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Rock Paintings of the Sierra de San Francisco
Site number:
714
Type of site: Cultural
Date: c.100BC-1300AD
Date of Inscription: 1993
Location: North America, Mexico, State: Lower California Sud Municipality
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Six official UN languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish
Other languages: Japanese
Description: The Sierra de San Francisco, located in the El Vizcaino reserve, in Baja California, in the years between c. 100 B.C. to A.D. 1300 acted as home to a people who have now vanished but have left behind one of the most stupendous collections of rock paintings in the world. Owing to the dry climate and the inaccessibility of the site the paintings are astonishingly well-preserved. Illustrating human figures and numerous animal species as well as the relationship between humans and their environment, the paintings bring to light a highly advanced culture. Their composition and size of the paintings, as well as the accuracy of their outlines and the range of colours, but above all the number of sites, make this object a remarkable witness to a unique artistic tradition. --WHMNet paraphrase from the description at WHC Site, where additional information is available.
  The Rock Paintings of Sierra de San Francisco is the name of the prehistoric rock art found in the Sierra de San francisco region of Baja California, Mexico. They are representations of what was once the life of the Cochimi or Guachimis in the Baja California peninsula. Little is known about this group, apart from the fact that they came from further north. These paintings on the roofs of rock shelters and on the walls of Sierra de San Francisco were first discovered by the jesuit Francisco Javier in the eighteenth century. The property is made up by around 250 sites which are located in the municipality of Mulege within the El Vizcaino Biosphere Reserve in the state of Baja California Sur in Northern Mexico. Access to the paintings is difficult due to the isolation of the place which has prevented them from being victims of vandalism. --Wikipedia. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
Source: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/714
Reference: 1. UNESCO World Heritage Center, Site Page.
 
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