kondoa

The Kondoa Irangi Rock Paintings are a series of ancient paintings on rockshelter walls in central Tanzania. The Kondoa region was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2006 because of its impressive collection of rock art. These sites were named national monuments in 1937 by the Tanzania Antiquities Department. The paintings are located approximately nine kilometres east of the main highway (T5) from Dodoma to Babati, about 20 km north of Kondoa town, in Kondoa District of Dodoma Region, Tanzania. The boundaries of the site are marked by concrete posts.The landscape of this area is characterized by large piled granite boulders that make up the western rim of the Maasai steppe and form rock shelters facing away from prevailing winds. These rock shelters often have flat surfaces due to rifting, and these surfaces are where the paintings are found, protected from weathering.
These paintings are still part of a living tradition of creation and use by both Sandawe in their simbó healing ceremonies, and by Maasai people in ritual feasting. The persisting significance and use of the rock shelters and their art suggests that there has been a cultural continuity between the various ethnic and linguistic groups of people who have resided in the area over time.About 1970, Sandawe men were still making rock paintings. Ten Raa inquired into their reasons for doing so. He classified these reasons as magical (depicting the animal that the painter intended to kill), casual, and sacrificial (on specific clan-spirit hills and depicting rain-making and healing ceremonies).The paintings depict elongated people, animals, and hunting scenes. Older paintings of the 'Naturalistic tradition' are generally red and associated with hunter-gatherers, not only in Kondoa but also throughout the Singida, Mara, Arusha and Manyara regions of Tanzania. The 'naturalistic tradition' paintings are frequently superimposed by a more recent 'late white' style, often depicting cattle, that has been attributed to Bantu farmers and thought to post-date the Bantu expansion into the area. 'White and red' paintings have been attributed to Cushitic and Nilotic pastoralists. Except for the paintings whose creation is recorded in recent times, there is no direct dating evidence. Bwasiri and Smith point out that the rain-making ceremonies of the Sandawe are of Bantu origin, derived from a long history of cultural contact with Bantu and other peoples, and they suggest caution in using recent ethnographic evidence to interpret the history of the art.The Kisese II rock shelter, in the Kondoa area, has art of the 'naturalistic tradition' on the walls, and evidence of occupation on the floors dated to more than 40,000 years ago.
“Africa’s rock art is the common heritage of all Africans, but it is more than that. It is the common heritage of humanity." - South African President Nelson Mandela

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