Twyfelfontein rock engravings, Namibia

 For a long time I have wanted to see the rock art in Namibia, and I finally got my chance when I went to Twyfelfontein.

It is a UNESCO World Heritage site - Twyfelfontein or /Ui-//aes . This UNESCO page says "Twyfelfontein or /Ui-//aes has one of the largest concentrations of petroglyphs, i.e. rock engravings in Africa. Most of these well-preserved engravings represent rhinoceros, but also includes six painted elephant, ostrich and giraffe, as well as drawings of human and animal footprints in rock shelters with motifs of human figures in red ochre. The objects excavated from two sections, date from the Late Stone Age. The site forms a coherent, extensive and high-quality record of ritual practices relating to hunter-gatherer communities in this part of southern Africa over at least 2,000 years, and eloquently illustrates the links between the ritual and economic practices of hunter-gatherers."

At 2000 years old, they are much younger than the rock art found in Sulawesi, Indonesia, where the paintings have recently been revised to over 50,000 years old. In Australia the rock art is of a similar age, 30,000-50,000 years old.

There is a small permanent spring in the area, and the surveyor who made a report mentioning the engravings in 1921 named the site as Uais - /Ui-//aes= place among rocks or jumping waterhole in Khoekhoegowab, the language of the local Damara people. Later, the land came into the use of farmer David Levin, whose concern over the survival of the spring led ultimately to its being referred to as Twyfelfontein -‘doubtful spring’ in Afrikaans.

I visited at the end of June, which is the dry season. The yellow grass contrasted well against the red sandstone rocks and the blue sky. 

There are over 2000 engravings, so we only saw a very small number. The first rock we came to, at first glance I thought this was part of the art, but it is actually just the weathered "skin" of the rock face -

Next to it is a very detailed collection of engravings. Each engraving has a meaning.

The giraffes were the easiest to spot. Apart from giraffes there are rhinoceroses, zebra, gemsbok antelope and ostriches.

Large human footprints can be seen on these rocks -

Giraffes are very common in Twyfelfontein rock art. They are generally shown without hooves, with legs tapering away into long thin lines. The represents the sensation of rising into the air, as the shaman would feel in a trance. If there are five protrusions on the head this shows the shaman has changed into a giraffe, as it represents the five toes.

There are also sea creatures such as this seal or sea lion. There are also penguins. This shows that the people used to go to the sea. This is also the case in Malaysia where the Gua Tambun rock art depicts what many people think is a dugong.

This panel shows the famous "Lion Man" -

The Lion Man engraving shows five toes on each paw. This deliberate combination of animal and human features shows that this is a shaman who has transformed into a lion. It has a long tail with a rectangular kink and a pugmark (animal footprint) at its tip. It also appears to be eating an antelope -

A close up with my camera shows more texture of the rock -

The white markings on the rock are caused by the rock dassie, or rock hyrax.

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See more on this British Museum page.  

Cueva Pintada, Painted Cave, Gran Canaria, Canary Islands

 After visiting the cave complex Cenobio de Valeron or the Valeron Granary on Gran Canaria, we then went on to Cueva Pintada, or Painted Cave. The Cueva Pintada Museum and Archaeological Park is located at Galdar on the island of Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands, Spain. Its function is for the preservation and research of one of the most unique deposits of Gran Canaria.

Cueva Pintada, after which the deposit is named, was discovered in the mid 19th century. It is part of a group of artificial caves dug in the volcanic rock sinters. The Painted Cave has a wall of geometric motifs and is an unique representation of the Pre-Hispanic mural paintings.

It seemed a bit strange walking through a busy town and then along the pedestrianised streets to get to the archaeological park. The blue plaque on the ground marks the pilgrim's way, The Camino de Santiago, which stretches along 66 km in Gran Canaria -

As you enter the ticket hall and souvenir shop there is no indication of how extensive the site is.

Firstly you go downstairs and watch a film on the history of the people. Then there is a rather small museum, showing some of the archaeological findings that came from the deposit. These include Pre-Hispanic items along with others from late Mediaeval that were imported to the island, mostly from the Iberian Peninsula. Some of the exhibits are permanent, others are on temporary display.

You then go into a small theatre to watch another film on the history of the cave paintings. At the end the screen suddenly rises and you are looking down onto the large expanse of the archaeological park. This was a real surprise. The park is enclosed in glass windows and curtains and immediately surrounding it are houses of the modern day town. I found this quite incongruous.

A walkway goes down and around the hamlet of Cueva Pintada and you can get a closer look at the houses. Many houses have been excavated, as well as storage areas. The houses are in the shape of a cross whereas the stores are just simple rooms. Excavations in the volcanic rock sinters from 1987 to the present day have confirmed that Cueva Pintada used to be part of a village with over 50 houses and artificial caves dating back from the 6th to 16th centuries.  

The last surprise is the Painted Cave. We walked down to the platform seen in the above photo and the guide lets you in a locked door. Inside are a few steps down, enclosed by glass windows. Suddenly the lights go on in the painted cave and straight ahead are the paintings. As mentioned before, they are just geometric shapes. Unfortunately when they were first discovered, nothing was done to preserve them, so they are now quite faded. But now the conditions such as temperature and humidity etc, are strictly controlled. No photos are allowed of the paintings.

Again I found it quite surreal that this ancient site is in the middle of a modern town. 

The last part of the walkway takes you to some reconstructed houses -

Photo of the paintings as shown on the pamphlet -

See more on the Gran Canaria tourism website . This has more information and photos of the paintings.

Exeter - Hollow Earth: Art, Caves and the Subterranean Imaginary

 An exhibition at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter in Devon, entitled "Hollow Earth: Art, Caves and the Subterranean Imaginary" is on until Jan 2024.

