Ethiopian Rock Art

• Study notes on Ethiopian Art History I, Lecture 2

Neolithic Pastoral Arts of Ethiopia

• During the Neolithic period, humans shifted from mobile to sedentary lifestyles
• Hunting and gathering transitioned to plant and animal domestication
• Climatic change and increased hunter-gatherer populations led to a decline in animals and plant availability
• Food gatherers began growing common grass types with edible seeds
• Hunting reduced big animals dependent on dense bushes, while smaller animals were easily domesticated

Distribution of Rock Arts in Ethiopia

• Rock arts are widely spread across Northern, Southern, and Southeastern Ethiopia
• Rock arts are present in locations with favorable geographical and geological factors
• Paintings and petroglyphs are found in shelters, caves, and boulders
• Unpublished sources and informants suggest rock arts exist on Lake Ziway's island in south-central Ethiopia and in the Afar National Regional State in eastern Ethiopia
• Both paintings and engravings have been found in Ethiopia
• Pictographs are the dominating form, exceeding petroglyphs
• Rock paintings are widely located in southeastern and northern areas
• Rock engravings are mainly located in the southern parts of the country
• Petroglyphs are carvings or inscriptions on rocks
• Pictographs are ancient or prehistoric drawings/paintings on rock walls

Themes and Characteristics of Ethiopian Rock Art

• Two major types exist
• Naturalistic (real) paintings demonstrate artistic skill and are easily understood
• The figures they portrayed are easy to understand
• The second group shows less artistic skill with schematic or symbolic object representations
• Abstract paintings (geometric) contain unknown figures like dots, circles, and lines, making their meanings hard to decipher
• Some sites were painted for ideological reasons
• Paintings of ibexes hold ideological meanings
• An ibex was depicted on the Temple of Yeha sculpture from the first millennium BC
• The sacred throne of Hawelti-Melazo, dating to around 300 BC, features ibex decorations, reflecting religious significance in the first millennium BC
• Lions are represented with ideological purposes
• Lions were in Pre-Aksumite and Aksumite architecture and archaeological contexts of both cultures
• Current Ethiopian rock arts depict limited fighting, cultivation, and hunting scenes
• The dominant subject in Ethiopian rock art remains the depiction of domestic cattle
• Early drawings portray numerous cattle and few humans, likely herdsmen
• Displayed cattle were mostly Hamitic-originated, long-horned cattle (Bos africanus)
• These animals lack humps, have a great height, and long horns
• Drawings of short-horned humpless cattle (Bosbrachycerous), fat-tailed sheep with lambs, goats, donkeys, horses, dogs, camels, ostriches, giraffes, oryxes, hyenas, monkeys, apes, and elephants can be found

Depiction of Cattle

• Humped cattle (zebu) feature a thoracic hump and occur in conventionalized schematic paintings and engravings, suggesting entry to Ethiopia around the 1st millennium AD during Aksumite times
• Emphasis on cattle horns through twisted, deformed, abnormal (downward, forward curving), and high-arching positioning signifies domestication
• Evidence indicates domestication and use for economic and ideological purposes

Style and Techniques of Ethiopian Rock Art

• Style and techniques are used by scholars to differentiate drawing approaches of artists across different locations and times
• Style comes from the Latin stylus, originally denoting handwriting types
• Renfrew and Bahn define style as the manner of carrying out an act, showing how an artist represents animals, humans, cultural activities, and landscapes
• Style reveals how artists perceives space and events across history
• Style is the collection of expression qualities inherent to artists or schools in paintings, sculptures, or engravings
• Mori (1998) defined style as exceeding the total of its parts, the product of an age, and the manual gestures and bears witness to mental achievement reached a group level
• Gestural and manual skills are integrated to the cultural makeup of that moment in history
• Style represents the individual and handiwork, guided by situational awareness
• Style is influenced by arrangement of figures, dimensions, patina, engraving execution, pigment thickness in paintings, broad paint application through outline/flat wash techniques
• Technique is connected to style and helps to create it
• Technique in the past relates to incised drawings on rock, so petroglyph style is judged by drawing methods

