MUSIC IN ROCK ART – REVISITED AGAIN – AEROPHONES:

 

Pictograph panel (digitally enhanced), Cedarburg, South Africa. Photograph by Neil Rusch.

RockArtBlog has had a number of columns in the past about music and rock art. This column is to present a painted panel from Cedarburg, South Africa (Matjes River), that seems to show a group of four anthropomorphs who are whirling bull-roarers. Neil Rusch and Sara Wurz published a paper (2022) on this panel and the sounds made by reconstructions of the instruments portrayed.

In 2020, Joshua Kumbani called for more research into ancient music in archeological contexts. “Research in music archaeology in southern Africa has just begun. Available evidence dates back from around 10,000 years ago, from the Later Stone Age up to the Iron Age. The artifacts fall into two groups, namely aerophones, where sound is produced by vibrating air, and idiophones, where sound is produced by solid material vibrating. These artifacts include spinning disks, bullroarers, bone tubes that could have been used as flutes or whistles, clay whistles, keys from thumb pianos (also called lamellophones or mbiras), musical bells and an ivory trumpet. The list is not exhaustive and more research needs to be conducted.” (Kumbani 2020) This actually strikes me as a pretty comprehensive list. Kumbani has certainly been doing his homework.

Pictograph panel (digitally enhanced), close-up of two central figures, Cedarburg, South Africa. Photograph by Neil Rusch.

 “These music-related or sound-producing artifacts are made from various materials, including bone, ivory, metal and clay. The artifacts show how integral sound and music production was in the socio-cultural practices of people in the past, most likely for entertainment and rituals. Sound production and music making is a sign of being fully human. Recent experimental work established that some Later Stone Age bone implements from the Klasies River Mouth and Matjes River sites are a spinning disk and a bullroarer respectively. Their replicas produced powerful whirring sounds and they can be referred to as sound-producing implements even though the purpose of the sound or their use cannot be clearly ascertained. They could have been used as signalling implements, toys, in ritual settings or in musical contexts, among others. Nowadays these implements are seldom found in the region.” (Kumbani 2020) Music making – yes. But, the manufacture of these implements to control sound, yes, that is pretty human. There is, of course, the Australian Palm Cockatoo that breaks off a stick to drum on a limb or tree trunk. This is, in fact, apparently a case of non-human intentional music making – but it is a really isolated example (see Heinsohn et al. 2017).

When we are talking about art history we often overlook the importance on non-visual arts: music, poetry, etc. Rusch and Wurz have focused on the instruments indicated in the rock art panel from Cedarberg. “Our archaeoacoustic research is focused on bringing to life sounds made by people living in the past. No aural record remains but people did dance, sing and clap. Instruments either no longer exist or are extremely rare. One exception are the gong rocks, known as lithophones, which ring when struck and produce purposeful, percussive sounds. Occasionally, unfamiliar and rare musical instruments are depicted in rock paintings. In a new study we turned our ears to a rock painting in the Cederberg Mountains in South Africa’s Western Cape province. The human figures in this painting have previously been interpreted as healers holding fly-whisks and doing a trance-dance. Fly-whisks were an important accessory for the dance because they were thought to keep arrows of sickness at bay.” (Rush and Wurz 2022) Concerning ‘gong rocks’ (lithophones) I have previously written a number of columns on RockArtBlog. Go to the cloud index at the bottom and look for the word ‘lithophone.’ But this is about bull-roarers.

Bull-roarers. Online image, public domain.

Rusch and Wurz interpreted what they observed on the panel as what in western sources are known as bull-roarers. I have to agree with this. Given that the figures seem to be waving slender cords with something on the end bull-roarers would seem to be the logical interpretation. “But our results suggest that the fly-whisks are in fact musical instruments of a type known as a !goin !goin – a name that only exists in the now extinct ǀXam language that was spoken by hunter-gatherers in central southern Africa. The !goin !goin is an aerophone; these instruments produce sound by creating vibrations in the air when they are spun around their axes. To reach this conclusion we combined digital image recovery techniques with instruments created from life-size templates based on our findings. The eight instruments were played in a Cape Town sound studio and the sounds were recorded. Sound produced by the recreated instruments convincingly matches the sound spectrum (90 – 150 Hz) produced by a similar 19th century model of the !goin !goin aerophone, which is archived in the Kirby Collection of Musical Instruments, curated by the University of Cape Town’s College of Music.” (Rush and Wurz 2022) So, this particular panel is the group of figures with bull-roarers.  

West African fly whisk. Online image, public domain.

