Mount Tyndall II

Brief description of site: This site consists of three parts - a huge rounded and high boulder. A deeper and higher inner alcove - and an eastern expanse of 9 m of straight and low rock wall. The site faces S to SE and has had its floor, located on the 1580 m contour, badly eroded by the river and by an old road. .
Brief description of art: There are between 350 and 450 individual rock paintings in the shelter. These paintings are concentrated in the east-central end over some 6.5 m of rock wall with a 4 m frieze running off to the west. The rock-paintings are notable for the extensive use of black pigment - even for body infill - whereas this colour is usually only used for details like hooves, outlines and so forth. Though parts of the panel have been entirely obliterated by fire (see Lee, D.N. & Woodhouse, H.C. 1970. Art of the rocks of southern Africa. Cape Town: Purnell. For photographs of the site before fire damage. Other photographs now lodged at the Archaeology Department, University of Pretoria), there is a great variety of imagery at Mount Tyndall:

Human Figures: There are several different types of human figure encountered here. The most striking are the 5 large 400 - 450 mm high black human figures with elaborate head-dresses. Each head-dress is unique and detailed, with hook shapes, forward swept lines, helmeted and so forth. These human figures also have elaborate body decorations in white. On the facet to the left of these figures are at least two earlier human figures in red pigment. Though no partial, these figures must have been huge - over 600 mm tall. They are depicted striding forward carrying large bags. Two human figures are depicted holding sticks over their shoulders as though travelling. A unique group of three black human figures with head-dresses, though less elaborate than the 5 black human figures to the right, are associated with 3 very individually painted weighted digging sticks. These paintings show the stick, the bored stone and even the wooden wedge that kept the bored stone in place. These are - as far as is known - the most detailed depictions of digging sticks. There are several strange or 'non-real' images such as the apparently flying human-animal creature that trails long black streamers.

Animals: Unusually, eland (Tragelaphus oryx) are not numerically dominant as is the norm, accounting for about 35% of animal depictions. Instead, red hartebeest (Alcelaphus buselaphus) dominates. This is an unusual animal in San rock-art. It is depicted, but there are usually few at a site - they make up less than 3% of the animals depicted in the NE Cape - and they are relatively rudimentarily done. At RSA TYN2, the hartebeest are depicted in many poses and with great attention to detail. The leaping or recumbent hartebeest depicted above the 5 elaborate human figures has, for example, a triple row of minute white dots running down its spine. This hartebeest is also painted in a less usual yellow-orange ochre. There are also a number of mountain rhebuck (Redunca fulvorufula) depicted - at least two dozen and mostly along the frieze running off to the west. There are two possible dogs or jackals painted.

Finger paintings: On the lower parts of the shelter's wall are pinkish-red finger painted human figures. These figures have been painted with stock paint and represent the work of shepherds or of the people living in the houses immediately to the north in the next valley.