Challenges at Seven African Rock Art Sites
Terry Little, Chief Operations Officer, TARA – Trust for African Rock Art
The threats to rock art and the conservation efforts to deal with these threats vary greatly in the different corners of Africa - not surprisingly given the vastness of the continent. This paper reviews some of the challenges and responses witnessed by TARA (the Trust for African Rock Art) following survey and conservation activities in Angola, Kenya, Malawi, Niger, Somaliland, Tanzania and Uganda over the past four years
Before meaningful conservation measures can be put in place, it is essential to have good records of the sites and their state of preservation. Since its inception in 1996, TARA has documented nearly 800 rock art sites in 19 countries including most of the African rock art sites listed as UNESCO World Heritage[i].
TARA has acted within a Memorandum of Understanding with UNESCO for the protection and promotion of African rock art since 2008. World Heritage rock art sites exist throughout the world, but Africa’s rock art is considered the most extensive. This heritage does indeed open a unique window onto the continent’s past. Listing has benefitted African rock art by raising awareness of this heritage as well as increasing tourism in some cases. It is safe to say that most sites have not been prepared to take advantage of or deal with the issues of increased tourism (e.g. undeveloped infrastructures, lack of models of how to involve local communities in management and benefit sharing). Africa’s rock art sites – listed or not – face numerous conservation challenges: residential or agricultural encroachment, uncontrolled quarrying and deforestation for charcoal burning, graffiti and vandalism.
Of the sites discussed, Chongoni in Malawi and Kondoa, in Tanzania are on the World Heritage List. Dabous, Niger is located in the Aïr and Ténéré Natural Reserve which is listed as World Heritage only for its natural heritage. Nyero is on Uganda’s Tentative List. A group of national and international specialists has recommended that Tchitundu Hulu go onto Angola’s Tentative List, a prerequisite of UNESCO listing. The extraordinary Laas Geel site is in a kind of limbo state since it is located in Somaliland, a self-declared nation which is yet to be internationally recognized; while the site in Kisii has only been recently recorded and has not yet even been gazetted as national heritage in Kenya. That means that each site has access to different levels of technical, financial and moral support at both national and international levels.
Recent UNESCO World Heritage Rock Art Site in Africa: Chongoni, Malawi
The Chongoni Rock Art Site, located in the Dedza District of central Malawi, gained UNESCO World Heritage status in 2006. The stunning landscape is a mixture of grassland with granite outcrops and natural woodland. There are over 127 distinct rock art sites in the Chongoni area and others are yet to be documented. In collaboration with the Malawi Department of Antiquities and in the framework of projects funded by the African World Heritage Fund and the US Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation, TARA has participated in documentation and conservation of Chongoni from 2010 to 2012.
Most Chongoni sites contain red, schematic designs, some enhanced with white in-fills or tiny white dots, and a few at Namzeze site in polychrome (red, yellow and white). These paintings are attributed to Abatwa (Akafula), hunter-gatherers who disappeared from the area in the mid-19th century[ii]. All of the sites contain Late White paintings made by Chewa people and used in their rite-of-passage ceremonies. Those painted in flat white (and very rarely in black) by women for Chinamwali ceremonies usually depict reptile-like zoomorphs. The other Late Whites, also painted in flat white and by men for Nyau ceremonies, depict animals, mythical animals, people and even motor cars.
There are many signs of destruction at Chongoni such as chalk and charcoal graffiti, flaking and darkening due to fire. There is also widespread human encroachment resulting in deforestation in the conservation area. Most of the conservation activities undertaken by TARA are aimed at prevention but in an exceptional circumstance, funding was mobilized to bring in outside expertise to clean chalk and charcoal graffiti and attempt to restore site values to Chentcherere, the most accessible and visited site. It is clear that more work needs to be done to involve the local communities in the management of the sites and the site team has already been actively engaging community bodies.