Noticing that the pictograph panel shows multiple musicians playing the !goin !goin aerophone Rush and Wurz also recorded multiple examples played at the same time. They found that by varying the speed of one or the other instrument they could create a number of different sound effects. They call this ability ‘compositional.’ “This compositional aspect of the instrument was not well known at all so we delved deeper. In the Special Collections archive at the University of Cape Town we found an obscure description of the !goin !goin which confirmed, as does the Cederberg painting, that groups did play the instruments together. ‘An instrument consisting of a blade of wood attached to a little stick, which is held in the hand. The performer grasping the little stick whirls the blade about in the air, producing a whirring sound. It is used by both !sexes among the Bushmen [another name used for the San and today considered derogatory by some] and, at times, by a number of persons together with the view to causing rain.’ ǀXam-speaking hunter gatherers associated the sound of the !goin !goin with honey bees  They even went so far as to say that with the !goin !goin  they could “move bees”. This complements the previous statement linking the instrument’s sound with “causing rain”. The archive statement also confirms that both men and women worked with rain, using the sound of the !goin !goin  for this purpose.” (Rush and Wurz 2022) It is really very easy to imagine the sound of multiple bull-roarers sounding like a swarm of bees.

Kumbani's "spinnin discs." Kumbani et al., 2019.

Kumbani et al. (2020) also refers to a second type of aerophone which he calls simply a ‘spinning disc.’ Kumbani’s ‘spinnin disc’ is a piece of bone with two holes drilled near the center. A loop of cord is tied through those holes, held between both hands,  and by rhythmically pulling the ends apart and then relaxing to let it spin and wind up the other way, one can achieve pulses of a whirring sound. But I know of no examples of these pictured in ancient rock art. So we turn our focus and attention back to the bull-roarers.

Such in-depth analysis of the recorded sound frequencies of !goin !goins goes past the point of my interest in the panel, but, I have frequently written about music related to rock art, and this is a marvelous example. Their identification of the instruments involved gives us a whole new aspect to appreciate. And, their innovation of playing more than one at the same time opens new areas of experimental archaeology of music.

NOTE: Some images in this column were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are 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 reports at the sites listed below.

PRIMARY REFERENCES:

Kumbani, Joshua, 2020, What archaeology tells us about the music and sounds made by Africa’s ancestors, 24 August 2020, https://theconversation.com. Accessed online 2 January 2025.

Kumbani, Joshua et al., 2019, A functional investigation of southern Cape Later Stone Age artifacts resembling aerophones, Journal of Archaeological Science Reports, April 2019, DOI:10.1016/j.jasrep.2019.02.021. Accessed online from Researchgate, 26 August 2025.

Rusch, Neil, and Sara Wurz, 2022, How the music of an ancient rock painting was brought to life, 29 June 2022, https://theconversation.com. Accessed online 2 January 2025.

SECONDARY REFERENCE:

Heinsohn, Robert et al., 2017, Tool-assisted rhythmic drimming in palm cockatoos shares key elements of human instrumental music, 28 June 2017, Science Advances, Vol. 3, Issue 6. DOI:10.1126/sciadv.1602399. Accessed online 13 November 2025.

 

A GIANT CARVED SNAKE IN SOUTH AFRICA’S RHINO CAVE:

Coulson et al., 2011, Fig. 2, page 22.

A natural rock feature in a cave in Botswana has been found that had been modified to resemble the head and part of the body of a python. “Rhino Cave, located at the World Heritage site of Tsodilo Hills, is one of the three main Middle Stone Age (MSA) sites in Botswana. Initial investigations during the mid-1990s left unanswered a number of key questions regard­ing the early use of the cave. This prompted the current investigations, which have unearthed a wealth of MSA artifacts from a lag deposit. Results of a selectively employed chaîne opératoire analysis have revealed a very special set of behavioral patterns. It will be argued that the best-fit interpretation of the results from this investigation lies within the realm of ritualized behavior. The assemblage is characterized by an unexpectedly large number of MSA points, which are for the most part produced in non-locally acquired raw materials. These points are colorful, care­fully and often elaborately made, and, once complete, never left the cave. They were either deliberately burned to the point where they could no longer be used, abandoned, or intentionally smashed. These artifacts were found together with tabular grinding slabs and pieces of the locally available pigment, specularite. This assemblage was recovered directly beneath a massive, virtually free-standing rock face that has been carved with hundreds of cupules of varying sizes and shapes. A section of the carved rock face was recovered from well within the MSA deposits in association with handheld grinding stones.” (Coulson et al. 2011) The large number of artifacts and the fact that so many of them had been broken immediately said to the researchers that this was evidence of ceremonial use of the cave.

The serpent highlighted, internet image, public domain.

This discovery certainly fits within the belief system of the local San people who historically resided in the area.

