Archaeology
Wildebeest Kuil
This
web page gives you but a taste of the Wildebeest Kuil Rock Art
Centre outside Kimberley in the Northern Cape, South Africa. Visit
it as soon as you can!
Your gate-way to Wildebeest Kuil's rock art is a visitors' centre where displays and a 25-minute film introduce you to the site. Our community-based guides are trained to take you over the site or choose to go on an audio tour of the site (you will receive a small portable audio player), and you will enjoy equally fascinating commentary at each of 10 marked "stations".
On your return, the N//aoh Djao shop at the Centre is the premier outlet for art and craftwork made by the !Xun and Khwe San community, the owners of the surrounding farms. Rock Art books also available; and refreshments. Facilities (auditorium, fully equipped kitchen etc.) can be hired for small conferences, end-of-year functions and the like.
Join the Friends of Wildebeest Kuil to receive a regular newsletter and take part in our activities:
Rock engravings form part of South Africa's national estate. The Wildebeest Kuil Rock Art Centre was developed and is run by the Northern Cape Rock Art Trust and, with the site itself, is situated within a servitude held by the Trust for public access. The farm belongs to the !Xun and Khwe Communal Property Association. The !Xun and Khwe CPA is a principal partner in the management of the site. Staff at the site are employed with the provincial funding through the McGregor Museum which managed the site on a daily basis.
Premier EM Dipico's Opening Speech
ROCK ART – BACKGROUND
In South Africa, there are 15,000 recorded rock art sites and probably as many as yet unrecorded. The art occurs in two forms: engravings and paintings. Engravings are found mostly on the dry inland plateau of South Africa, while paintings occur mostly in the mountainous areas, such as the Drakensberg and the Cederberg.
WHO MADE THE ENGRAVINGS ?
Most of the rock art in Southern Africa was made by Later
Stone Age people, ancestors of the historical San. People who called
themselves /Xam from the northern Karoo and the Postmasburg
District, who were interviewed in the 1870s, said their fathers had
made engravings of animals. Some of South Africa’s rock art has been
linked with Khoekhoe herders and with Bantu-speaking farmers.
HOW WERE THE ENGRAVINGS MADE?
The engravings at Wildebeest Kuil were made by the 'pecking'
technique: a hard, pointed stone was used to chip away the outer
crust of the rock, exposing the lighter coloured rock beneath. With
time, the exposed portions become as dark as the outer crust through
weathering and the build-up of desert varnish.
HOW OLD ARE THE ENGRAVINGS?
It is not known exactly how old the engravings at Wildebeest Kuil
are, but it is estimated they were made between 1,000 and 2,000
years ago. Engraved stones have been found at Wonderwerk Cave near
Kuruman in levels dating between 2,000 and 10,000 years ago and rock
paintings have been dated in southern Namibia to about 27 000 years
ago, indicating that the tradition of Southern African art is an
exceptionally long one. An engraved piece of ochre from Blombos Cave
on the south Cape coast is dated to 77 000 years ago.
WHAT DO THE ENGRAVINGS MEAN?
Research indicates that the engravings are not products of idle
doodling, nor are they straightforward narratives, but comprise a
sophisticated religious art associated with rituals in San society
mediated by medicine people or shamans. It was believed that power
received through controlled use of trance could harnessed to heal
the sick, control animals, and make rain. It is suggested that many
of the engravings were inspired by visions experienced during
trance, and were depicted on the rocks so that others could share
and draw inspiration from them. They may relate particularly to
rain-making rituals.
Sites chosen by the artists for their engravings were probably
significant places in local beliefs. The andesite rock surfaces at
Wildebeest Kuil may have been, to the artists, a kind of interface
with the spirit world. A number of curious “unfinished” images of
animals at Wildebeest Kuil may represent the “luring” of the power
of these animals from the spirit world behind the rock. The magical
expanses of smooth, glaciated rock surface at Driekopseiland and
Nooitgedacht may similarly have been marked with rock art because
they were in some way special places in local religious belief.
DID YOU KNOW?
Some engravings from Wildebeest Kuil were removed and exhibited at
the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London in 1886, and are
currently in the collection of the British Museum. Early removals of
the art were often rationalised in terms of preserving the art in
museum contexts. We now know that placement of the art within a site
was significant, and removal thus destroys part of its meaning.
General Information on the Wildebeest Kuil Rock Art Centre
The Northern Cape Rock Art Trust