Rock art: power and symbolism in southern Africa

Good small exhibition at the British Museum looking at prehistoric paintings on rocks in southern Africa.

The British Museum has been actively recording this art since 1875  painted by the ancestors of the San|Bushmen, small nomadic groups of hunter, gatherers. Most show animals and appear in caves and on boulders.

There were some great photographs of the work but only one real piece. It was from Zimbabwe showing antelope in red ochre on pink quartzite. It seems to have been part of a rock face and shows signs of being painted a brush.

I am fascinated by early art works like these as they point to fundamental human need to record the world around them.

Closes on 20 November 2016

 

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