Title:

Art beyond sight

Author(s):
Publication Year:
2023
Abstract:

The rock art of the Khomas Region is not as well-known as that of the Erongo Region with its celebrated apex sites at the Dȃures, Erongo Mountains, the Spitzkoppe, and !Ui-ǁaes (Twyfelfontein). Historically and intellectually, there has been less of a sustained research interest in the rock art of the Khomas Region, notwithstanding the ground-breaking work of Ernst Scherz in the 1970s and late 1980s and a sprinkling of more recent articles devoted to some of the rock art sites of the Region. This, in and of itself, is enough reason to write about the rock art of a region yet to be comprehensively documented, surveyed and researched. Over the past eighteen years the author has visited more than 320 rock art sites located on 62 farms within the boundaries of the region. Undoubtedly, there are more sites to be documented and discovered, and through this, more insights to be gained into southern African rock art. Most of the art dates from the Later Stone Age (LSA), with some a few hundred years BP (Before Present), and typical material artefacts of that period are to be found at or in close proximity to the sites. The vast majority of the paintings are rendered in ochre and show the interaction between animals and people, and scenes from daily life, with some abstract renderings as well. The rock art of the Khomas Region needs to be considered within a wider frame of southern African rock art research. Moreover, the researcher must be aware of and sensitive to diverse theoretical and methodological approaches to rock art, while respecting an ethnographic foundation, in an attempt to derive meaning from the paintings. Keywords: Rock art, Khomas Region, ethnography, storylines in rock art, imagistic mosaic of San (Bushman) myth, animals as symbols, art and landscape, rock art panels, artefacts, quarts-microliths.

Publication Title:

Journal of the Namibia Scientific Society

Volume:
70
Pages:
31-42
Item Type:
Journal Article
Language:
en
Files:
Attachment Size
Art beyond sight.pdf 1.2 MB

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