Africa’s Vanishing Art: Kondoa, Tanzania
Kondoa rock art sites, located on the eastern slopes of the Maasai escarpment bordering the Great Rift Valley in Tanzania were listed as UNESCO World Heritage in 2006. Kondoa paintings, like most hunter-gatherer paintings in parts of eastern and southern Africa have generally been dated to over 2000 years[iii]. Red paintings from the Late Stone Age hunter-gatherers are probably much older. The sites include caves and semi-exposed rock shelters with paintings that depict elongated people, animals, hunting scenes as well as abstract markings. The well-known paleontologist and founding patron of TARA, Dr. Mary Leakey, undertook important field work and research at Kondoa in 1951 resulting in the publication, “Africa’s Vanishing Art”[iv].
TARA has worked with the Tanzanian Department of Antiquities for a number of years in site conservation activities. In 2011, a joint team surveyed the Thawi rock art site complex in the southwestern section of the World Heritage Site which contains at least seven shelters with several hundred rock art paintings including many iconic images associated with the rock art heritage of Kondoa.
With a rapidly growing population there has been increasing pressure on the rock art sites and the conservation area. As with much of the greater Kondoa site, there is extensive deforestation, livestock keeping, farming, quarrying and charcoal burning. There is also a belief that during the first World War the Germans hid treasures near the rock art sites and the art is seen to be a sign that there could be treasures underneath. This has led to a great deal of destruction through illegal excavations next to the sites. The rock art could soon be completely destroyed.
Production of Culture versus Protection of Culture: Kisii, Kenya
Soapstone mining and soapstone handicrafts are considered a major economic activity in Kisii, in western Kenya, employing hundreds of people. Ironically it is today's soapstone sculptors and masons who, through lack of awareness of the ancient rock art heritage surrounding them, are destroying the origins of their own contemporary craft. In 2011, TARA learned from Elkana Ong’esa, a renowned Kenyan sculptor, about a serious threat to Kenya's cultural heritage in Kisii District where an important rock engraving site had recently been destroyed.
In the hills of an area called Sameta, TARA documented many rocks which had grooves, curved lines and cupules (carved hollows) on them and one or two circles. There was a very large rock with masses of lines and grooves, as well as two big eyes and a face at one end of the rock – it appears to be some kind of mythical animal, something for which we have no comparison in East Africa. In Tabaka, near Kisii town, where they are quarrying stone, there are many extremely interesting engravings right at the edge of huge holes and pits, which are clearly at great risk of being destroyed.
Preservation of the rock art should not be perceived as an obstacle to economic development and so TARA, along with the National Museums of Kenya and Design Power Consultants, a local NGO, are making efforts to engage players in the soapstone industry to look for sustainable, alternative solutions to quarrying at the key rock art sites. There is a need to strike a balance between art production and conserving the rock art heritage – not an easy assignment. TARA has recently received project funding from the Prince Claus Fund’s Cultural Emergency Rescue Program. In addition to photo documentation of the sites as risk, the project will identify key opinion leaders who can act as ambassadors of the sites and encourage the rest of the community members to support the conservation efforts.
Serious Natural Threats: Tchitundu Hulu, Angola
Tchitundu Hulu is an extremely remote archaeological site in the Namib province of Angola, and was the location of a 2011 workshop organized by the African World Heritage Fund, UNESCO and the Angolan Ministry of Culture. The main aim of the workshop was to consider the nomination of the rock art site to the UNESCO World Heritage List.
There is an impressive combination of art at the site from different periods and traditions – the earliest from hunter-gathers and the more recent from farmers, according to South Arica’s RARI (Rock Art Research Institute) Director, Ben Smith. A large expanse of the mountain face is covered with geometric – mainly concentric circle – engravings and in the shelters one finds geometric and zoomorphic (birds and antelope) paintings in red, black and white. Research has been carried out at Tchitundu Hulu by Santos Junior (1930), Camarate France (1950), Carlos Everdosa (1980) and Manuel Gutierrez (2010).
