Nautical Graffiti of the Chapel of the Casa da Torre, Bahia, Brazil

Summary

This is a poster submission presented at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The aim of this poster is to discuss about the graffiti of boats and ships engraved and drawn in the chapel of the Castle of Garcia D'Ávila, in Praia do Forte, State of Bahia, Brazil.

The Casa da Torre (Tower House), as it is also called the Castle, was built in the XVIth century and served as headquarters for one of the most powerful families in colonial Bahia.

It is believed that the graffiti on the walls of the chapel are either an attempt to watch the nautical traffic or some kind manifestation of religious nature (e.g. ex-voto).

In relation to the techniques of elaboration and thematic of the graffiti, there are two types: the graffiti that represent more robust and older vessels were elaborated by incision (engraved). The possibly most recent graffiti, on the other hand, were drawn with charcoal and correspond to smaller boats and whale hunting scenes.

Cite this Record

Nautical Graffiti of the Chapel of the Casa da Torre, Bahia, Brazil. Paulo F. Bava-de-Camargo, Beatriz B. Bandeira. 2020 ( tDAR id: 457445)

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

Keywords

General
Graffiti Maritime Archaeology Ships

Geographic Keywords
Brazil

Temporal Keywords
XVII - XX centuries

Spatial Coverage

min long: -74.005; min lat: -33.741 ; max long: -34.793; max lat: 5.246 ;

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 942