Following the discovery of a large Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age settlement, beneath the medieval town of Monsaraz, careful inspection of the slate outcrops, around and inside the walled area of the proto-historic settlement, allowed the observation of a significant number of very thin incised engravings.
These motifs mostly consist on geometric patterns (squares, stars, grids) but also at least one anthropomorphic figure; some of the panels display apparently unarticulated lines, which may correspond to different motifs superposed.
These panels are frequently associated with cup-marks of different sizes and organization modes, presumably contemporaneous with the incised motifs.
It is pertinent to approach these rock art manifestations with some others, found, some years ago, in the Alqueva Dam area, attributed to the Early Iron Age. Both are thinly incised, though they are inscribed in quite different landscapes
