More Kakadu National Park – Northern Territory 29-06-2014

There are over 5000 recorded art sites in Kakadu National park and less than 10 are accessible to the public.
Ochre comes from soft varieties of iron oxide minerals (such as haematite - a fine-grained iron oxide which produces a strong red colour with a purple tint) and from rocks containing ferric oxide. Haematite soaks into the rock face and therefore lasts the longest.
Red: haematite, .an iron-rich rock
Yellow/orange: limonite and goethite.
Red/yellow/orange: ochre, an iron-stained clay that can be made darker by baking it in a fire before grinding.
White: kaolin (pipe clay) and huntite.
Black: manganese oxide and charcoal, although charcoal is not a mineral and does not last long.


Dynamic art considered older than the x-ray art  We were told that These hunters hold magpie geese fans thereby dating the art as post  6,000 years. - Anbangbang Art site in Burrungguy, Nourlangie Rock. 
 
No inscription for this figure!

Namondjok, a Creation Ancestor, with underneath him Barrginj, his wife, and to his right Namarrgon, the Lightning Man, responsible for the violent lightning storms that occur every wet season. At the bottom is a large group of men and women with elaborate ceremonial headdresses. These Spirit figures were repainted between 1962 and 1964, the last major rock painting at the Anbangbang Art site in Nourlangie Rock.

There is no inscription as to what these figures represent – but interesting!


Winds of change – Ships like this one were seen in the area between 1880 and 1950 when they brought supplies to buffalo hunting camps on the flood plains of the Alligator Rivers, and returned to Darwin with hides. – at Nawurlandja  Art Site, Nourlangie


Rock Art site in Arnhem Land  - photo from press article in The Age National  7 March 2009
The artist reveals his fascination with a four-legged animal that lifts its tail to urinate, has knee and chest guards and has a weird-looking figure sitting on its back.
Leichhardt's horses had knee and chest guards to protect them as they passed through bush from Queensland to the then small community of Port Essington, near Darwin, in 1845.
Experts say the painting is among a remarkable gallery of hundreds in the area that show how Aborigines lived for 50,000 years, representing the world's longest continuing art tradition, pre-dating Europe's earliest known artwork by thousands of years.
The paintings are in an area so inaccessible that few non-Aboriginal people have ever seen them.