Rock painting
Rock paintings are a genre of rock paintings that are only painted with color without additional indentations on the rock surface. They differ from the genre of cave painting because of their location on exposed rocky surfaces or under cliffs . It was painted with pigment colors , especially red, yellow or brown ocher ( limonite ), red chalk (based on hematite ) or a mixture of both minerals. Black paint jobs are mostly made from charcoal , which allows direct age determination by means of radiocarbon dating, less often from manganese dioxide . Rock paintings are applied in the form of lines or flat.
Demarcation
If the motifs are incised, pimped or engraved, one speaks of petroglyphs instead (also known as " incised drawings " or engravings). The delimitation is independent of the fact that the reliefs carved into the rock in the case of petroglyphs were in many cases also painted in with color. Because of the frequent rainfall, rock art in Central and Northern Europe was always applied as petroglyphs, such as the Scandinavian rock art of the Nordic Bronze Age (for example rock carvings from Himmelstalund ) or the alpine rock art of Valcamonica .
Origin and interpretation
It is assumed that they originated in the context of ritual trance journeys, mythical performances and dances and that the focus was not on the image but on the ritual act. However, this is only one of many attempts at interpretation, because in many cases the dates of the pictures are unclear, as is the cultural context from which they come. Cognitive archeology deals with the interpretation of rock art, especially African ones .
Regions with rock paintings
- Europe and the Middle East
- Rock paintings in the Spanish Levant
- Anatolian rock art: Latmos Mountains , Turkey
- Swedish / Norwegian Hällmålningen ( rock paintings of Tumlehed , rock carvings Honnhammarneset , rock art in Stor-Åbodsjön )
- Asia
- Kazakhstan: Tamgaly
- Kyrgyzstan: Cholpon-Ata
- China
- India: Bhimbetka
- Indonesia: Borneo ( Lubang Jeriji Saléh ) Sulawesi ( Leang Timpuseng ), West Papua ( Berau Bay ), Kei Kecil ( Dudumahan )
- Malaysia: Gua Tambun
- East Timor: Baguia , Tutuala
- Thailand: Phu Phrabat
- Africa
- North African rock art : Tassili n'Ajjer , Tamrit , Oued de Lechou (Algeria), Tadrart Acacus (Algeria / Libya)
- Malawi: Chongoni
- Namibia: Spitzkoppe , Brandberg , Twyfelfontein
- South Africa: Cedar Mountains ( Western Cape ), Drakensberg
- America
- Mexico: Sierra de San Francisco in Baja California Sur
- Peru: Chichictara (Palpa)
- Brazil: Serra da Capivara National Park
- Australia and Oceania
- Australian rock art: Kakadu National Park ; Uluṟu (formerly "Ayers Rock")
- Easter Island : Orongo cult site
present
Partly rock drawings or paintings are still made today, e.g. B. from the South African San . There are other rock carvings from historical times by the Aborigines in Australia (for example in Ubirr ).
literature
- Paul Bahn : The Cambridge Illustrated History of Prehistoric Art. Cambridge 1998, ISBN 978-0521454735
- Paolo Graziosi: The Art of the Paleolithic. Florence 1956
- Michel Lorblanchet: cave painting, a manual. Sigmaringen 1997
- Hermann Müller-Karpe : Handbook of Prehistory. Munich 1977
- Ann Sieverking: The Cave Artists. London 1979
Individual evidence
- ^ David Lewis-Williams: C ognitive and optical illusions in San Rock Art research. In: Current Anthropology . Volume 27, No. 2, April 1986, pp. 171-178.
