Os mitos e as ciências das Itaquatiaras do Ingá

Abstract

The rock art site of Itaquatiaras do Rio Ingá, brings together representations in low relief in the composition of large rock art panels associated with the Itaquatiaras tradition that dominated a natural environment formed by rocks and water, transforming it for social, sacred, cultural purposes and artistic with a particular aesthetic standard in expression technique and symbolic concepts. The beauty and complexity of the Itaquatiaras do Ingá seem to demand answers from the archaeologist that he could hardly give. Therefore, many hypotheses were raised by scholars, pseudoscientists and scholars from all over the world, extending the fame of Pedra do Ingá for the mystic and creating many relationships between the Itaquatiaras and the communities of the region. The research aimed to analyze the different conceptions about the ornamentation of the Itaquatiaras do Ingá, discussing the mystical, sacred and scientific aspects involved in these assumptions, establishing relationships between the signs of Pedra do Ingá and other inscriptions of rock art known in the Northeast of Brazil. The methodology consisted of a bibliographic survey, in the reading, analysis of texts, writing and elaboration of a textual production that, made possible the discussion of the findings and the elaboration of a conclusion that, without neglecting the scientific character of this outcome, sought not to deny the value imagination in the elucidation of Northeastern and Brazilian prehistory.