Gua Tambun
Coordinates: 4 ° 36 '11 " N , 101 ° 7' 48" E
Gua Tambun ( Malai. For "Tambun Cave") is a rocky roof on the Malay Peninsula . It is located in the northwest of the Malaysian state of Perak . The site is known for its monochrome rock paintings , which are among the oldest in Malaysia and are assigned to the local Neolithic (2,500 to 500 BC). The representations consist of animal, human and vegetable elements, plus a high proportion of abstract symbols.
location
Gua Tambun is located about one kilometer east of Ipoh , the capital of the Malaysian state Perak in the Kinta Valley near the town of Tambun in the Kinta district . The rock roof or Abri belongs to Gunung Panjang ("Long Mountain"), a towering, single mountain made of limestone . On its west side towards the Kinta valley, 30 m above the level of the valley floor, there is a large rock overhang known as the Gua Tambun. The rock overhang extends over a length of 120 m from north to south and protrudes up to 20 m, its height is also 20 m.
Research history
Until the middle of the 20th century, the mountain and the rock overhang served partly as a quarry. In May 1959, RM Rawlings discovered the paintings. JM Matthews made an extensive description of the representations that same year. In the same year he also carried out a small excavation, in which he made three archaeological sections that were roughly in the middle of the demolition and are still visible today as a small recess. During these investigations, several red-colored stone tools and animal remains were recovered, which are probably assigned to the Hoabinh culture (12,000 to 2,000 BC). The rock overhang and its images were ignored for a long time, but it was not until 1976 that the Malay authorities recognized their archaeological significance. Further investigations took place in the 1980s, with a very detailed description from Paul Faulstich from 1984 being presented. In 2005 the rock paintings were designated as a public monument ( Heritage Act 2005 ). The most recent investigations so far took place in 2009, during which numerous new images were discovered.
Rock art
The paintings are in the monochrome (single color) style and consist of reddish, brownish and orange pigments , with the red-colored by far predominate. They were made from hematite , which, according to chemical analyzes, was obtained locally from sediments with a high concentration of iron . The preservation of the image is poor due to weathering , exfoliation and anthropogenic influences; parts of the images are heavily washed out.
The number of images was originally given as 24 to 50 individual images, but the more recent investigations yielded at least 500 individual image elements, which makes Gua Tambun one of the most extensive places with prehistoric paintings in Malaysia. The drawings are arranged in a total of ten panels (panels A to J), whereby the last six groups were only discovered by the new investigations in 2009 and are generally kept quite small. The most significant is Panel C, which is about 10 m long and 4 m high and is located 6 m above ground level. It contains around 400 images alone, most of which are applied in red. Among drawings, the zoomorphic figures, which often depict locally occurring animals, stand out. They combine around 8% of all drawings by Gua Tambun, but cover more than half of the area used. The "X-ray style" for some of the animal representations should be emphasized. Some animals can be interpreted as muntjac and sambar deer due to their horn-like "outgrowths" , others possibly depict monitor lizards and turtles . Fish from the group of catfish-like (probably the locally occurring frogfish ) are also shown several times. Furthermore, anthropomorphic figures can be observed, which, in contrast to the animal images, appear much more stylized. This includes figures with a "dancing" pose. Others, in turn, probably represent hybrid creatures, as a human-like bird figure suggests. A good 3% of the rock carvings can be assigned to the anthropomorphic figures. Floristic elements show a similarly high proportion, including images of mostly indeterminate fruits.
In addition to the clear style elements, abstract symbols and geometric figures are often found in the other panels. Both groups of shapes together achieve the highest proportion of all depictions in Gua Tambun at over 70%, but only cover around a third of the painted wall surface. Typical are angular patterns as in Panel D, lines that occur in distinctive groups of three or oval-shaped characters that are arranged in groups of six and sevens. Unique in Gua Tambun are the images in panel J, which were affixed in white on a black background and are more reminiscent of petroglyphs . Its meaning is unknown.
Animal representation in panel C
poorly preserved animal representation, possibly a muntjak in panel C
abstract symbols and stylized human figure
Assignment and meaning
Little is known about the authorship of the drawings, but it is possible that they go back to the original Senoi population. In general, they are assigned to the local Neolithic (2,500 to 500 BC), which has so far only been little investigated, but is characterized by ceramics decorated with cord, as some sites in neighboring Thailand show. Individual such fragments were also found in the sediment that was originally up to 2 m thick, but which was removed by the quarry work. Radiometric examinations have not yet been carried out, according to experts, the modern anthropogenic damage would distort the data too much. Stylistically, comparisons with other rock paintings in Southeast Asia are hardly possible, rather there are still similarities to those from Australia or India , which emphasizes Gua Tambun's own position.
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c Heinrich Kusch: Cave paintings and rock art sites in the Southeast Asian region. In: Die Höhle - magazine for karst and cave science. 36 (3), 1985, pp. 73-92.
- ↑ a b c d e f Noel Hidalgo Tan, Stephen Chia: 'New' Rock art from Gua Tambun, Perak, Malaysia. In: Rock Art Research. 27 (1), 2010, pp. 9-18.
- ↑ a b c d e Noel Hidalgo Tan, Stephen Chia: Current research on rock art at Gua Tambun, Perak, Malaysia. In: Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association. 31, 2011, pp. 93-108.
- ↑ Mokhtar Saidin, Paul Tacon SC, Yang Decong, George Nash, Sally K. May, Barry Lewis: Illustrating the past - The rock art of Southeast Asia. In: Current World Archeology. 29, 2010, pp. 36-44.