“Associate Professor Sheila Coulson, from the University of Oslo, can now show that modern humans, Homo sapiens, have performed advanced rituals in Africa for 70,000 years. She has, in other words, discovered mankind’s oldest known ritual. The archaeologist made the surprising discovery while she was studying the origin of the Sanpeople. A group of the San live in the sparsely inhabited area of north-western Botswana known as Ngamiland. Coulson made the discovery while searching for artifacts from the Middle Stone Age in the only hills present for hundreds of kilometers in any direction. This group of small peaks within the Kalahari Desert is known as the Tsodilo Hills and is famous for having the largest concentration of rock paintings in the world. The Tsodilo Hills are still a sacred  place for the San, who call them the ‘Mountains of the Gods’and the ‘Rock that Whispers’. The python is one of the San’s most important animals. According to their creation myth, mankind descended from the python and the ancient, arid streambeds around the hills are said to have been created by the python as it circled the hills in its ceaseless search for water. Sheila Coulson’s find shows that people from the area had a specific ritual location associated with the python. The ritual was held in a little cave on the northern side of the Tsodilo Hills. The cave itself is so secluded and access to it is so difficult that it was not even discovered by archaeologists until the 1990s. When Coulson entered the cave this summer with her three master’s students, it struck them that the mysterious rock resembled the head of a huge python. On the six meter long by two meter tall rock, they found three-to-four hundred indentations that could only have been man-made. ‘You could see the mouth and eyes of the snake. It looked like a real python. The play of sunlight over the indentations gave them the appearance of snake skin. At night, the firelight gave one the feeling that the snake was actually moving’.”  (AtHope 2017) So the adding of the pecked pits are assumed to be a way of representing the scales of the python.

Drawings by Damien AtHope, 2017.

Dating for the great serpent is uncertain. Samples from excavation within the cave below the panel were taken for radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dating. The radiocarbon date came back at 14,500±50 BP for the Middle Stone Age level, and the thermoluminescence date retrieved was 18,175±2,871 BP. (Coulson 2011:23) However, when artifacts were compared to dated material from nearby locations they led to conclusions of much older dates. “The dating of the MSA assemblage from this site then had to revert to a typological comparison to the nearby well-dated MSA sites of White Paintings Shelter (66,400±6,500 and 94,300±9,400 BP) (Robbins et al. 2000b: 1092) and the open-air pan site of ≠Gi (77,000±11,000 BP) which is approximately 120km southwest of the Hills. For example Laurel Phillipson (2007: 20), who recently re-examined a selection of the MSA points from the 1996 excavations, states that she concurs “with the excavators that the Middle Stone Age lithics from these adjacent sites appear so similar…that the series of age determinations from the White Paint­ings Shelter can also be applied to the material from Rhino Cave.” Therefore, although the exact dating of Rhino Cave remains unresolved, this MSA assemblage can be consid­ered to be generally comparable to those from White Paintings Shelter.” (Coulson et al. 2011:23)

Diagram of the pecking, drawn by Damien AtHope, 2017.

So, which is it, fourteen to eighteen thousand years, or sixty-six to ninety-three thousand years? If fourteen thousand we might go a little way out on a limb and guess that the serpent was made by the earliest ancestors of the present-day San residents. But, if it is seventy thousand years old that may be a bough too far.

 

REFERENCES:

AtHope, Damien, 2017, Stone Snake of South Africa: first human worship 70,000 years ago, 5 March 2017, https://damienmarieathope.com. Accessed online 24 August 2025.

Coulson, Sheila, et al., 2011, Ritualized Behavior in the Middle Stone Age: Evidence from Rhino Cave, Tsodilo Hills, Botswana, Paleoanthropology 2011:18-61, DOI:10.4207/PA.2011.ART42. Accessed online 26 August 2025.

SECONDARY REFERENCES:

Phillipson, L., 2007, Reassessment of Selected Middle Stone Age Artefacts from Rhino Cave and from White Paint­ings Rock Shelter, Tsodilo Hills, Botswana. South Afri­can Archaeological Bulletin 62(185): 19–30.

A PAINTED DINOSAUR FOOTPRINT IN LESOTHO, AFRICA:

Flag Point track site, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah. Internet photo public domain.

Painted track at Flag Point track site, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah. Internet photo public domain.

Chirotherium track, Joseph City, New Mexico. Photograph from Mayor and Sergeant, 2001.

Petroglyph of chirotherium track, Joseph City, New Mexico. Photograph from Mayor and Sergeant, 2001.

