Logbook · 51 places

Monte Arabí

Yecla, Altiplano, Murcia

1 Villages · 22 Monuments · 4 Nature · 6 Activities · 8 Curiosities · 6 Historical milestones · 4 Food and drink

Spain › Region of Murcia › Altiplano › Yecla › Monte Arabí

Monte Arabí

Nature · Yecla, Altiplano, Murcia

Monte Arabí, at 1,068 metres above sea level, is a hill in Yecla declared a Monumento Natural (Spain's protection status for natural areas of outstanding value) in 2016 for its archaeological, biological and geological richness. On its slopes there are remains from the 2nd millennium BC through to Romanisation: on the neighbouring Arabilejo, the ruins of a walled Bronze Age settlement, and at its foot more than fifty groups of petroglyphs. Its most valuable treasure is the paintings in the Cantos de la Visera and Mediodía rock shelters, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1998: naturalistic Levantine art, with horses, bovids, goats and deer in red, and later schematic art with serpent-like figures and eyed idols. Two kilometres away, in Montealegre del Castillo, lies the Iberian site of the cerro de los Santos, where the Gran Dama Oferente was found.

Photo: Arturo Martínez Rubio (CC BY-SA 3.0)

What to see and do in Yecla