AN EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION INTO THE ORIGIN OF INCISED LINES ON A 4000-YEAR-OLD ENGRAVING FROM WONDERWERK CAVE, NORTHERN CAPE PROVINCE

摘要

In 1979, excavations at Wonderwerk Cave, situated in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa, yielded several small slabs of dolomitic rock with fine-line engravings of animals and geometrics (Thackeray et al. 1981). One of these examples of art mobilier, radiocarbon-dated to circa 4000 BP, bears the engraved image of a zoomorph that has been likened to a zebra (Thackeray et al 1981). For the sake of continuity we refer to the zoomorph as a zebra, although it could possibly depict another striped species such as a bushbuck or kudu. The 20 mm thick dolomitic slab is broken, perhaps deliberately, and retains only the hind quarters and rump of the zebra. The surface of the stone that the image occupies appears to have been smoothed in preparation for the engraving. Present on the rump are several fine incised lines, virtually impossible to see with the naked eye, that have been interpreted as symbolic wounds in the context of the principle of 'sympathetic hunting magic' (belief in securing success in a prospective hunt or control over an animal through ritually 'wounding' an image) (Fig. 1; Thackeray 2005a). These lines, although clustered together, appear random, and it is not immediately obvious if and how they relate to the zebra engraving. The purpose of this paper is partly to assess the amount of pressure required to produce such incisions, and also to assess, through experimental replication and microscopic analysis, whether these fine lines were intentionally engraved to form part of the larger image.