Eloy Linares Málaga

 

The situation regarding the late rock art researcher Eloy Linares Málaga is rather complex and demands a detailed explanation. I have to start with an allegation by Gori Tumi Echevarría López. He notably emailed to me in 2011 referring to the ‘Saltur Issue’: algún tiempo atrás Ud. me envió una conversación privada en la cual se denostaba del Dr. Eloy Linares Málaga, cuya memoria yo guardo en altísima consideración, pero eso a Ud. le debe importar poco. I have no idea what he means. Unfortunately he did not explain this allegation in his email (or any other earlier email). Therefore I answered him: You also do not seem to be able to separate the “man or woman” from his or her “work”. For instance, I respect the person of Dr. Linares Malaga, but I do not like his work. Please read my work “Petroglyphs of Peru. Following the footsteps of Antonio Núñez Jiménez”, to see my point of view (I will explain this statement further below). But in the subsequent email that I received from him there was not an explanation either; not a single reaction to this specific issue. Moreover, in general, I cannot remember having written anything insulting about the person of Eloy Linares Málaga (also not after re-reading the emails that I still have). A bad example of someone posthumously insulting the person of Eloy Linares Málaga is found in an email that I received from Álvarez (use this link to see what I mean). I therefore find the allegation by Gori Tumi Echevarría López insulting to my person and I asked for his apologies. In vain.

 

I have had a short-lived, personal email communication with Eloy Linares Málaga in 2004 and 2005, but this concerned a very amicable communication in which I am sure I have not written anything to disturb him. In fact, in 2005 Eloy Linares Málaga was so kind to send me a copy (numbered 361) of his latest (2004) publication in which he wrote a personal message to me (copy available to anyone interested): Para el Sr. Dr. Don Maarten van Hoek, Investigador de Arte Rupestre en especial del Reposito más grande del mundo con Arte Rupestre: Toro Muerto o Hatunquilcapampa, declarado así en el Primer Symposio Mundial de Arte Rupestre en Cuba, La Havana 1986. Atención del Autor. Signed: E. Linares Málaga. Arequipa; Perú; 17-1-2005. In 2011 I also sent a photocopy of this hand-written message to Gori Tumi Echevarría López, but he never reacted to this email. I am honoured that Eloy Linares Málaga respected me as a rock art investigator.

 

As I said before, a true scientist must be unbiased and, moreover, I still hold that when you publish anything, it can be commented on. But I never commented on the person of Dr. Eloy Linares Málaga and I never will. Actually, I have never met him in person; I only had a personal email communication with him as explained above. However, I have (serious) reservations about the publications by the late Eloy Linares Málaga. Yet, the following observations about his work are in no way meant to criticise the person of Eloy Linares Málaga.

 

Please, do not make the same mistake as Robert Bednarik made when he emailed me in 2009 that I was attacking the person of Antonio Núñez Jiménez by trying to have my comments on the work of Núñez Jiménez published in Rock Art Research. Bednarik wrote (my emphases): If this paper is purely about attacking one dead author our referees will reject it. It is then a posthumous personal attack, not a learning exercise for the reader. In the context of the whole situation I found these remarks highly insulting as I - in earlier emails - very clearly explained to Bednarik what my intention was regarding my projected publication about Núñez Jiménez.

 

However, I want to avoid such awkward situations to be repeated regarding the person of Eloy Linares Málaga. Therefore, I apologise to the late Eloy Linares Málaga and to anyone involved in his personal situation for any inconvenience that my observations will cause; observations that only concern his work. In general, it should always be possible to comment on published work, and then it should not matter whether an author has deceased or not.

 
Living in Holland, it is often extremely difficult to get information about Andean rock art. Therefore I was glad to see a book by Eloy Linares Málaga in a bookshop in Arequipa in 2002. The contents of the book (1999) clearly demonstrated the tremendous work that this eminent rock art researcher has done for almost 50 years. Eloy Linares Málaga truly has been a very industrious rock art researcher and moreover he surely was deeply committed to the recording and safeguarding of the rock art of the Andes and especially of the rock art of the Department of Arequipa. And yet I was disappointed about several aspects of the book, also after, much later, receiving from him the personal copy of his 2004 publication, and especially after buying his last book, his memorias (2011).

