digital photograph(colour)
- Museum number
- 2013,2034.17178
- Description
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Digital photograph (colour); view of painted rock art showing slender red figure facing forwards with oval shaped head infilled with closely aligned vertical lines; hands are raised in the air, and right side hand has decorated cord linked to red eland antelope below facing left. Top left: two red spirals bisected by vertical rod with flared head. Mrera, Tanzania
Scanned
- Production date
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September 1997 (original photograph)
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29 March 2006 (date digitized)
- Dimensions
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File size: 119 megabytes
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Resolution: 300 dots per inch
- Curator's comments
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See also 2013,2034.17174.
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Containing some of the densest concentrations of rock art in East Africa, Tanzania includes many different styles and periods of rock art, the earliest of which may date back more than 7,000 years. Consisting mainly of paintings, rock art is found predominantly in the Kondoa region and the adjoining Lake Eyasi basin; those at Kondoa were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2006.
The existence of painted rock art was first reported in 1908 by missionaries. However, the first systematic examinations date back to between the 1930ss to 1950s by the renowned paleoanthropologists Mary and Louis Leakey (having noted many sites in the 1920s), documenting over 1600 painted images at 186 sites north of Kondoa.
Scholars have classified the rock art in Tanzania into three main stylistic groups: Hunter-Gatherer, also known as Sandawe; Pastoral; and Late Whites. Hunter-Gatherer or Sandawe rock art is characterised by fine-line paintings of animals, human figures, handprints and circular designs. These are the earliest paintings, thought to date to possibly more than 7,000 years ago. Pastoral rock art, dating back up to 3,000 years ago, yields many fewer paintings and generally depicts cattle in profile, and sometimes sheep and/or goats, a few dogs and figures holding sticks and bows. Late White paintings are crude, finger painted geometric and animal images made by Bantu language, iron-working farmers who moved into the region in the last 300-500 years.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 2013
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- 2013,2034.17178
- Additional IDs
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Previous owner/ex-collection number: TANKON0170005 (TARA number)