The African Rock Art Digital Archive (ARADA) curates numerous collections of rock art images at the Rock Art Research Institute (RARI), University of the Witwatersrand; high resolution scans of tracings and slides, photographs, re-drawings, negatives, large format (e.g. Hasselblad), artistic renderings as well as historical documents. We have also incorporated thousands of born-digital image files and stitched digital images. The Archive is now one of the largest in the world, with over 300,000 digital images from more than 7,000 rock art sites.
Physical archives can deteriorate for several reasons and digital preservation helps keep originals safe in temperature- and humidity-controlled environments, secure from excessive handling. Originals that have already deteriorated - such as slides that start to change colour - can be digitally restored. RARI’s Digi-Lab has scanned all the existing archives in the Institute and has created an online database that can be accessed via this web portal. Having begun the process in 2002 with funding from the Ringing Rocks Foundation, then received a substantial grant from the Andrew Mellon Foundation. In recent years, however, the Lab has been supported by Canon South Africa, with the sponsoring of three technician’s posts (see, ’The Team ’).
The project has expanded beyond South Africa to include collections from other parts of Africa, as well as materials held in some European institutions. To reflect its growth the archive, originally known as the South African Rock Art Digital Archive (SARADA) is now known as the African Rock Art Digital Archive (ARADA).
As well as housing RARI’s extensive archive, ARADA curates South African national collections owned by the Albany Museum, the Ditsong Museums, the National Museum of Cultural History, the Iziko Museums, the KwaZulu-Natal Museum, the National Museum of South Africa, the University of Cape Town (UCT), University of South Africa (UNISA), Mariannhill Monastery and the Ukhahlamba Rock Art Mapping Project (RAMP).
In southern Africa, ARADA curates images for the Analysis of Rock Art of Lesotho (ARAL) project, Malawi’s Department of Antiquities, the National Museum of Namibia, and the National Heritage Conservation Commission of Zambia,
Internationally, ARADA curates the rock art collections of the University of Cologne, the Naprstek Museum of the Czech Republic, the University of Rome La Sapienza, and The Weltmuseum of Vienna.
Private collections in ARADA include those of Victor Biggs, Janette Deacon, Conraad De Rosner, The Ellenberger Family, Alison Gans, John Hone, Elwin Jenkins, Pieter Jolly, Cornelia Kleinitz, Jean-Loïc Le Quellec, Fabrizio Mori, Gerald Newlands, Kurt Petz, Helmut Reuning, Heinrich Roth, Renee Rust, Jurgen Schadeberg, Benjamin Smith, Lucas Smits, Tommy Topp and Stephen Townley-Bassett,
ARADA is registered as a Section 21 company not for financial gain, but with the sole purpose of furthering research, education, and site management, thereby helping promote the development and reconstruction of Southern Africa's history. If you would like to support our work, please get in touch.