 

My disappointments concern my expectations regarding scientific publications. To start with, I find the graphical presentation of much of his work rather dishevelled (I find it difficult to find the best suitable word for it as I do not wish to be demeaning in any respect). This does not mean that Eloy Linares Málaga did not care to produce a neat work. It simply is the way how he wanted to present his findings. This does not mean that Eloy Linares Málaga is responsible for all the flaws. For instance the lowermost photo on the back cover of his 1999 publication should have been rotated 180 degrees. This may well be a printer’s error.

 

Finally, be assured that I would not have written my comments on the work by Eloy Linares Málaga if it only concerned one book. There are several publications that I have reservations about (please keep in mind that I have not read all his publications), and, most importantly, I feel that I have to explain here my remark in my email to Gori Tumi Echevarría López.

 

The 1999 Publication

Regarding the texts I can be short. My knowledge of the Spanish language is not sufficient to understand everything he wrote. But I was disappointed to read so many things that are - in my opinion - irrelevant to the issue of rock art. To me it looks more like a comprehensive essay about who has written what; visited which conference; proposed what kind of classification and so on. Relevant textual information about rock art sites, like the important site of Toro Muerto, was hard to find and moreover scattered over many pages. Besides that, I noticed that much of his information was being repeated in other publications. And I prefer to read new information in new publications.

 

The graphical part is another matter. I did not see the reason to use two different words for the B&W drawings in his 1999 publication: Lámina and Esquema, which moreover each have their own (confusing) numbering. Some drawings have been repeated unnecessarily, like Esquema 28 and 29, while Lámina No. 2 offers the same information twice. It is moreover very hard (often impossible) to find the text parts that are relevant to the graphical information.

 

In general I insist that correct information is shown in published illustrations and/or their captions. The following observations and comments only concern issues that I could check myself (there may be more flaws). Several of the sites in Mapa No. 7 (1999: 26) are incorrectly marked. Mapas 26 to 28 (1999) are only seemingly missing, but they are found scattered throughout the book in a random order. For instance, Mapa No. 30 is on page 80 (between Mapa No. 15 on page 74 and No. 11 on page 81) but, what is worse, its legend is illegible, while the names of a number of sites are missing on that map. These flaws make this map less helpful (this has been corrected in his 2004 book - on page 141). Mapa No. 19 (1999: 110) and its legend contain a number of errors and uncertainties that all have been explained in my recent publication (2012: 26 - 28). The map of Huancor, Esquema No. 36 (1999: 109), is incomprehensible to me. Just possibly the name of Huaca de la Roca (?) indicates the site of Huancor. The accompanying drawings are only very rough sketches.

 

In fact, several of his B&W drawings are very, very sketchy and often dishevelled (I am not going to discuss the several questionable interpretations of rock art images by Eloy Linares Málaga). Several of his illustrations do not offer the source. Does that mean that all those drawings have been made by Eloy Linares Málaga? This does not seem to be the case in all instances. For instance the captions of the Esquemas 59 to 62 (1999: 164 and 166) do not mention any authorship, but they prove to have been made by Percy Murillo Garaycochea in 1953 (Linares Málaga 2011: 234). Esquema No. 31 offers a drawing of ‘Petroglifos de “Alto Chicama” (E. Linares Málaga - 1965)’, but the rendering is completely illegible and cannot scientifically be used (for a better drawing of this petroglyph from Cerro Negro, Chicama [which is also incomplete], see Castillo Benites 2006: Fig. 110). I have noticed the same sketchy nature in several other drawings in his 1999 publication. Another problem is that several drawings of rock art have an incorrect caption. The uppermost petroglyph in Esquema No. 47 is not found at Toro Muerto, but at the Pitis Section of Alto de Pitis (and moreover, it is not a ‘figura abstracta’, but a representation of a Toro Muerto Style ‘dancer’). The same error is repeated in Esquema No. 56 (1999: 159). The ‘Hombre Tortuga’ is not found at Toro Muerto, but at the Sarcas Section of Alto de Pitis.

