I don’t usually write twice about sites when I revisit them, but this site is so unusual that I thought another entry would be worthwhile here, especially since we found a few additional pictographs on this visit.
This was one of the first sites I ever found, and one of the first sites I ever wrote about.
Back then my photographic equipment consisted of a compact camera in my shirt pocket. As with all things I get interested in, I go whole hog, so nowadays my full arsenal consists of three DSLR bodies and three lenses and the whole kit weighs … a whole lot. I haven’t actually weighed it. I don’t want to know!
Why three DSLR bodies? One is a full frame camera for the telephoto lens, and the other two are cropped frame bodies, one each for the wide angle and walkabout lenses. The walkabout lens is on a fairly inexpensive body, and having two camera bodies means I don’t have to futz with swapping lenses out while dripping with sweat and trying to keep my footing on a sandy slope. The telephoto lens and its body typically stays behind unless I know I’ll need them. All that glass is what makes it so heavy!
Anyway, enough of that. Let’s get on with the good stuff!
We visited this site with Guy Starbuck, who wrote a very interesting take on it at his site. It was great to visit the site again. I’ve been to dozens of sites since I first visited here but this site is still as impressive to me as it was the first time.
I grabbed some more overview shots of the site while we were here. Let’s look at them.
Here is a good idea of what you see when you look into the shelter for the first time. The light is dim but you immediately see lines of pigment. Note how the lines runs over to the rock faces to the right as well.
DStretch is helpful here. Note that there’s also some faint pigment outside the shelter, to the left and to the right.
This is a good picture, showing almost all of the shelter and the designs. Full disclosure: the author may or may not have had a cheek buried in the dirt and cheeks of an altogether different kind sticking up in the air as this shot was taken.
This is the angle when you stand in the entryway and look into the shelter. Some of the other pictures that show more of the ceiling makes the shelter look taller than it is. It is a large shelter, but not very tall. From this angle you can see how the line towards the right runs around the edge of the ceiling dome.
The apex.
Note the “false start” of the vertical line in the upper center: it looks like it was painted in one direction first before it was altered to run along a different part of the ceiling.
A different angle to give an idea of the scalloped nature of the overhang ceiling.
It takes a close look to notice that the back panel has several spidery lines around it, in addition to the most obvious one, the “exclamation mark”. Note the dots at the end of the vertical line dropping in from the top of the picture. Could those be finger marks?
With DStretch these lines are quite clear. They are present all around the vertical line in the center. It almost looks as if something like a tree branch, lightly covered in pigment, brushed against the shelter here and there to create these faint lines. Also, do you feel how dynamic the elements are? They all seem poised on the edge of movement.
Detail of the lines over to the right. Throughout the shelter you can see the four parallel lines traced by the fingers dipped in pigment. The hands were run lightly over the rock in this case. The pigment is sparsely applied. Note how the one line extends past the other at the intersection in the lower right. Little details like this helps us imagine the order these lines were drawn in.
The lines closer to the entrance.
Here is the back of the shelter again. That little burst motif is very carefully drawn, and the pigment is a lighter orange. I wonder if that means something. Even though the large lines run all over the shelter, this is the only part where they were augmented with more designs.
This time we were more experienced with investigating sites, so we looked in more detail at the little overhang on the other side of the boulder that the tiny tunnel leads to. If you let your eyes adjust to the light, you will see that there are some pictographs in this overhang as well.
This is the back of the smaller shelter. It looks like there’s some elements here after all, once you let your eyes adjust to the gloom.
Yes, there’s something going on here, all right. Let’s take a closer look.
Apart from a single line painted on the ceiling these are the only elements in the second shelter. The two dots of pigment are obvious, and it looks like there might be more faint lines around them. There is also a Rectilinear element below, close to the ground.
With some DStretch added it looks like there might be some spidery lines around the two patches of pigment, but a lot of the surrounding rock has flaked away since, so it is hard to tell for sure. The element below looks a little like a drawing of a mine entrance.
This smaller shelter has a single faint line on the ceiling.
Visiting this site is quite the adventure, and it is great to see that it is still pristine. If you do stop by, make sure to leave it just as beautiful as you found it. The wild corners of the world and their tangible connections with the past are precious.