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| Activities at Rooisand Desert
Ranch — Rooisand Rock
Paintings |
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 Rooisand recommends: Brandberg -
der Bilderberg Namibias
by T.
Lenssen-Erz + M. Theres-Erz, published 2000 in the Jan
Thorbecke publishing house, ISBN 3-7995-9030-7 (German
only)
Are you impressed with Rooisand Desert Ranch and the
leisure
activities on offer? Don't hesitate, ask for a
non-binding quote
by email today. |
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| For a long time, only a few
and not particularly well-preserved rock paintings left by Namibia's indigenous
hunter-gatherer people were known to exist at Rooisand Desert Ranch. The
following three pictures show these paintings. The one in the middle is quite
extraordinary and rare: it depicts a seal even though Rooisand is about 190 km
from the sea and the desert between the escarpment and the Atlantic coast is
among the most arid and hostile on earth. |
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Previously unknown paintings,
some of them well-preserved, were discovered by mere chance in May 2005 (see
our News Archive). They will be examined by experts in the near future, and
Rooisand's guests - accompanied by a guide - will then be able to look at them.
According to first assessments by experts the scene on the left picture
below could be interpreted as a hunter fighting with a lion (on the right). The
figure on the left is clearly a woman who apparently tries to escape. The
portrayal of a fight is also extremely rare in Namibia's prehistoric world of
pictures. Below are enlargements of both parts of the painting. |
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| ... the scene as a whole |
the lion and a hunter...
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and
Rooisand's "Lady in Red" |
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This is such an
extraordinary rock painting that the Rooisand team has given names to both
parts of the scene; the left part is Rooisand's Lady
in Red and the right one is called the Brave Hunter..
The large majority of the
paintings have been done in shades of red. The ground pigment was obtained by
crushing ferruginous red stone (haematite). The powder was mixed with albumen -
blood, for example, or the white of bird's eggs. The colour becomes more
intense if haematite is exposed to fire before crushing. Even today, this is
still the recipe for making body paint.
This paint, containing
ferruginous material, is absorbed by the rock surface and chemically combines
with it. Thus there is practically no paint on the "canvas" and the paintings
only start to fade after hundreds, or rather thousands of years as the rock
itself erodes.
It is likely that
small wooden sticks with animal hair or feathers attached to them served as
paintbrushes. Remnants of charcoal, bits of beads from ostrich eggshells,
potsherds as well as extracted and shaped pieces of rock crystal were
immediately found below the rock face. Several large caves in the vicinity of
the rock paintings suggest that all through the ages people have stayed here
time and again.
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Rock paintings are not easily discovered. The pictures on the left
tell you why. The first one shows what you see when you stand in front of the
rock face. The second one gives a close-up view.
Rough estimates of the
age of Namibia's rock paintings cover a period of almost 30.000 years. The
paintings at Rooisand are probably around 2.000 years old. |
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The Kudu bull, centre and
right in the series of pictures below, is one of the most beautiful in the
country - according to an expert on Namibian rock paintings. The horn of the
Kudu is not painted, but is a quartz vein in the rock integrated into the
picture. This, too, is highly uncommon.
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| ... a springbok?? |
a
Kudu bull ...
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and a Kudu detail |
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More paintings were discovered on the farm in January. The animation
on the right shows how superbly the painters knew how to depict an animal.
Stones which clearly had been shaped for daily use by the painters were
found below the paintings straightaway.
See more Rooisand rock paintings on our picture gallery
page. |
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Top of page
 Print version
of this page |
Rooisand recommendation: Brandberg
- der Bilderberg Namibias by T. Lenssen-Erz + M. Theres-Erz, published
2000 in the Jan Thorbecke publishing house, ISBN 3-7995-9030-7 (german
only) |
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