 

Another problem is that the factual lay-out of several petroglyphs is not correct. In this respect I have a problem. Several of his drawings are exactly the same as those published in the book by Núñez Jiménez (1986). The most illustrative example is the following. If the frequency with which the drawing of a particular petroglyph appears in publication is a measure for its importance, then the ‘copulation’ scene at Toro Muerto (Linares Málaga 1999: 159 - Esq. N0. 55: cérvidos - acto sexual) surely must be regarded as very significant. Surprisingly, in the publications (by various authors) that I have available offering illustrations about Toro Muerto, it appears no less than six times. Núñez Jiménez is the only researcher who included a drawing of all petroglyphs on the panel (1986: Fig. 2641) while he added an enlarged detail of the mating scene (1986 Fig. 2642). However, his detail-drawing is exactly the same as the one published by Linares Málaga (1990: 439; 1999: 159; 2004: 42; 2011: 150 [slightly different]) and also in the 1990 publication by Linares Málaga (1990: 439) in which the date of 1987 has been added to the drawing. Therefore, I am still not sure who made the original drawing, Linares Málaga or Núñez Jiménez, as no-one refers to the other. Moreover and to my surprise, the published drawing differs so much regarding significant details from the actual petroglyph that I consider the drawing to be unscientific (Van Hoek 2011b: 133).

 

The 2004 Publication

Actually, it is mainly the repetition of material once published in earlier publications that I did not like. In this way also errors have been repeated, but also new errors appear. For instance, the petroglyphs on page 32 and page 35 are not found at Sarcas, but at Pitis. Page 42 repeats the same drawings and thus the same error as in his 1999 book. Page 43, 47 and 49 are also repeated and still not indicating authorship. The illustrations on page 23 (Fig. 2) and 119 should be rotated.

 

Only at first sight a useful list of all known petroglyph sites in the Department of Arequipa appears in one of his last publications (2004: 30, 33, 39 and 50), while similar lists are given for rock painting sites (2004: 22 and 26), Votive Stones (2004:54 and 55) and geoglyphs (2004: 73). Unfortunately there are several problems with those lists. First of all, the location is only given by mentioning one name and not by stating specific co-ordinates or other information about the location. Secondly, it seems that several double-entries occur in those lists. For instance, his number 63 is Pampa Desamparados (in Vitór), while his number 15 is Desamparados (also in Vitór). These may be different sites, but that is not clear to an outsider. As local names are often differently spelled (like Watiapa and Huatiapa) or have completely different alternative names (like La Caldera or Quishuarani) it is very hard to sort out which site is referred to.

 

The 2005 Leaflet

One day, when I was in Arequipa, I picked up a well presented leaflet about Toro Muerto. It contained photos by Dr. Eloy Linares Málaga and from the archives of PromPerú. I found it very annoying to see that two photos in the leaflet actually depict petroglyphs from Miculla, a rock art site hundreds of kilometres further SE of Toro Muerto. On the leaflet is an email address of PromPerú. As this error most likely has been the responsibility of PromPerú, I wrote them to tell them about these errors. I never got any answer. It seems that with several people any kind of correction is not appreciated. Instead of learning and advancing, too many people prefer to ignore errors.

 

The 2011 Publication

Exactly six years after he signed my personal copy of his 2004 publication Eloy Linares Málaga deceased on 17 January 2011, when he was occupied writing his memoirs, to be published in four Volumes (according to APAR). In this section I only deal with one Volume (dealing with Castilla and Camaná) which was published in 2011. Fortunately this last publication by Eloy Linares Málaga offers new information. And yet I am not impressed with what the book offers. I am not certain if indeed Eloy Linares Málaga is completely responsible for this work since it was published after his unfortunate death, but there are several flaws and inaccuracies in this work. But my most significant frustration is that the book has been filled with too much duplication (again).

