digital photograph(colour)
- Museum number
- 2013,2034.21023
- Description
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Digital photograph (colour); view of painted rock art showing at the top of the panel: an animal (?) with curved upturned horns facing right, and below an antelope with straight horns facing right. Tsodilo Hills, Botswana.
Scanned
- Production date
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August 2000 (original photograph)
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23 October 2008 (date digitized)
- Dimensions
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File size: 120 megabytes
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Resolution: 300 dots per inch
- Curator's comments
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The Tsodilo Hills are made up of four main hills. From south to north they are known as Male Hill, Female Hill, Child Hill and North Hill. The story concerning how the hills acquired these names is said to have come from the Khoe, the original inhabitants of the area. The story recounts that the hills were originally people. The Male Hill was married to the North Hill, but fell in love with the Female Hill and took her as his second wife. North Hill became jealous and ran away to the north. Male Hill was unhappy that she had run away and sent servants to fetch her home, but she refused and stayed where she was. Male Hill and Female Hill had a child and stayed together in the south with their child (Child Hill) North Hill remains alone in the north and the servants who were sent to collect her are the rocks at the very end. Female Hill is almost three times the size of Male Hill but reaches only about 300m above the plain. This is where most of the rock art sites are located.
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Botswana is a landlocked country and is bordered by South Africa to the south, Namibia to the west and north, and Zimbabwe to the north-east. The majority of this flat country, around 70%, is made up of the Kalahari Desert, with the Okavango Delta, one of the world’s largest inland deltas located in the north. Rock art can be found in the north, north-west and east of the country.
One of the most well-known locations is the Tsodilo Hills in the north-west, which has been termed “the Louvre of the Desert” and is now a World Heritage Site, and contains evidence of human occupation that goes back 100,000 years. This area has yielded more than 4,000 paintings, as well as engraved cupules and grooves dating back to the first millennium AD. German geologist Siegfried Passarge visited the Tsodilo Hills in 1898, mapping the area, writing on the geology and photographing a few rock paintings. However, it was Laurens van der Post publication of The Lost World of the Kalahari in 1958 that brought Botswana rock art and the Tsodilo Hills in particular to the attention of the wider world.
The rock art of Tuli Block in the east of the country is characterised by engravings of human and animal footprints and cupules, and 250 km east of Tsodilo Hills lay the Gubatshaa Hills, where rock art consists of painted geometric designs and animals.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 2013
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- 2013,2034.21023
- Additional IDs
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Previous owner/ex-collection number: BOTTSD0710001 (TARA number)
