Rock Art in the Northern Cape

An important key to understanding humankind's past, rock art is a fascinating aspect of South African and world heritage. In the Northern Cape, engravings (made by scratching into the rock surface), paintings, and finger paintings proliferate throughout the province and still carry an aura of mystique, since relatively little is known about them. Although some archaeologists have attributed the origins of rock art to ancient Egyptians, Phoenicians, and even extraterrestrial races, the rock art found here was created by ancestors of the San. Materials came from the immediate environment. Ocher (red iron-oxide clay) was used to obtain red, charcoal for black, and white clay for white. Blood, egg, and plant juices were used for binding, creating a paint with obvious staying power.

Most rock art illustrates the activities and experiences of the African medicine people, or shamans. Religious rituals, such as those for making rain and healing the sick, involved trances and inspired visions, from which rock-art images were created. The images included large animals, such as the highly regarded eland and rhino, which were believed to possess supernatural power. Half-animal, half-human representations and geometric patterns and grids are also featured. The shamans believed that when an image was drawn, power was transferred to the land.

Today some of the province's most significant examples of rock art are found at Wonderwerk Cave and Wildebeest Kuil. The former contains one of the country's oldest engravings—at some 10,200 years old—as well as finger paintings, a method used by older-era painters. The latter is well known because its animal engravings are easily accessible to visitors.