The written stone of Serrazes is a granite monolith with about 2.5 meters high and 2 meters wide, and was classified as MIP Monument of Public Interest in 1946. This monument was sectioned vertically with the flat side facing spring being almost entirely filled with engravings except for two granitic surface areas which disintegrated and would probably also have engravings. The rock carvings on the written stone, similarly to those found elsewhere in this territory, correspond to the period between the Chalcolithic and the Bronze Age, between the 4th and the 1st millennium B.C., with abstract and geometric figures. The recorded petroglyphs are of three kinds: simple and concentric circles, quadrangular signs (in chess) and dimples (fossetes), which fall in the tradition of the Atlantic art.
Located on a small hill between the river Varoso and the Vouga river, the woods here developed are thermophilic, so you can easily find strawberry tree and laurestine. Around granite outcrops, some daffodils as angel’s tears and hoop petticoat beautify the hard stone. In the sky, patrolling at all times, the common buzzard, one often hears its characteristic squeal. Amongst oaks we can find species as diverse as the stag beetle that needs mature forests and the great spotted woodpecker, a bird with the same ecological choices because its needs of old trees. Instead the fire salamander hides in the foliage searching for invertebrates on which it feeds.
The Atlantic art is an Atlantic coastal artistic manifestation characteristic of the peninsular north west, between Galicia and the basin of the Vouga river, and has affinities with other parts of Europe, such as Ireland, northern England and Scotland. In our territory, several different examples, highlighting: the Outeiro dos Riscos and the Prints of Trebilhadouro (Vale de Cambra), Moors Furnace (Sever do Vouga), the Stone of Souto (Oliveira de Frades), Eirinhas and Cárcoda (São Pedro do Sul), the Stone of Lufinha (Viseu) and the Stone of Dishes (Castro Daire). The circle image seems to have become the ideal representation of space on the Atlantic Europe from the Neolithic. There are several theories that attempt to explain the meaning: the outcrops where we find this rock art would be integrating holy places in the surrounding landscape; geometric inscriptions could be representations of local geography or even defining landmarks of the territory; maybe it was some kind of calendar, with geometric shapes relating to the heavenly bodies.
