The colossal Pedra Pintada, emblem of the ancient Amazonian civilization
During my recent trip to Roraima, I had the opportunity to explore and study the famous Pedra Pintada, an enormous rock that stands prominently in the savanna of Boa Vista.
It measures approximately 100 meters in length and 30 meters in both width and height. From a distance, it resembles a strange ellipsoid or an egg, almost like the primordial egg from which life on Earth originated.
The Pedra Pintada serves simultaneously as an ancient stone library, a mausoleum—since various skulls and other human remains were found there—and possibly a temple, a place of worship for ancient Amazonian inhabitants.
The main wall is adorned with numerous rock paintings. I immediately noticed two large double-headed serpents, drawn high up, about four meters above the ground. In many American cultures, the serpent symbolizes the underworld, and the double heads, in my interpretation, represent the eternal return or life after death.
It’s worth noting that the area surrounding Pedra Pintada was once at the center of the famous Lake Manoa, whose existence was confirmed by a scientific expedition led by Roland Stevenson and supported by geologists Federico Cruz, Salomão Cruz, and Gert Woeltye. According to Stevenson, the lake began drying up around 1300 CE. It’s likely that many of the pictograms were created using canoes.
Among the paintings are representations of an eight-rayed sun, as well as many parallel lines and dots that I believe represent numerical concepts. Upon closer examination of the main wall, peculiar drawings can be observed, which some researchers interpret as chariots drawn by horses. However, both chariots and horses (which went extinct in the Americas about 12,000 years ago) were absent in the recent pre-Columbian past (10,000 BCE–1492 CE).
This might suggest that the ancient artists who created these drawings were referencing myths that perhaps originated in other parts of the world.
Pedra Pintada, however, holds additional secrets.
To the left of the main wall is a rock featuring pictograms of serpents and aligned dots. Some researchers consider it a menhir—a large monolithic stone that may have been used for sun worship.
To the right of the main wall lies a cave and other cavities, interpreted by French Atlantologist Marcel Homet as funerary urns.
Professor Homet (1897–1991), who documented and studied Pedra Pintada around 1950, also discovered several skulls and human bones painted red. In his Atlantean-Celtic-Aryan perspective, the skulls belonged to the Atlanteans and exhibited clear Cro-Magnon features.
Some legends describe a large cavern beneath Pedra Pintada, connected to the outer cave by a narrow passage. It is believed that the ancient inhabitants of the area held secret esoteric ceremonies there to keep millennia-old traditions alive.
Indeed, by striking the ground forcefully with a heel, one hears a distinctive thud and echo, suggesting that the existence of the underground cavern may be true.
Equipped with a rope and lantern, I attempted to enter the cavern, but the passage is blocked, and clearing the stones and hardened mud that have accumulated over the years would require the work of many people.
Near Pedra Pintada, there are numerous other boulders, some of which bear pictograms that, in my opinion, are more recent than those of Pedra Pintada. One particularly interesting boulder captured my imagination. I believe it features representations of Incan quipus.
The Incas frequently traveled to the Roraima region along the great pre-Columbian trail known as Nhamini-wi, which stretches from Pasto to Roraima and was recently discovered and documented by Chilean researcher Roland Stevenson.
It is likely that the quipu intrigued the Amazonian peoples living near Pedra Pintada, who depicted it on the Pereira boulder alongside their totems, such as the serpent.
To this day, it cannot be stated with certainty whether Pedra Pintada was also a ceremonial center or place of worship. So far, no archaeological evidence has been found to support this hypothesis.
What is certain is that the location of the monolith is magical, exuding an atmosphere steeped in legends and fantastic theories. It is hoped that this remarkable lithic monument will be preserved in the future as evidence of ancient knowledge now lost.
YURI LEVERATTO