I think that my two favorite things in the world may be rock art and dinosaur tracks. And I would imagine that we all know about the red pictograph of the nearby dinosaur track at Flag Point in Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monument in Utah. RockArtBlog published a column about that marvel on 21 November 2015 in a column titled “A Painted Dinosaur Track in Utah.” Also, on 13 June 2014 I wrote a column titled “A Dinosaur Track Petroglyph” on a report by Adrienne Mayor and William Sarjeant of a petroglyph they believe was inspired by a nearby dinosaur track. Now, I have seen a report about a site in Lesotho, a sovereign enclave in South Africa, painted by a San bushman a artist that not only records a dinosaur track, but apparently includes a couple of images of the creature that the artist imagined to have made the track (Helm et al. 2012)

Mokhali Cave, Lesotho. Photograph Helm et al. Fig. 3.

The pictographs at this site were first recorded by one Paul Ellenberger, the son and grandsonof two generations of missionaries and ministers in Lesotho. “Swiss-born D. Frédéric Ellenberger (1835-1910) came to Lesotho in 1861. He spent the next 44 years in this work, first in Morija and then in Masitise, where he created temporary accommodation by building a stone wall in front of a massive rock overhang. He lived with his family in this Cave House for 13 years.” (Helm et al. 2012) One of Ellenberger’s children, Victor, later visited the site with his own son, Paul, who recorded the pictographs. “Victor Ellenberger (1879-1972) was born in this Cave House while a war raged outside. He excelled as a student and went to France for his secondary education, then worked as a minister from 1917 to 1934 in Lesotho (mainly at Leribe) and then in Paris. He became an expert on Lesotho’s flowering plants, changing environmental conditions and the tragic end of the San, and published books on these topics. With the help of his son Paul he copied over 400 San paintings.” (Helm et al. 2012)

San painted track image, Photograph Helm et al. Fig. 4.

Victor and Paul visited the site accompanied by Frederic Christol (1850-1933), a Lutheran minister and artist. “Armed with this knowledge of the Ellenbergers, we can imagine a 1930 visit to a rock overhang 10 km north-east of Leribe (Hlotse) known as Mokhali Cave. Victor was the minister in Leribe and likely the orchestrator. Present were Victor’s father-in-law, the artist Christol, and 12-year-old Paul, who was given the task of tracing the paintings. While his grandfather sketched the cave, Paul traced the wonderful images, which were unlike anything he or his father had seen before. Beside a painting in red ochre of a three-toed dinosaur footprint, there were three graceful figures of the imagined track-maker.” (Helm et al. 2012) Since the footprint is three-toed made by an ornithopod, the San artist had recognized its resemblance to a bird track and created the three imaginary figures which are very birdlike.

San painted track image enhanced, Photograph Helm et al. Fig. 5.

As is so often the case, the original drawings had been filed away and essentially forgotten. “The tracings had languished in obscurity in Lesotho and then in Montpellier (Montpellier University in France). But in 1989 David Mossman, a Canadian paleontologist on sabbatical in France, met Ellenberger and learned about them. In 2004 he lectured in South Africa and visited Mokhali Cave with his son Alex. They located it after an exhaustive two-day search, finally identifying it with the use of a copy of Christol’s sketch. Unfortunately the paintings had faded badly – the footprint (resembling that of an ornithopod) was just discernible, but the track-maker images were no longer visible. Ellenberger and the Mossmans then collaborated with renowned ichnologist Martin Lockley in submitting the article to Ichnos.” (Helm et al. 2012)

The claim by Ellenberger et al. (2005) that the track-maker images predate European attempts was based on the estimated latest possible occupation of Mokhali Cave by the San (1810-20), before it was occupied by the son of the Basotho king and before the San were killed or driven from the region. Implicit in such an estimate is the possibility that they may have been made even earlier. This report assumes that the San were the artists. (Helm et al. 2012)

Drawing of San painted track image and imagined track makers, image courtesy David Mossman, from Helm et al. Fig. 2.

“Employing technologies developed in astronomy, forensics and medicine, and applying them specifically to rock art, Kevin Crause has developed the CPED Toolset – Capture, Processing, Enhancement, Display. After obtaining high-resolution images, data is colour-balanced and processed to remove lens distortion. Designed enhancement algorithms resolve imagery details that cannot be resolved under normal light conditions as perceived by the human visual system. By using this technology, images often result of rock art that are no longer visible to the naked eye. We wondered what the CPED Toolset could offer regarding the faded footprint and track-maker images. Kevin and Charles Helm revisited Mokhali Cave to test this in 2011. The cave, which we found without difficulty thanks to excellent directions from the Mossmans, is 75 m wide, 10 m high and 5 m deep. It provides a magnificent north-facing view over the Caledon Valley and its level floor is wide and deep enough to encourage habitation, as in Christol’s sketch, which depicts three Basotho huts. However, it is exposed to the elements. Northerly winds, winter snow and freeze-thaw events damage the paintings on its walls, which are prone to flaking off. The chances of rock art surviving seemed remote. However, the footprint, 2 m from the eastern end of the cave, was recognizable. Midway along the floor were the remains of a circular hut. In addition to analysing the footprint and surrounding area, all promising surfaces in the cave were photographed. This yielded a few images of so-called Late White paintings by Bantu-speaking agriculturalists (Lewis-Williams 2006), likely representing Basotho rock art, but also suggesting the possibility of Basotho artists creating the dinosaur images. Rock art shelters 200mfurther east yielded numerous San paintings. In the valley of the Subeng Stream below, 3 km from Mokhali Cave, we visited a dinosaur tracksite that was recorded by Ellenberger in the 1950s. From here Mokhali Cave was visible."
(Helm et al. 2012)

