Item RARI-HT-01-175HC.jpg - RARI HT 01 175HC

Brief description of site: RSA-GLL2 is a large stone bottomed and curving overhang and is part of a chain of smaller rock shelters. The site is 30 m long, up to 4 m high and up to 3.5 m deep, gently sloping and facing south-west on the 1860 m contour. The site has a very good view. There are many brambles encroaching onto the site, which is also rather wet.

There is not much in the way of archaeological deposit within the site, which has a sloping rock bottom. Use as a stock shelter has meant considerable churning of what deposit there is and a great deal of dung overburden. On the scree slope below the site there are numerous Bushman artefacts. In terms of stone tools, there are many present at this site. Most of these tools are made on fine-grained agate rocks known generally as crytpo-crystalline silicates or oplaines. Every stage of stone tool manufacture is present. There are cores - large lumps of rock from which stone tools are made. There are flakes - general-purpose cutting tools. Adzes are present and were used for woodworking in much the same way as a spokeshave. End and side-scrapers, often in the shape of a thumbnail were used to prepare leather. There are also rare burins and awls - used to pierce. These stone tools and the paintings show that this site was a long-term home and spiritual centre for Bushman communities. At the opposite end of the site are substantial stone walls, parts of which may also date from these early White settler days, though they have no doubt been re-made many times. A pecked and meandering channel on a horizontal ledge in the centre of the site presents something of a mystery and it is bot certain who made this. In an adjacent painted shelter the name ?J C Orpen has been carefully engraved. Many of the rock edges have been smoothed and abraded.
Brief description of art: There are at least 250+ extant rock paintings in this site made by at least three cultural groups:

Bushman rock paintings: These make up the majority of the site's art. Many more paintings would have been visible were it not for the severe vandalism suffered at this site. The remaining imagery is primarily done in the muted, shaded colours characteristic of older Bushman rock art and is exceptionally interesting and includes: numerous eland (Tragelaphus oryx). One beautiful orange, white, black and red eland cow is shown with a nasal or oral emission, probably blood, interestingly, this eland has three sets of parallel white stripes on its body - a 'non-real' and as yet unexplained visual convention that is found in the north-eastern Cape's Bushman rock art. There are eland in a variety of poses such as walking, leaping and even being upside-down. Other interesting images include a bizarre composite human-animal creature (known as a therianthrope) painted high up on the ceiling. This figure is painted in red, white and black and has spiky emanations on its back. Two orange lions appear to be chasing a group of people - a similar theme to the lion chases on Balloch and Blue Bend. Nearby are red and white paint sprays. In two places there are curious black bloc-like images. These might represent bags. There is a group of 6 red tall human figures painted very close together.

Khoekhoen herder rock paintings: Amongst the Bushman rock paintings are at least 32 red dots of paint applied with the fingertips. These fingerdots occur in double rows in at least 3 places and are characteristic of the newly-recognised rock art tradition of Khoekhoen (formerly 'Khoi' or 'Hottentot') herders. At RSA GLL2 these Khoekhoen fingerdots are painted on top of the Bushman rock paintings and are thus older. Predominantly a non-representational art the full range of which consists of finger dots and stripes, handprints, geometric designs and rudimentary human and animals figures.

White settler rock paintings: In at least three places at RSA GLL2 there are paintings of octagonal pointed designs in a red, sheep marker-like paint. The linearity and manner - which seems aimed at obtaining a 3-dimensional effect by using two tones of the red paint - suggest that these are white-authoured, and may represent a compass or navigation device. There is a partial word `CHARN…' as well as a 'C.H.A.' Recent stone-scratching and charcoal graffiti are probably also white authored.

Mystery painting episode: There is also an episode of 'cruder' human and animal figures painted in white. These may be a non-San painting episode and may even be Sotho or Xhosa-authored.

History of the collection

The Tongue collection is currently split between two Institutions. The final colour copies, just over 100 in total, including those that were exhibited and published, are stored at the Iziko Museums of Cape Town. Tongue's original tracings and line drawings (some derived directly from Stow copies) are housed at the Rock Art Research Institute. A large number of these had originally been donated to the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford in 1921, but these were returned to the Rock Art Research Institute in South Africa in 1990s thanks to the farsighted vision of Professor Ray Inskeep. Read Less
Background of the Recorder

M. Helen Tongue was a school teacher at Rockland Girls' High during the 1890s and 1900s in the town of Cradock in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. It was here that she met Dorothea Bleek, daughter of famous San linguist and ethnographer, Wilhelm Bleek. The two travelled widely visiting rock art sites in the region. Tongue developed a direct contact tracing technique to record each image (both painted and engraved) in its exact proportions and in its relationship to other images as they appeared on the rock surface. In this way, she took an important step beyond the pioneer recording work of George Stow. Tongue's Eastern Cape copies are her earliest. Her first copy was made on a farm in Molteno District. In this early work, she worked alone. But, the bulk of her copies were made during three longer fieldtrips beyond the Eastern Cape border, together with Dorothea Bleek. At the beginning of 1906, Tongue and Bleek made a train trip from Cradock to Bloemfontein and Ladybrand (Free State), where they recorded various rock art sites. Most of the sites visited were located by using the descriptions of George Stow. A second expedition in the summer of 1906/07 took them through the Eastern Cape and into Lesotho. Their third and final expedition was by train to Fauresmith (Free State) and wagon to Luckhoff in the Karoo (Western Cape). In 1908 a selection of Tongue copies were exhibited at the South African Public Library in Cape Town and then at the Royal Anthropological institute in London. In 1909 a series of copies were brought together in a handsome portfolio of 54 plates and an accompanying book with two collotype plates and eight black-and-white photographs. Helen Tongue wrote descriptions for each site and each plate, Dorothea Bleek contributed "Notes on the Bushmen" and Henry Balfour wrote a preface. The book was titled "Bushman Paintings", it was Tongue's first and only rock art publication