As the OP hasn’t post the source nor has done a very good job parsing the machine translation content, here’s the source:
And a bit more info:
- The man is a local from the area. So no touron, just an asshole, specially because…
- He basically sprayed water to get better photos for his facebook feed. Police was able to track him thanks to that.
- The man is under investigation for crimes against the historical heritage (LO 10/1995 art 323): up to three years per crime, or equivalent fine up to two years.
- He’s unlikely to escape unscathed because there is a ton of self-evidence, and he was warned in the past. So even if the damage is superficial, he’s a reincident. He probably is not going to get off with a slap in the wrist.
The article continues explaining that the area around Jaen has been quite neglected for many years and there’s been quite a lot of vandalic acts. Most of the paintings are on shallow, easily accessible caves.
The worst one so far was a FRIGGIN IDGIT that spraypainted a mural called “the shamans” or “the priestesses” - it depicts two masked figures conducting what appears to be some kind of funerary rite.
Finally, the article explains why is bad that he sprayed water over the paintings. Humidity forms a salt cover on the paints, and this salt is partially from the rocks below and from the paints. Spraying water clears the salt, but draws more from the paint and rock, so it degrades faster.
It ends saying that the goverment of Andalusia (the southern state of spain where the paintings are) is responsible for maintaining them but they have not been providing enough resources.
