Sydney rock engravings
The Sydney rock engravings are an Aboriginal rock art consisting of people, animals and symbols engraved in sandstone. They are located in and around Sydney , New South Wales , Australia . Many thousands of such engravings are known in the Sydney region, but the location of most of them is not published in order to avoid damage from vandalism and to respect sanctity, as they are still considered sacred by the Aborigines. The rock engravings are accessible in Ku-ring-gai-Chase National Park on the northern outskirts of Sydney.
The rock engravings are similar to the petroglyphs of the Native Americans and the rock art that is found in other places in Australia. However, the one in Sydney has its own style that sets it apart from other rock art. The rock engravings are estimated to be at least 5000 years old. Other engravings show European sailing boats and cannot be more than 200 years old. Since older engravings have sometimes been renewed, they can appear younger than they actually are.
history
The rock engravings were made by the Aborigines who had lived in the Sydney region for around 25,000 years, including the Eora , Darug and Guringai . Current archaeological techniques cannot directly date the age of the rock engravings; instead, indirect methods are used. Aboriginal people reached northern Australia about 50,000 years ago; the earliest evidence of settlement in the Sydney region is around 10,000 years old, such as the Bidjigal Reserve in the Hills District in northwest Sydney. Traces have been found in the Blue Mountains that indicate a settlement from around 20,000 years ago, so that it is assumed that the Sydney region was inhabited at the same time, but that no finds from this time have been found. Traces of settlement on the coast were inundated by rising sea levels around 10,000 years ago.
style
In rock overhangs, which were used for protection and temporary housing, mostly rock paintings and only rarely rock carvings are attached. Rock carvings are mostly on horizontal open areas.
The rock engravings in Sydney are in a style that is referred to as "simple and descriptive" because on the one hand the figures are depicted with little detail and on the other hand these figures can be recognized. Almost always only the outer contours of the object to be displayed are shown.
Several production stages can be derived from the investigation of the engravings: Presumably, a sketch of the contours and the surface of the rock was first scratched. A series of holes were then drilled along the line with a pointed stone or bowl, which was easy because of the relatively soft sandstone in the Sydney Basin . Finally, the holes were tied together by rubbing a sharp stone along the line.
This resulted in U-shaped grooves that were typically about 2 cm deep and 2 cm wide. They are easy to distinguish from natural grooves in sandstone, which are usually V-shaped, and modern grooves made with steel tools because these are usually narrower and deeper.
Cultural meaning
Its cultural significance is unknown, but when compared to the rock engravings of those Aboriginal peoples still alive today, one can guess. Some sites were likely used to hold ceremonies to increase the productivity of food sources such as kangaroo or fish. It is believed that most of these passages primarily depict such animals. It has been claimed that some engravings show the thylacine and other mammals that have been extinct in the Sydney area for millennia and therefore date from when they were still alive. However, there is still no clear evidence for this, although, for example, extinct animals that are tens of thousands of years old are depicted in Kakadu National Park .
Other places have probably been used for initiation rites where the transition from childhood to adulthood was celebrated and supported by boys. In addition, the ancestral spirits from the dreamtime such as Baiame , who has a striped headdress and often a striped body, were depicted in many places ; or daramulan , who has large chunky feet and was probably made in part from an emu . In other places one can find references to an astronomy of the Aborigines . Some posts have served multiple purposes.
literature
- Sydney Rock Engravings
- Stanbury & Clegg: A Field Guide to Aboriginal Rock Engravings , Oxford University Press 1990.
- Josephine McDonald (2008) Dreamtime superhighway: an analysis of Sydney Basin rock art and prehistoric information exchange ISBN 1921536160