digital photograph(colour)
- Museum number
- 2013,2034.18511
- Description
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Digital photograph (colour); view of painted rock art on the wall of a rock shelter with the landscape visible at the left. The rock art shows the figures of fourteen eland antelope. All the figures are upright but for one of the central figures which is upside-down (dead?). The figures are naturalistic, infilled and shaded in polychrome with grey-brown bodies, white heads, necks, bellies and legs and black horns. The topmost eland is largest, facing left. The bottommost is depicted lying down and looking back over its shoulder. To the upper right is the upside-down individual. The eland at the top left has a redder coat colour than the others and the leftmost animal is heavily damaged by flaking. Thabo Mofutsanyana District Municipality, South Africa.
Scanned
- Production date
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20 February 2006 (date digitized)
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May 1993 (original photograph)
- Dimensions
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File size: 118 megabytes
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Resolution: 300 dots per inch
- Curator's comments
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Close up of 2013,2034.18519.
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Rock paintings found in the east of the Free State province in South Africa are part of a similar tradition of paintings extending east into Lesotho and throughout the Drakensberg, consisting largely of human and animal figures, in particular depictions of the large eland antelope and smaller antelope such as rhebok. Animal depictions are often naturalistic and may include one or more colour combinations. Sometimes they are executed using a blending technique referred to as ‘shaded polychrome’, unique to rock art produced by San hunter-gatherer people and their ancestors who formerly inhabited the area. Animals other than antelope are sometimes depicted, including lions and birds, but the eland figure in particular predominates. In addition, many sites include images of human tools and implements such as bows and arrows. Several other types of image are found in San rock art which are less easily recognisable, including part-human, part-animal figures known by scholars as 'therianthropes', animals of indeterminate species and non-figurative motifs such as lines and dots.
Beginning the late 1860s, the geologist George Stow was the first person to make systematic copies of South African rock art, working in what was then the Orange Free State as well as elsewhere. Many of his copies were published in 1930.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 2013
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- 2013,2034.18511
- Additional IDs
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Previous owner/ex-collection number: SOAEFS0030001 (TARA number)