The so-called 'Rosetta Stone' of San rock art is located at the Game Pass Shelter, where Professor David Lewis-Williams decoded the meaning of the art by studying one panel in particular - the painting of the dying eland and a man apparently holding its tail. The man has hooves like the eland, his hair is standing out like the eland's fur, and his legs are crossed, in imitation of the eland's legs. Both the eland and the man are behaving as if they are dying. The man is a shaman going into trance. He is about to leave this world for the spirit world, and he is taking on the power of the eland. This symbolism focuses on a particular part of the San experience - the spirit world journeys.
Whilst the San of this region are long gone, the ancient powers of the art are far from forgotten: Zulu traditional healers and spiritualists still travel from miles around to draw upon the sacred powers of Game Pass Shelter. And today they are joined by thousand of visitors from around the world. Each makes a personal pilgrimage to this sacred place, just as the San did for millennia before. Game Pass Shelter was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the year 2000.
→ South Africa Rock Art Archive
→ South Africa Rock Art Gallery
→ San Rock Art of the Drakensberg
→ RARI - Rock Art Research Institute
→ ARADA - African Rock Art Digital Archive
→ San Rock Art of the Drakensberg
→ Africa's World Heritage Sites
→ SARAP: Southern African Rock Art Project
→ A Map from the Memory of the World
→ Explore Cederberg rock art from your home
→ Early masterpieces: San hunter-gatherer shaded paintings of the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg
→ A Painted Treasure
→ Origins Centre
→ Animals in Rock Art
→ Reflecting Back: 40 Years Since ‘A Survey of the Rock Art in the Natal Drakensberg’ Project (1978-1981)
→ San rock art exhibition at the National Museum & Research Center of Altamira
→ Interview with Dr Ben Smith
→ African Rock Art Archive
→ Bradshaw Foundation
→ Rock Art Network
