into two parts (Cave 1 and
Cave 2) and the third one is named Cave 3.
5. In Cave 1, there is a picture which depicts an archer and a deer on the left, a roe deer on the right
and between them, a human figure.
6. Cave 2, the biggest one, hosts the largest number of cave paintings, among them the first representation of honey
collection. It shows a man who, hanging on a vine with a basket on his back, is putting his arm into a hive, while some
bees are flying around him. This could mean an evidence of the transition from the hunter-gatherer economy of the
Paleolithic to Neolithic, a period when humans started to produce things, such as pottery and basketry.
7. In Cave 3, a big bull and some ibexes are depicted.
