Hiking loop from Sant Iscle de Vallalta

03:10

10.8km

300m

Hiking

Moderate hike. Good fitness required. Easily-accessible paths. Suitable for all skill levels. The starting point of the route is right next to a parking lot.

Last updated: August 13, 2026

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Your route passes through a protected area

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Parc del Montnegre i el Corredor

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Parking

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6.38 km

Pedra de les Olles (Cup-Marked Rock)

Highlight • Historical Site

Prehistoric site consisting of a large rock with insculptures in the form of small bowls, which is part of a granitic outcrop formed by three large stones naturally aligned in a N-S direction, and other secondary stones located on the downward slope. This type of rocky outcrops are a characteristic geomorphological phenomenon of the Coastal Range called "ball chaos".
The rock with sculptures has an oval plan, with a base of 1.8m and a height of up to 2.30m. The name Pedra de les Olles is given to it by the up to 25 cavities (or pots), some exempt and others connected to each other by means of reguerons, which have been artificially excavated. The casseroles have different morphologies and dimensions: 19 are circular, 5 are elliptical (all of them are between 8 and 20cm in diameter and between 3-4cm deep), one is cylindrical (with a diameter of 40cm and a depth of 6cm), and one takes the form of an outward drainage channel. The incisions were made by percussion with other stone materials, which gives them the typical U-shaped section, unlike those of the Iberian, Roman or medieval times in which the use of metal tools gives as resulting in deeper and V-shaped sections. This feature, together with the fact that the bowl-shaped sculptures are related to the megalithic phenomenon, allow the site to be dated between the middle/late Neolithic and the Chalcolithic. Despite the prospecting carried out in 2008 on the occasion of the review of the Maresme Archaeological Map, in which the stone was documented and located, no other nearby archaeological sites are known that could provide more data in relation to the chronology .
There is no consensus on the interpretation of this type of monument. Some interpretations maintain that the inscultures would be markers or territorial landmarks that would indicate meeting points of a human group or boundaries or places of passage. Others, on the other hand, attribute cult functions to the gods or the deceased. In this case, it is believed that the cassolates and reguerons would have served to pour the liquids of libations and ritual offerings.
Jean Abelanet (1986) hypothesized that this type of structure would be a kind of altar dedicated to the worship of a prehistoric goddess of agriculture, fertility and the afterlife. The arrangement of the cavities of the Stone Pots would recall the ancient Greek kernoi: a system consisting of a central vessel and a series of small vessels called kotiliskoi around it. For Pascual Guasch, who identified and studied the element in 1988, both the dating and the interpretation of its purpose would be "uncertain". The author does not rule out some kind of relationship with death and "with some liquid element" such as water for its "purifying role", without rejecting, however, that it is "a simple manifestation of litholatry" linked to "the veneration of certain stones located at the crossroads"

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