Petroglyphs

• Incised (relief) and polished techniques are used at Galma (Sidama)
• Relief sculpture merges two and three-dimensional arts
• Relief needs a support surface and is in a plane to maintain visibility, exhibiting three-dimensional aspects
• There are various petroglyph execution styles on rocks. The best techniques include stone saw/file, scraping or dashes made in upward/downward motions
• The most common rock drawing is the use of stone tools (burins) on stone surfaces
• Backward/forward motions with stone allow sawing/filling, creating scratched, grooved, or rubbed lines based on the sharpness of the tool
• Hammering (pecking, pocking, bruising, battering) can make a dotted outline
• Petroglyphs can be executed by the scraping/grattage technique
• Dashes in some Southern African petroglyphs involve oblique tooling for incised figures
• Drilling hole series are another popular method of creating figures on rocks, particularly in Australia
• The grinding/polishing technique in Scandinavian granite is another method for rock drawings
• Relief, sunken Egyptian murals exist as ways of drawing figures
• Metallic tools, paired with the aforementioned techniques, assist in carving rock art; resulting lines are deep and cut "V" shapes
• The term sketching or painted bas-relief are other methods of drawing arts on hard materials
• Various styles are distinguished in Africa depending on their descriptions/definitions including the art of the Sahara, the Horn of Africa, Nilo Valley and Southern Africa
• Ethiopian rock art belongs to the Horn style, also known as the Ethiopian-Arabian Style
• The Ethiopian- Arabian Style can be found in Ethiopia and Arabia
• Differing views suggest recognizable rock art styles traced back to work done in the 1930s by Clark: Naturalistic and conventional, engravings and stylized drawings
• In the 1960s, Bailloud identified 2 paintings, known as "Urso Style" and "Laga-Oda Style"
• In the 1970s, Cervicek distinguished developmental stages, known as Surre-Hanakiya (with 2 sites in Ethiopia, and Arabia) and Dahthami
• The Dahthami can be divided into early and late; the earliest is recognized by its schematic paintings and or engravings, while its paintings are characterized by Christian motifs and geometric shapes
• Humped zebu is also found throughout this site
• In 2001, it was suggested that Southern Ethiopia engravings differed, belonging to the Shabe-Galma Style which includes a long-horned human figure
• The engravings at Godana Kinjo, Ejersa Gara Hallo, Laga Harro belong to the Shabe-Galma Style
• Consensus reached between scholars dictates Ethiopian rock art is split up in to Dahthami and Surre-Hanakiya

Early and Late Phases of Rock Art

• Early- Herding with long-horned cattle. Rendered w/ merged forelimbs, pincer impressions, rounded legs and feet
• Grooves, in this phase have been founded w/ pincer like grooves
• In most cases, legs end rounded without hooves
• Only leg pairs are in sight
• 4 legs can be presented
• Segments are used to represent ears
• Horns are long and thin
• The sides, heads and necks of animals in the Ethiopian-Arabian style are also long and thin
• Domesticated cattle are in full display throughout the first phase, but are limited within their distribution
• Wide ranges in drawing styles are present along trends w/ schematic representations of cattle, as well as large drawings as found in bucrania
• Missing of ears of cattle
• The animals' heads are hard to discern throughout the body
• In paintings, geometric shapes are prominent
• Humans, zebu or humped cattle can be depicted along fat-tailed horses that can be found in other styles

The Human

• They are drawn in dashes and often in the shape of the letter "H"
• The style can be traced in parts of Ethiopia

Rock Art Sites in Ethiopia

• Published and unpublished sources indicate a concentration of these sites in Southeastern Ethiopia, Southern Ethiopia and Northern Ethiopia

Southeastern Ethiopia

• There is a large distribution of rock art in this region
• Specifically, it is concentrated in Dire Dawa and Eastern Haraghe, Oromia
• There has been more than 14 caves/shelters that have paintings recorded
• Kulubi/Kombolcha/Cheleno, and towns like Dire Dawa, Harar and Grawa
• Paintings near the town of Dire Dawa at Ourso/Serkarma. These are located deep within dark cave They represent humpless sheep
• Cave paintings at the site exhibit oxen, lamb and fat-tailed sheep
• Urso is located on the earliest parts
• A limestone cave that exhibit a north town by the town of Kulibi is found 25 km away. A man by the name of Azais and Oncieu Chappardon found this cite
• Symbols of long-horned, humpless cattle along men, sheep, humans and geometric shapes have been represented in the cite’s panels

Laga-Oda

• Located along Dire Dawa known for sheep imagery
• Goda- Biftu(Surre) has domestic animals and men depicted w/ yellow, as well as the earliest paintings
• Laga Ondji has humpless cattle in its panels, of which Udders are common. The head of some has been absent, whereas some animals have been depicted w/ dotted decorations

Southern Ethiopia

• Long-horned cattle has been drawn by Francis Anfray
• Their exhibition of cattle has semi-abstract shapes; however, engravings have been shown here, with no superimposing of shapes in the engravings in the same region.
• Outlines help distinguish elements
• Found at Galma, humpless cattle has been exhibited
• The location preserves drawing in body profile
• At Suba, walls preserved engraved walls of long-horned animal walls The site holds drawings of lines and figures w/ cattle There is also human and ox drawings associated w/ serpent styles
• At Yabelo, long-horned cattle can be located, whereas other paintings are of Dahthami. Other scenes include hunting scenes and cattle

Northern Ethiopia

• The region exhibits several different rock art styles including Tigray Plateau, located in the valley. A number of domestic animals can be found here, as well as people
• Some have served ideological or religious purposes, however, the animals are in body profile
• Cattle and animals are drawn in various depictions, as well as red and black depictions
• Zellelow exhibits cattle and human engravings, of the oldest style The long cattle have early depictions around the 2nd phase, and human style can be traced to Qanza in Eritrea
• There is granite wall at Be’ati Gaewa that has 13 paintings, with horned but cattle as also being present
• The cave features a man driving pair of oxen and a calf
• Long-horned humpless cattle is present
• Wallea is a dominant presence