“Computer programs have enhanced the image quality at this site, confirming the accuracy of Paul Ellenberger’s 1930 tracing and the relation of the footprint to the track-maker images. However, for details on the track-maker images, the efforts over 80 years ago of a remarkable pre-teenager remain the sole source. Future work is required to resolve the origin of this rock art and, if possible, its age.” (Helm et al. 2012)  This may be a reference to their CPED toolset or possibly they finished it up with D-Stretch, in any case they now have provided a great image of the painted footprint that was previously hard to see.

NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are 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 reports at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Faris, Peter, 2015, A Painted Dinosaur Track in Utah, 21 November 2015, rockartblog.blogspot.com.

Faris, Peter, 2014, A Dinosaur Track Petroglyph, 13 June 2014, rockartblog.blogspotcom.

Helm, Charles, Kevin Crause and Richard McCrea, 2012, Mokhali Cave Revisited, Dinosaur Rock Art in Lesotho, April 2012, The Digging Stick, Vol. 29, No. 1. Accessed from Researchgate.net.

Mayor, Adrienne and William A. S. Serjeant, 2001, The Folklore of Footprints in Stone: From Classical Antiquity to the Present, Ichnos, Vol. 8, No. 2, 143-163.

SECONDARY REFERENCES:

Ellenberger, P, Mossman, DJ, Mossman, AD, & Lockley, MG. 2005. Bushmen cave paintings of ornithopod dinosaurs: paleolithic trackers interpret Early Jurassic footprints. Ichnos, Vol. 12 No. 3, 223-226.

UNICORNS IN ROCK ART AND MYTHOLOGY:

Lascaux "Unicorn", Lascaux Cave, France. Online internet image, public domain.

Extinct Elasmotherium. Online internet image, public domain.

Drawing of Elasmotherium, Rouffignac Cave, France. Online internet image, public domain.

On 28 July 2018, I posted a column titled The Paleolithic Unicorn – Found At Last, about the enigmatic painting of an animal in Lascaux Cave in France that has straight horns coming straight forward out of his head and who is sometimes called the Lascaux Unicorn. I likened it to the extinct Elasmotherium, a relative of the rhinoceros with a single horn, sometimes called the Paleolithic unicorn. While I was in no way expressing the opinion that the animal pictured in Lascaux was meant to represent an Elasmotherium, I was making the point that there had been a single-horned animal back millennia ago, and the curious coincidence of the naming of that Lascaux beast’s image. (Faris 2018)

European unicorn, painting by Maerten de Vos, 1532-1603. Online internet image, public domain.

In this column, however, I am going to look at rock art of single-horned animals from South Africa, originating in San mythology. It has often been assumed that the image of a single-horned quadruped may have originated with something like an oryx seen from the side with its horns perfectly aligned. This may be part of the story, and there are San representations of antelope-like animals seen from the side with only one horn represented. It also needs to be pointed out that these San examples have the horn projecting backwards from its natural head location, not forward from the forehead as in the European belief in unicorns. It may be, however, that European visitors to such rock art sites might interpret them as portraying some version of the unicorn they believed in so fervently.

From a panel near Indwe, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. Photographs by Witelson, 2023, Fig. 7. 

“Europeans sought unicorns and rock paintings of them almost as soon as they set foot on the shores of southern Africa. Their interest stemmed from their cultural beliefs, which they transposed onto the African continent and its people. Against this Western backdrop, many early travelers searched for rock paintings of unicorns, which some considered evidence of the creature’s existence. – Rock paintings have thus played a significant role in South Africa’s unicorn lore. - Ultimately, however, the images were dismissed as depicting figments of the imagination. For centuries, colonial beliefs about unicorns silently mixed with indigenous ones. But, whereas physical proof became Holy Grail, indigenous beliefs were regarded skeptically as rumor or hearsay. Without realizing this distinction, European colonists sought after the unicorn, assuming, at least initially, that it was the creature they knew.” (Witelson 2023:2) The hubris of the colonials inevitably looked to European ‘scientific knowledge’ as more true and real than indigenous knowledge about their own territory.

