Aboriginal Rock Art

[den]

A bush walker has found a gallery of 4000 year old Aboriginal rock art not far from Sydney*. The gallery is remarkable for the number of images that have been painted, and that there is NO graffiti scrawled all over it.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/australasia/story.jsp?story=420846
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3035094.stm
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/07/01/1056825399651.html
http://www.austmus.gov.au/display.cfm?id=1287

"They show humans and god-like human and animal composites, such as birds, lizards and marsupials - including an extremely rare depiction of a wombat." I'm looking for a photo of that one, ursulav

The cave is only a few miles from where the wollemi pines were found.

How cool is this?









*Sydney, Australia

Comments

[elynne.livejournal.com]

OMGOMGOMG that is so amazingly tremendously kewl! Want pictures... want many big pictures... very much...

(yes, I'm a big prehistoric art fan, why do you ask?)

[ursulav.livejournal.com]

*cheer* Hot damn, rock art!

The irony. I just put up a page of "Digger" that had cave paintings in it...obviously I am not nearly as original as I think I am, I am merely a pawn of cosmic forces!

While I'd be deeply delighted to see a wombat rock painting, it begs the question--why are wombats rare?

The rarest animals in European rock art are, I b'lieve, weasels and turtles--they've only got one or two samples of each, compared to of course, thousands of horses and reindeer and bison and so forth. Wonder if it's for the same reason--whatever those may be?

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

I wonder if it's something to do with edability. Turtles feature in the Northern Australian rock art.

So we have religion, food, and "I Was Here" stencils.

[weyrdbird.livejournal.com]

Way cool. The one of the lizard is really neat:)!
It's good that they found it, and sad that they have to protect it from vandalism and/or exploitation by artifact thieves. What did people do before they had newpapers and historical archives:)? It's more than " We Were Here". It's more like "We Were Here. This is what life looks like now.We add to it every so often, if we find ourselves in the area.":D

[ka-crow.livejournal.com]

What, no crows? I mean *cough* that is indeed extremely cool! Thanks for the links. :>

[ka-crow.livejournal.com]

Weyrdbird!

1. Excellent icon.

2. Do you mind being added to my friends list? I'm a fellow Edwin Torres fan.

3. Also, would you like to come and add to the massed corvidity over in corvine? Real-life corvids, raven mythology, crow tattoos, you name it. I think we cover everything but crows' feet; one would need makeup for that. :D

[fledchen.livejournal.com]

I'm still waiting for cave paintings of budgerigars.

[oceansedge.livejournal.com]

WOMBATS!!!!!!!

Aboriginal art

[ursuscal.livejournal.com]

I dearly love such things! It's like listening to a story teller from tens of thousands of years ago. Seeing how they interpreted their world fascinates me. I've been privaledged to photograph "Anasazi" ("old people") Native American cliff and cave paintings (petroglyphs), as well as cliff dwellings that show an advanced knowledge of physics and architecture in California, Utah, New Mexico, and Colorado. It's interesting that most ancient cultures easily visualized man/animal morphs, although in different ways. Egyptians retained most of the human "qualities" by simply sticking a human head on an animal body -- though usually bipedal. I'm curious as to why the wombat was rarely depicted in the Australian pictoglyphs?

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

You might see them in central Australia because they're a desert bird. Wild budgies are a drab olive green with brilliant yellow feathers on the wings.

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

The "I Was Here" stencils are the hand prints. The artist would fill his (never her) mouth with ochre, place his hand on the wall and spray it like an air brush. Instant outline!

[weyrdbird.livejournal.com]

1. Not at all:).

2.I have only read After Hours and Carlito's Way, If he's written any more stuff like that.....heck, if he's written anything else at all I need to read it:).

3.Sure!