Arequipa cave paintings can be found in 2 places: Toro Muerto and Sumbay.
Toro Muerto
It is the most important set of petroglyphs, present in the Majes valley that is nourished by the waters of the Colca river, and is located on the outskirts of the district of Uraca, province of Castilla.
Eloy Linares Málaga was the archaeologist who discovered the site of Toro Muerto, in 1951, and the person who spread its existence from 1960; also the geo glyphs present in the pampas de Siguas are known thanks to Linares Málaga, but these marks on the surface of the earth, like the famous ones of Nazca, do not constitute rock material.
The Toro Muerto boulders fell from rocky crests, in geological ages. They were rolling until they were trapped when they touched gently sloping terrain, located at altitudes ranging between 400 and 800 meters above sea level. They appear scattered over an area of more than 3 km2. The rocks are made of volcanic tuff, with a dark patina due to the fact that their original whiteness was affected by weathering.
From the conglomerate of rocks that make up Toro Muerto, several hundred boulders appear engraved. Linares Málaga estimates that there are more than 600 drawings represented. These portray human beings, animals and plants; Various geometric designs of symbolic value are added to these themes. It should be noted that anthropomorphic figures of masked people are frequently represented, apparently performing ritual dances.
To make the figures present in the rocks of Toro Muerto, several techniques were used, typical of rock art of the petroglyph type.
Basically the hammering of the surface, with which it was possible to design the bulk of the figure that was desired to be executed. They were also engraved with lines, using sharp stone instruments. Linares Málaga refers to having observed in the group of petroglyphs known as “the musicians” traces of red paint (hemetite) in some of the gutters resulting from the incising technique; this could indicate that, if not the total, part of the figures originally stood out in red.
The antiquity of the figures of Toro Muerto has not been established more than approximately; probably correspond to various stages. Judging by the theme and the layout of the figures, which is certainly evolved, Toro Muerto does not date back to pre-agricultural ages. These circumstances seem to indicate that it is a great magic-religious center of times in which the Andean was already traveling along the paths of civilization, intensively cultivating the land; the petroglyphs could date from the year one thousand of the Christian era.
Sumbay Cave Painting or Q’ollpa
More than 500 cave paintings preserve the rock shelters that are located at 4,127 meters above sea level, on the right bank of the Sumbay River, 1.5 km from the railway station of the same name.
Sumbay belongs to the district of Yanahuara, province of Arequipa. Eloy Linares Málaga specifies that the caves are located on a small tributary of the Sumbay, known by the name of Q’ollpa, for which he has proposed replacing it with “Q’ollpaSumbay” or simply Q’ollpa, the name spread by Máximo Neira Avendaño , the scholar who dedicated a first, detailed analysis to the archaeological testimonies of the site that concerns us and which was published in 1968. The analysis in reference is specific to one of the Sumbay caves classified by Neira as SU3.
The most common motifs represented in Sumbay are related to specimens of wildlife: camelids, rheas, felines and human figures that in some cases appear chasing their prey, equipped with hunting instruments or in an attitude of hunting.
The figures are painted “basically in white, although there are others in yellow, ocher and red.”
Unlike the petroglyphs of Toro Muerto, the Sumbay cave painting corresponds, due to its theme, without a doubt, to pre-agricultural societies that lived in Arequipa 5, 7, 10 thousand years ago or more.
The, scrapers, punches, muciform preforms, bifaces and projectile points among which basalt predominates, as well as a marked majority of bifaces. These lithic samples, associated with Sino Solitario 2, support the dating calculated by Chávez for this hunting station.
In 1984 he identified a rock shelter located on the left bank of the Yura, decorated with cave paintings exposed in red and framed in white lines; he approximately places these ancestral artistic expressions in the fourth or fifth millennia before our era. Other Arequipa rock shelters with cave painting expressions are found in Arcata, Cayarani district of the Condesuyos province, as well as in Huacarama, Charcana district (La Unión), etc.
Regarding rock art expressed in petroglyphs, in addition to Toro Muerto, which is undoubtedly the most important conglomerate of petroglyphs in Peru, many other samples cited by Núñez Jiménez (1986), Linares Málaga (1973) and Ravines (1988) should be mentioned.