“Perhaps the most famous South African search for unicorns was reported by John Barrow, ‘Late Secretary to the Earl of Macartney, and Auditor-General of Public Accounts, at the Cape of Good Hope.’ He sought evidence for real rather than fanciful unicorns, which he considered of potentially biblical importance to Natural History. Any biological specimen would therefore have had a place in the nascent world of European science. Barrow thought the ‘living original’ might yet be found north and east of the Bamboesberg mountain range in what is today the Eastern Cape Province. There, ‘the people [Bosjemans or Bushmen] who make them [the paintings] live.’ Although he managed to arouse some enthusiasm for an expedition to go in search of it, he never ventured east outside the Colony.” (Witelson 2023:3) In this case the fact that unicorns were mentioned in the bible became a colonial ‘scientific truth’ where the beliefs of locals were essentially eventually discounted as superstition.

“Locals must have noticed something interesting about the British when they first arrived. They wore symbols on their uniforms of familiar animals, the lion and the unicorn. The British were likely amazed that the locals were aware of unicorns, and could even describe them in detail. Then the discovery by colonists of ancient rock art – depictions of unicorns as commonplace animals – caused imaginations to race. What followed were concerted search efforts fueled by a desire to capture a creature of both biblical importance and interest to natural history scientists. It was biblical passages that led to the unicorn being adopted as a royal symbol, and any question of the creature’s reality was, especially in light of new evidence, necessarily so.” (Jackson 2023)

Illustration from Witelson, 2023, Fig 8, originally from Stow and Bleek, 1930.

Barrow did manage to visit several rock shelters eventually, and produced a sketch of a very Western-looking unicorn, the original for which has never been found, and is widely considered to have been either a hoax or overactive imagination in interpreting a very damaged rock art image. (Witelson 2023) “The cynical views of Barrow’s and other unicorn images are partly rooted in a perspectival argument: because the animal is depicted side-on, one horn obscures the second. It is one of three explanations that arose when, unsurprisingly, the ‘real’ unicorn was not found. One claimed, as we have seen, that the rhinoceros had been the unicorn all along. A second, which we have also encountered, suggests that the gemsbok was the inspiration behind the unicorn because one straight horn covers the other when viewed from a lateral perspective, and males often lose a horn in the rutting season. A third claimed that the unicorn had never existed outside imagination. Though this third explanation resembles the contemporary understanding of unicorns, all three explanations are based entirely on the European search for a European idea.” (Witelson 2023:6)

“Importantly, the perspectival argument was refuted over a century-and-a-half ago. The English traveler and artist Thomas Baines noted (correctly) that San images of two-horned animals invariably have two horns. Baines thus recognized that San images faithfully represent whatever the image-makers wanted to depict. Whatever perspectival ‘errors’ may be perceived, the painters ‘never fail to give each animal its proper complement of members.” (Witelson 2023:6) And, although many San animal portrayals might be thought to be cases of what Witelson calls ‘perspectival error’, he then presents us with some examples of this art that are decidedly one-horned.

Southeast of Molteno, South Africa. photograph by Stephen Townley Bassett.

One panel of lovely antelopes from a site southeast of Molteno has the necks and heads of two of the animals turned so that a second horn would be seen, and they are not.

Drawing of panel from rockshelter south of Flaauwkraal, Eastern Cape province, South Africa. Illustration from Witelson, 2023, Fig. 5.

Closeup of upper left figure from rockshelter south of Flaauwkraal, Eastern Cape province, South Africa.photograph by Witelson, 2023.

And from a rock shelter south of Flaauwkraal in the Eastern Cape comes another panel of antelopes with their heads turned showing that they only possess one horn. These portrayals illustrate the San belief in unicorns as well as their artistic ability.

NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. Other photographic credits are as listed. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

PRIMARY REFERENCES:

Faris, Peter, 2018, The Paleolithic Unicorn – Found At Last?, 28 July 2018, Published online by https://rockartblog.blogspot.com.

Jackson, Justin, 2023, Chance cross-cultural unicorn concepts lost in translation, 16 March 2023, Phys.org News online. Accessed online 16 March 2023.

Witelson, David M., 2023, Revisiting the South African Unicorn: Rock Art, Natural History and Colonial Misunderstandings of Indigenous Realities, Published online by Cambridge University Press, 13 March 2023. Accessed online 16 March 2023.

SECONDARY REFERENCES:

Barrow, J., 1801, Travels into the Interior of Southern Africa in the Years 1797 and 1798, Volume 1, Cadell & Davies, London.

Stow, G.W. & Bleek, D., 1930. Rock Paintings in South Africa. London

FORESHORTENING IN ROCK ART:

Eland rear view, 5 in. high. The Meads, Griqualand East, Cape Province. South Africa. Illustration from Wilcox, 1963, pl. 32.

