TIRANA, March 15/ATA/ The Lepenica written cave has received the status of preliminary protection, a step towards declaring it a first category Cultural Monument.
Vlora Regional Directorate of Cultural Heritage gave the news emphasizing that this decision came after the proposal of this directorate, the Directorate of Archaeological Service and the Institute of Archaeology of Tirana, the National Council of Material Cultural Heritage.
The painting of the “Lepenica Written Cave” is a rare evidence of prehistoric rock art, the only one identified so far in Southwestern Albania.
The proposal was made based on the work carried out by archaeologist Prof. Dr. Muzafer Korkuti, for the documentation and study of the painting in 1984, as well as on the basis of the work for its re-documentation, carried out by the Albanian-Spanish project “Lepenica” in collaboration with the Regional Directorate of Cultural Heritage Vlora, the Institute of Archaeology and the Escola Superior de Conservación e Restauración de BBCC de Galicia, Spain.
According to Academician Muzafer Korkuti, the rock painting of the Written Cave in Lepenica is an original work with its own conceptual basis and represents a certain stage of prehistoric art, where the abstract image of time is presented in a monumental way.
The painting is a rare creation of Neolithic art, which with its ideograms and with its own means and method, has conveyed a “message” of the inhabitants of the time. /p.s./