It shows how artists have portrayed caves over the years, so is not really an exhibition on caves, but different art forms. However there are some displays of animal bones found in caves, as Devon was one of the areas of early cave studies and contains important prehistoric cave deposits. William Pengelly was one of the pioneer researchers.

The exhibition is divided into five sections in two rooms and has works by more than 30 artists. I am not an artistic or creative person, so many of the exhibits were rather meaningless to me. I did like the old photos of researchers at various rock art.

There was a short contemporary film set in and around Thor's Cave in the Peak District, Derbyshire.  The film, "Echoes from the Void", by Michael Ho considers the cave as a kind of echo chamber and draws on imagery borrowed from Chinese myth and folklore. "Ho explains that the film, ‘re-examines the children’s game of ‘Chinese whispers’ within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the age of digital media. It seeks to discuss the East Asian diaspora as well as notions of cultural mismatch through the exposure of the mechanisms in which mis- and disinformation are produced, disseminated and consumed" - from Exeter Chamber.

There is a much longer, 46 minute, film in the other room, by Lydia Ourahmane. Made in 2022 at UNESCO World Heritage Site of Tassili n’Ajjer in the Sahara Desert, which is home to one of the most important groups of prehistoric rock art in the world, dating back to 12,000 BCE. The real scenery is stunning but I couldn't appreciate how it was filmed using low light levels and jerky out of focus shots, with many minutes of the camera "flying" just above ground level which could make some people feel "seasick". From Exeter Chamber "Describing the transformation of life in the region over thousands of years, Ourahmane’s commissioned film installation depicts otherworldly images of demons, extra- terrestrials and lost rivers. The first time Ourahmane visited, there were three water sources; now there is only one. Soon there may be none, and it will be almost impossible to travel there. Ourahmane described this ambitious journey as ‘an act of translation, an experiment of what we might unearth together’. The wordless film features an ‘exquisite corpse’-style soundtrack, composed by four musicians.

The wall mounted screen seen in the photo above was showing a film on the seed vault in Svalbard in Arctic Norway. This was of interest to me as I saw the outside of the seed bank less than 5 months ago in June 2023 -

The exhibition is free to visit. You can read a lot more detail about the art on the RAMM page and also Exeter Chamber. 

Narvik rock carving, Norway

The moose at Brennholtet. 

A single carving of a moose. On a boulder in a small wooded hill on the edge of Narvik town. The site is called Brennholtet.

Narvik is a town in the municipality of the same name, in Nordland county. Narvik is located on the shores of the Ofotfjorden and is inside the Arctic Circle. Narvik municipality is shown in red -

It was discovered in 1958. The age of the carving seems to be around 4000-3000 BC. A conservator from Tromso Museum visited a month after discovery and painted the figure in red.

The rock is slanted and glacially smoothed. The animal is portrayed in its natural size, about 2 m long and carved with a naturalistic outline. 

It belongs to the hunter-gatherer type of rock art. This usually depicts wild animals, such as deer, as well as humans and boats. 

It is quite hard to make out the carving now as most of the red paint has gone, although it is still visible on the hind leg -

The route from town is signposted, helleristning means rock carving - 

This photo by JZ from Wikimedia Commons shows the outline more clearly - 

Colombian rock art

 At the end of November 2020 the international media was full of stories of some amazing rock art found in Colombia. The art had actually been found in 2019 but had been kept a secret until the release of UK's Channel 4 documentary, "Lost Kingdoms of the Amazon". It's a 3 part documentary presented by Ella Al-Shamahi and first shown on English TV on 5 December 2020. 

The second episode on 12 December features the rock art. Ella goes to Colombia and her local guide got permission from the Farc (a guerrilla movement) for her to enter the area.  She is shown the rock art by British archaeologist Mark Robinson. He spent 2 seasons working there 

The art is on walls of stunning cliffs that rise above the plains. The area has been off limits for decades due to the war between the Farc and the government.  Following the peace treaty Mark was one of the first archaeologists allowed back in to explore it. He and his team discovered 17 walls of ancient drawings, all completely unknown to science.

The first cliff wall shown is absolutely covered in red ochre drawings that are still amazingly bright.  There is a mix of geometfic patterns drawn interspersed with animals and even humans.  There are also handprints. 

The first people are thought to have reached the Americas 15,000 - 25,000 years ago, passing a land bridge that then joined Siberia to Alaska,  then over thousands of years travelled down the the narrow gap of Central America and into the Amazon. 

The paintings can't be carbon dated as there is no carbon in the ochre. Photo from the Guardian :

We are shown another wall. The walls are being 3d scanned so archaeologists can examine the art without having to go there. Mark estimates there could be more than 100,000 paintings on the rocks. Probably the greatest cache of ancient rock art in the Americas and it is undescribed to science.  This second wall the designs look simplier and possibly older. One animal drawn is a mastodon, a prehistoric relative of today's elephants.  Mastodons haven't been around for 12,000 years but the artists must have lived alongside them. Other extinct species show a giant sloth and an early horse that went extinct in the Americas around 13,000 years ago.  So the people lived in a mix of forest and open Savannah.

The rock art is located at Serranía de la Lindosa which is in central Colombia

See more in The Guardian 'Sistine Chapel of the ancients' rock art discovered in remote Amazon forest.

And SD Celar British Museum has a good article and photos on the rock art and colonisation and settlements of the Colombian Amazon.

Rock art found in Cuba 2020

In 2017 I wrote about Rock art in Cuba. In 2020 it was announced that some new rock art had been found in Cuba. This is in the Sierra del Infierno in the province of Pinar del Río.

The Sierra del Infierno, (red arrow) is fairly close to Vinales where I went in 2015.

Fourteen groups of paintings have been found, they are black geometric drawings.

See more on oncubanews, Mar 2nd 2020.