We are so used to seeing rock art in side or frontal views that we don’t usually think of any alternatives but, once in a while, an image is found that is seen in a unique position which requires foreshortening, related to a technique called forced perspective.

Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary (2023d) defines foreshorten as “to shorten by proportionately contracting in the direction of depth so that an illusion of projection or extension in space is obtained.” What this means, if effect, is that the lines representing dimensions extending toward or away from the viewer are shortened to conform with the dictates of perspective which says that the more perpendicular the line or edge is to your position the shorter it will appear as it recedes from your position towards the ‘vanishing point.’

This is a minor element in ‘linear perspective’ as it was developed during the renaissance. “Filippo Brunelleschi, a famed Italian architect and engineer who lived from 1377 to 1446, rediscovered a specific methodology for achieving accurate perspective in art. Around 1420, Brunelleschi used a vanishing point and lines that connected to that vanishing point in order to sketch an incredibly realistic-looking picture of a baptistery in Florence. So, Brunelleschi was the first to accurately achieve perspective in art.” (Cummings)

Foreshortening is a small part of ‘linear perspective,’ but a very important part. Foreshortening allows the portrayal of something that is not just full-face frontal to the eye of the viewer, or crosswise (side view) to the viewer. Foreshortening allows for varying degrees of posture toward and/or away from the viewer, or more importantly, something that is in a bent or skewed posture toward or away from the eye of the beholder.

Close-up of eland, rear view, 5 in. high. The Meads, Griqualand East, Cape Province. South Africa. Illustration from Wilcox, 1963, pl. 32.

The examples I illustrate here all come from Africa, mostly from South Africa, and mostly produced by San artists. The first, and by far the most impressive, is a beautiful painting of two elands. This illustration from Wilcox shows one eland as if standing on a slight slope upwards to our right, and a second eland portrayed as if lying down seen from the back with its head partly raised and turned toward us. This second eland is listed as being 5” high. According to Wilcox the photo is from The Meads, Griqualand East, Cape Province, South Africa. In this beautiful picture the whole body of the second eland is foreshortened. (Wilcox 1963: Illus. 32)

Illustration from Wilcox, 1963, fig. 23, p. 58.

A petroglyph of an indeterminate antelope with its body facing to the right but its head turned around looking backwards requiring foreshortening of the upper neck. This petroglyph is listed as coming from Groot Moot. (Wilcox 1963:58)

Illustration from Wilcox, 1963, p. 76.

Other examples from Wilcox include a petroglyph of a giraffe facing away from the viewer, but with its head turned sideways to our right. This was recorded at Bosworth, near Klerksdorp, Transvaal. (Wilcox 1963: 76)

Illustration from Wilcox, 1963, p. 76.

A supposed gemsbock from Kinderdam, Vryburg district, Northern Cape Province, also facing away from the viewer but with the head turned looking to our left. (Wilcox 1963: 76)

Illustration from Wilcox, 1963, p. 76.

And, a sheep from the Vryburg district standing facing directly out at the viewer seen from the front. In the sheep example the foreshortening is shown in glimpses of the back and tail. (Wilcox 1963: 76)

Kathryn's Post, painted by Helen Tongue, photo Stella Myers Reed, p.79, Rock Art of Africa, Carson I. A. Ritchie.

My final example of foreshortening in this particular column, also from Africa, comes from Carson Ritchie (1979) with a much reproduced panel of a grouping of quadrupeds identified as elands, rhebucks, and oxen from a location listed as Kathryn’s Post, reproduced from a painting by Helen Tongue, photographed by Stella Myers Reed. (Ritchie 1979:79) In this very much faded image the central reclining animal has his head positioned either toward or away from the viewer with its body facing directly right.

All of these examples are believed to have been produced by San artists at unknown dates, and illustrate an amazing attention to detail as well as a sophistication in presentation. These so-called primitives were effectively using an art technique supposedly discovered by the famous artists of Renaissance history. Examples may be found from other rock art traditions, but, it is a technique that is quite advanced in visual portrayal, and thus relatively rare.

NOTE: For further information on these references you should read the originals  listed below.

REFERENCES:

Cummings, Erica, Linear Perspective in Renaissance Art, https://study.com. Accessed online 22 March 2023.

Merriam-Webster, Forshorten, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/foreshorten. Accessed 12 March 2023.

Ritchie, Carson I. A., 1979, Rock Art of Africa, A. S. Barnes and Company, Ltd., Cranbury, New Jersey.

Wilcox, A. R., 1963, The Rock Art of South Africa, Thomas Nelson and Sons, Johannesburg, South Africa.

