Côa Valley

CÔA VALLEY

To visit the Coa Valley is to travel in time, a trip that can carry us up to 25,000 years ago. It is a unique place in the world that presents us with what is one of the most outstanding examples of the first artistic creations of the human being, the most important group of outdoor Paleolithic figurations until now known. Millennium after millennium, shale rocks that dot a landscape of unique and chilling beauty have been becoming art panels, with thousands of engravings by the creative impulse legacy of our ancestors. There have been known over a thousand rocks with rock art in more than 70 different sites, with a predominance of Paleolithic engravings, followed by motifs of the Iron Age, historical period and recent prehistory, respectively. All this magnificent outdoor set breaks the old myth of rock art enclosed in caves. The Coa Valley boasts the privilege of bringing this art to the light of day and the present day. To prove the grandeur and importance of this legacy is its classification by UNESCO as WORLD HERITAGE. Time travel is one of the great dreams of man. The art of the Coa is a dream come true. The museum building is designed by the team of architects Pedro Tiago Pimentel and Camilo Rebelo, tender winners, released on International Architecture Year, to design and formulating of the project that was designated as “Art and Archaeology Museum of Coa Valley”.