Archaeologists and historians are lamenting the destruction of several 3,000-year-old rock carvings on the Pangaion Hills near Kavala in northern Greece and calling for measures to protect the remaining samples of this ancient art.
     Unknown vandals appear to have scraped several carvings depicting human figures, animals, plants and other scenes of day-to-day life off rocks in the area using a wire brush, even though the first reports did not specify how many were destroyed or how many remain.
     Theodoros Lymberakis, a local lawyer and historian, said that the rock carvings may have been destroyed by gold prospectors trying to scupper the competition who believe they were made by ancient settlers on the ore-rich hills to indicate the location of deposits.
     The carvings were discovered in 1966 by Aristotle University Professor Nikolaos Moutsopoulos but have not been listed for preservation and are, consequently, vulnerable to the elements and human activity.
     Even though they have not been systematically studied, archaeologists believe they date from the prehistoric era until the Middle Ages. They also believe the older ones were probably created by the Hedones, a Thracian tribe that lived in the region in ancient times. "These actions point to a lack of education, knowledge, and understanding of history," Lymberakis said, noting that similar rock carvings in Greece have only been found in some parts of Eastern Macedonia, as well as on the islands of Naxos and Crete.

Edited from Tornos News (10 January 2020)