The granite hillside where the most impressive engravings are found is said to be sacred for the Kwisi people (a Batwa group distinctive from the San groups of southern Africa). According to oral tradition, Tchitundu Hulu means ‘end of path’ or ‘wall of souls’. The beauty of the site makes it is easy to imagine that the mountain was an important spiritual site for the peoples who created the art.
Due to its isolation, the site has been spared the damage of vandalism so common at rock art sites these days. These engravings are, however, at great risk of natural flaking, which would be exacerbated by uncontrolled visitors or grazing animals walking on the mountain side. The site would greatly benefit from a detailed conservation survey and the adoption of some concrete management plans.
National Pride: Nyero, Uganda
Uganda has a number of important sites, the best known consisting mainly of geometric art painted on semi-protected rock surfaces. The largest known concentration is at Nyero in the Teso region in the eastern part of the country. There are sites on a smaller scale found at Karamoja, and Lolui (Dolwe).
The Department of Museums and Monuments realized that the paintings of Nyero were being damaged and called upon TARA for advice in 2009. One of the conclusions made following a conservation survey was to nominate the site as a World Heritage Site in order to improve its legal status and to carry out a mass sensitization campaign. A serial nomination, Nyero and Related Hunter Gatherer Rock Art Sites in Uganda, has now been put together which includes a swath of Twa art in Eastern Uganda from Karamoja to Dolwe. Threats include widespread granite mining which is scarring much of the natural and cultural landscape (and even taking place within the gazetted site) and encroaching agricultural activities – pigs were being kept in one shelter. One particular painting which the National Museum of Uganda uses as a logo had been smeared with oil for ritual purposes leaving it badly damaged.
The current priority is to conserve and promote the sites through sustainable tourism, including the creation of rock art trails and training of guides. TARA and the Museum have worked together with support from the US Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation and the African World Heritage Fund for two years to sensitize and involve the communities and local authorities on appropriate and effective management of the site. Two exhibitions on the rock art of Uganda have so far been carried out at the National Museum and at the site in Kumi, Nyero.
Managing Heritage in a Disputed State: Laas Geel, Somaliland
In 2010, on the initiative of the Somaliland Director of Antiquities, Sada Mire, the UNESCO office in Nairobi funded a conservation survey of a few key sites in Somaliland, a self-proclaimed state with its own functioning government and currency.
Laas Geel, not far from the capital city of Hargeisa, is Somaliland's premier rock art site. It consists of nine painted shelters and one engraved panel. The sites are located on the slopes of a granite hill west of the road from Hargeisa to Berbera. These sites are named after the nearby “Laas Geel” or “Camels’ Well”.
The majority of the paintings at this site are pastoral-style and most of the animals depicted are cows painted in a very particular schematic style. Human figures and geometrics are also depicted. One dominant style portrays cows with very long necks, small box-like heads, very large curving horns and exaggerated udders. Another portrays them with very thick, decorated necks and no heads at all, just long curving horns where the head should be. Human figures often appear to be wearing red trousers and standing with outstretched arms either underneath the necks of the cows or under the bellies of the cows sometimes looking as if they are drinking from the udders.
Two of the shelters are densely painted and we estimate that each may contain around 200 paintings some of which are exceptionally well preserved. The colors are often vibrant, and the style is unique. The site has been described as the “Sistine Chapel of African Rock Art”. Based on samples taken from one of the shelters, a team of archaeologists from the University of Montpelier in France has proposed dates of nearly 4000 years BP[v].
While the paintings have been enthusiastically recorded and studied by archaeologists and rock art researchers, little has been done to ensure their survival. The conservation challenges are many including the absence of any legal framework protecting heritage sites. An unsuccessful attempt was made a few years ago to fence off the shelters with barbed wire. The fences were badly constructed and interfere with the integrity of the site and do not achieve their aim of keeping out grazing livestock. Lack of training (or training opportunities) means that the site custodians are not well prepared to protect or valorize the sites.