digital photograph(colour)
- Museum number
- 2013,2034.21815
- Description
-
Digital photograph (colour); detail of painted rock art showing nine human figures, upright and infilled in red. The three topmost figures form a horizontal line walking right with the heads cut off the top of the image. They are carrying bows and arrows. To the lower right, three further figures facing left with white faces and voluminous hairstyles superimpose three smaller figures below with their feet. The smaller figures have exaggerated bellies (pregnant? women?). Ekuta Cave, Namibia.
Born digital
- Production date
- December 2007 (original photograph?)
- Dimensions
-
File size: 28.70 megabytes
-
Resolution: 300 dots per inch
- Curator's comments
- Detail of 2013, 2034.21732.
This shelter is painted up to a height of about 5 m.
The sprawling granitic rock formation that forms the Erongo Mountains is home to around 80 known rock art sites, with both painting and engraving sites. The rock art traditions in this area are comparable to those of the Brandberg Mountain around 120 km north-west with prominent painted rock art sites featuring humans and wild animals. The rock art of the region first became known to European researchers in the 19th century, with the Reverend C. J. Büttner publishing an article in a South African periodical in the 1870s, reporting rock art in the Erongo Mountains. Archaeological work has since been undertaken in various Erongo locations.
Naimbia is home to over 1,200 rock art sites countrywide. Rock art is found across the country from the southern border almost to the northern border, although rock art sites are scarce in the far north. The majority of known rock art sites are found in the rocky and mountainous areas forming the escarpment edge in the west of the country. Particular concentrations of rock art are found in the west-centre of the country, north of the edge of the Namib’s coastal sand sea. Namibia’s most well-known rock art locales are clustered in this area, among them the Brandberg (also known as Dâures) and Erongo mountains and the Spitzkoppe peaks, as well as the well-known engraved rock art complex at Twyfelfontein | /Ui-//aes.
Much of the painted rock art in Namibia may be broadly compared to the wider hunter-gatherer-fisher rock art tradition found throughout southern Africa, similar in theme and composition and believed to be a part of the same general tradition although some geometric rock art has been attributed to herder people and some finger paintings appear to have been painted later which fit neither tradition.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 2013
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- 2013,2034.21815
- Additional IDs
-
Previous owner/ex-collection number: NAMDME0090103 (TARA number)