RECORDS OF COLONIALISM IN ROCK ART

An equestrian raider with a musket and stolen domestic stock. The zoomorph at top right is interpreted as a 'rain animal' magically summoned to wash away the tracks. Photograph from Sam Challis and Brent Sinclair-Thompson.

On 11 September 2021 I posted an article titled “In South Africa, Colonialism Was Written on Stone” about armed resistance by indigenous peoples to European colonialism in South Africa. It was illustrated by pictographs from South Africa taken by Challis and Sinclair-Johnson (2021) of equestrian and armed figures including one identified as an armed stock raider.

Porterville galleon. Photograph from Trust for African Rock Art.

Another paper, this one by Kimon DeGreef (2016) has now identified a ship pictograph in South Africa as a record of colonial imperialism. “Whoever painted the ship trekked far inland before leaving his or her mark: the nearest coastal bays lie 100 kilometers to the west. The painting, dubbed the Porterville Galleon, is found in one of the richest rock art areas in southern Africa. The parched and rugged mountain range 200 kilometers north of Cape Town known as Cederberg has several thousand ocher paintings on boulders and sandstone ledges. The images record the lives and rituals of the indigenous peoples who inhabited the Cape of Good Hope for hundreds of generations before European settlers – first from the Netherlands, then Britain – took control of the land.” (DeGreef 2016)

“In caves and overhangs throughout the area, San rock art can be found, evidence of the earliest human inhabitants. European settlement brought forestry and some agriculture, and led to massive destruction of the local cedar trees, with thousands felled for telephone poles, furniture and housing. The European arrival also led to the elimination of the San population.” (Wikipedia) An example of all the sins of Colonialism, the eradication of the San people was merciless.

Borderland region painting with horses and guns. Photograph by Sam Challis and Brent Sinclair-Thompson.

“Some paintings found near the Cederberg are more than 3,500 years old, left behind by ancient San hunter-gatherer societies. They depict animals, humans, and therianthropes – people with hybrid animal features metamorphosing during trance states. Geometric patterns, handprints, and paintings of domestic sheep overlay some of these images, which are thought to date to the appearance of Khoi pastoralists 2,000 years ago. The ship painting marks a more recent and dramatic historical contact.” (DeGreef 2016) While most of our attention to rock art of the region has been directed at the remarkable San imagery, the pictographs reported here are from a later phase. They were produced by people we can call the Khoisan, also once known as ‘Hottentots.’

Another armed equestrian, either a stock raider or a guard. Photograph by Sam Challis and Brent Sinclair-Thompson.

“In around 2300 BP, hunter-gatherers called the San acquired domestic stock in what is now modern day Botswana. Their population grew, and spread throughout the Western half of South Africa. They were the first pastoralists in southern Africa, and called themselves Khoikhoi (or Khoe), which means ‘men of men’ or ‘the real people.’ - - The Khoikhoi brought a new way of life to South Africa and to the San, who were hunter-gatherers as opposed to herders. This led to misunderstandings and subsequent conflict between the two groups.” (South African History Online) I really do not know how accurate this short expose’ of the history of the peoples of South Africa is. The record is so full of colonial racism and apartheid and I am not expert enough in their history to know who to trust.

“The Khoikhoi were the first native people to come into contact with the Dutch settlers in the mid 17^th century. As the Dutch took over land for farms, the Khoikhoi were dispossessed, exterminated, or enslaved and therefore their numbers dwindled. The Khoikhoi were called the ‘Hottentots’ by European settlers because the sound of their language was so different from any European language, and they could not pronounce many of the words and sounds.” (South African History Online) This is seemingly a rerun of the Ancient Greeks dubbing all other cultures ‘barbarians’ because their language sounded to the Greeks as if they were babbling gibberish – bar, bar, bar.

The lessons represented here can, and should, be applied to anywhere Western Colonial peoples moved into land occupied by indigenous people, including the North American continent, and can give us new insights into how we interpret rock art in our own studies.

NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are 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 reports at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Challis, Sam, and Brent Sinclair-Thomson, 2021, South Africa’s Bandit Slaves and the Rock Art of Resistance, 20 August  2021, The Conversation Africa, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.

De Greef, Kimon, 2016, In South Africa, Colonialism Was Written on Stone, 12 December 2016, https://hakamagazine.com/article-short/south-africa-colonialism-was-written-stone/. Accessed online 12 March 2023

Faris, Peter, 2021, The Rock Art of Resistance, 11 September 2021, https://www.rockartblog.blogspot.com/.

South African History Online, The Khoisan, https://sahistory.org.za/article/khoisan. Accessed online 25 March 2023.

Wikipedia, Cederberg, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cederberg. Accessed online 15 March 2023.