VANDALISM, OR LIFE-SAVING SIGN?

Cambodian Mine Action Center

sign at Laang Spean

Cave, Cambodia.

While we are almost always opposed to modern paint being sprayed on the rocks (tagging) there is a picture in Archaeology Magazine (Jan.-Feb. 2019) that we have to applaud. It is a photograph of red initials CMAC painted on the cliff at the mouth of a cave in Cambodia. CMAC stands for Cambodian Mine Action Centre, the organization tasked with locating and neutralizing land mines left over from the wars of the 1960s and 1970s in southeast Asia. This is only a small part of the story in their article Cambodia's Cave of Bridges, by Karen Coates, and well worth reading. It chronicles new research in a cave named Laang Spean (Cave of Bridges) which has opened new windows on Cambodia's past. This CMAC inscription tells the local people, and the archaeologists working in the cave, that they have cleared nearby mines and it is safe to go there. RockArtBlog has to applaud this particular tagging. I do not know how much rock art can be assigned a life-saving function, but I think it is a wonderful idea - and I wonder what other examples might be found.

NOTE: The image in this posting was retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of this image is not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original at the site listed below.

REFERENCE:

Coates, Karen

2019 Cambodia's Cave of Bridges, Archaeology, pages 48 - 52, January-February, 2019, Vol. 72, No 1.