The Kondoa district of central Tanzania is famous for a number of rock art sites which have been attributed to different occupations of the area. These sites have been declared as a National Monument by the Antiquities Act of Tanzania and were inscribed into the UNESCO World Heritage Site list in 2006. Covering approximately 2,336 sq. km, the sites are characterised by the co-occurrence of hunter-gatherer, pastoralist, and Bantu-language speaker rock art traditions (Bwasiri 2013). Although these traditions are sometimes found together in the same shelter, each tradition has its own distinctive style and content.
Hunter-gatherer rock paintings in Kondoa consist mainly of human and animal figures. However, animal paintings are sometimes adorned with masks or strange hairstyles, necklaces, and headdresses. Human figures on the other hand are mostly represented in bending waist form with animal features such as ears and tails. The pastoralist rock art tradition involves painting of large herds of cattle and weapons such as spears and shields and are mostly in black and grey colours. The Bantu-language speaker rock art tradition consists mostly of the finger-painting type of different geometric shapes including dots, lines, squares, and circles. Some recognisable animal forms such as elephant and antelope are also characteristic of this tradition.
Click on the images to enlarge.
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© The South African Rock Art Digital Archive, University of the Witwatersrand
Kondoa represents one of the best collections of prehistoric rock art in the world, with an estimated 1,600 unique cave paintings spread across almost 200 sites.
Sources
1. Bwasiri, E.J. (2008). The management of indigenous living heritage in archaeological world heritage sites: a case study of Mongomi wa Kolo Rock Painting Site, Central Tanzania. Unpublished MA dissertation, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa.
2. Bwasiri, E.J. (2011). The implications of the management of indigenous living heritage: the case study of the Mongomi wa kolo rock paintings World Heritage Site, Central Tanzania. South African Archaeological Bulletin [Link]
3. Bwasiri, E.J. and Smith, B.W. (2015). The rock art of Kondoa District, Tanzania. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa [Link]
4. UNESCO World Heritage. “Kondoa Rock-Art Sites” [Link]