 

I already discussed the continuous repetition of the ‘copulation’ scene (2011: 150), while many other drawings also appeared in his previous publications. Several drawings are most confusing as the elements (individual petroglyphs) have been drawn at much different scales (2011: 148 [top]; 151 [bottom]; 153 [top]), but it seems that scale is not important as they are lacking in many instances. If one does not know these panels from field work they definitely give an incorrect impression making them unscientific to use. Other drawings are distorted, like the ‘mask’ or ‘head’ petroglyph (2011: 125) that probably has been drawn from an obliquely taken photograph. Moreover, the drawing is incorrect, incomplete and includes natural features that have been presented as part of the petroglyph. Some of the drawings that have been copied from the book by Núñez Jiménez (1986) are incorrect (2011: 227 [top] or incomplete. It is moreover uncertain (and thus confusing) which illustration is from Núñez Jiménez and which from Eloy Linares Málaga as the author hardly ever is mentioned in all illustrations (for instance on pages 222 to 233). For instance, on page 221 (bottom) a photo appears stating (Foto del autor), but is the author Eloy Linares Málaga or Núñez Jiménez?

 

Then there are several instances where incorrect captions appear next to an illustration (2011: 156 [bottom]; 173 [top-left]; 181). In other instances captions are incomplete suggesting a Toro Muerto location (2011: 169 - not mentioning Sarcas location), or offer an incorrect interpretation, like the ‘Ave pico ariba’, which actually is a simple ‘dancer’ petroglyph (2011: 169 - right).  And - in my opinion - the ‘Figura abstracta’ (2011: 147) is better interpreted as an anthropomorph. This again seems to have been an uncritical duplication.

 

In my opinion the book offers an unfortunate overrepresentation of illustrations of the Toro Muerto petroglyphs (there are many more interesting rock art sites in Castillo that Linares Málaga has discovered/visited that are not illustrated). Moreover, too many times photographs and (incomplete) drawings of the same panel appear twice (or even trice) and in many cases it concerns exactly the same photo. I have visited Toro Muerto many times and I have photos of at least 1500 different panels. So I wonder why so much pointless repetition is involved in this book.

 

Examples that I could trace are: 76 and 157 (top-left); 84 and 132 and 163 (top); 135 and 190 (bottom); 156 (bottom) and 162 (top); 179 (top) and 184 (bottom);  60 and 189 (bottom); 176 (middle) and 191 (bottom); 197 (bottom) and 198 (bottom); 198 (top) and 202 (top); 42 and 139 (top) and 153 (top); 81 and 153 (middle) and 155 (bottom) and 217 (top); 65 and 157 (bottom); 175 (2x top); 202 (bottom) and 203; 40 and 137 (top) and 227 (bottom); 109 and 137 (bottom)”; 188 (left) and 197 (top). Moreover, several illustrations have been printed in a rotated position, like 168 (bottom); 182 (bottom); 185; 186 (not mentioning the Sarcas location); 194 (top).

 

I repeat: Please, do not make the same mistake as Robert Bednarik (see above). I also repeat: I respect the person of Dr. Linares Malaga, but I do not like his work.

 

 

 

Linares Málaga, E. 1999. Arte Rupestre en Sudamerica Prehistoria. Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos. Lima, Perú.

 

Linares Málaga, E. 2004. Arte rupestre en Arequipa y el sur del Perú. Editorial Nuevo Milenio, Arequipa.

 

Linares Málaga, E. 2011. Memorias del Arqueólogo Eloy Linares Málaga. 80 Años de Edad y 60 de investigador. Castilla - Camaná. Universidad Alas Peruanas. Lima.

 

Van Hoek, M. 2012. Cerro Mulato: The Rock Art of the Reque-Chancay Drainage, Peru. Privately published. Oisterwijk, The Netherlands.