The Rock Art at Pian Delle Greppe
Cemmo's Boulder n. 1
The boulder was known by the population as the 'Preda dei pitoti', 'pitoti' (roughly translatable as 'puppets') being the word used to define rock art in the local language. The main side, with the highest number of figures, looks east and it's 2,60 metres high, 3,10 metres wide at the base. The original surface has been badly damaged in the lower part, which has been buried for a very long time; missing parts at the top and on the right side caused the loss of several figures and gave the boulder, that originally had a triangular shape, an almost pentagonal outline.
To this moment 150 figures have been recognized, including animals, daggers, a ploughing scene (incomplete). Among the animals it is possible to identify deer's with big antlers, fawns, chamois's with small, hook-shaped antlers, ibexes with their antlers turned toward their back and swine's (pigs or wild boars).
The dogs, pictured with their tail low and in group, have been interpreted as wolves. The bovids without horns and tail but with a small hunch on their back might be young bovines pasturing or cows in a meadow.
Thanks to the study of the overlapping figures several engraving phases have been recognized, covering the whole III millennium B.C. (Copper Age).
Cemmo's Boulder n. 2
Located about 15m south of Cemmo 1, this boulder faces north and the decorated part is 2,50 m high and 2,60m wide at the base. Unlike Cemmo 1, the surface, most likely coming from the wall just behind, is quite rough. The profile is quite jagged for the erosion and, because of detachment from the surface, on the right side and in the central part, there was a loss of figures. Two triangular shaped holes, most likely the results of the fall from the wall, divide the surface in three different parts, each with different engravings.
There are animals (ibexes, fawns and canids where it is possible to recognize herd of wolves and a dog with its tail upward), weapons (an axe, an halberd and several daggers), human figures, a ploughing scene and a wagon.
On Cemmo 2 the figures do not overlap and the engravings, done with a regular and fine hammering technique, seem homogeneous.
The stele Cemmo 3 and Cemmo 4
The stele Cemmo 3 is made of a slab of stone artificially obtained from a block of Verrucano Lombardo, broken at the base and decorated on three sides. On the main face four different moments of engraving encompassing solar images, animals (dogs, deer's, swine's), weapons (halberd, daggers) and lines of human figures have been recognized. When it was found, Cemmo 3 was the first statue-stele coming from the Middle Valley after the findings on the Ossimo-Borno plateau and was the first monument to display the theme of human figures, that will be found more frequently with the increase of the findings all over the Valley.
The fragment of the stele Cemmo 4 is a slab of Verrucano Lombardo, missing part of the left side and of the base. On the main face, within an oval made of 32 cup-marks and three short vertical tracts at the top, there are two human figures with a triangular shaped body, arms and legs wide open. The taller of the two has a solar halo, the shortest one a cup-mark around the pubis area: these characteristic make them a couple. On the right side of the oval there is an axe and in the lower part of the stele there is a dagger. In a second moment a deer and six fawns were added, two of them overlapping the daggers.
The New Monuments From the 2000-2009 Excavations
Following the excavation a lot of new stelae and menhir have been found and in part published. Among them two stand out (Cemmo 6 and Cemmo 10) with peculiar figures engraved on them ('nose-brow' motif, concentric circles and 'collars' ) and a big stelae-pillar 2,70m high (Cemmo 9) decorated on several sides with a lot of ibexes with big curved antlers. Of big interest is also a small fragment of a bas-relief from the Roman Age (Cemmo 12) depicting a duel scene.