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LIVING AND DOCUMENTED CULTURE · 04

Paintings that still have custodians

The paintings of Maloti-Drakensberg and Tsodilo

These paintings from different periods remain important to present-day communities.

Museum documentation · free public access, no account required.

DECLARED VISUAL RECONSTRUCTION · AI-GENERATED IMAGE · TRACEKEEPERS

Generated reconstruction · Declared visual hypothesis

Declared visual reconstruction, created for museographic contextualisation; not a photograph of the original nor does it constitute documentary evidence.

Image of Paintings that still have custodians
DECLARED VISUAL RECONSTRUCTION · AI-GENERATED IMAGE · TRACEKEEPERS

Generated reconstruction · Declared visual hypothesis

Declared visual reconstruction, created for museographic contextualisation; not a photograph of the original nor does it constitute documentary evidence.

History and context

Ethnography can open hypotheses about transformation and healing, never an automatic translation of each figure.

Evidence and interpretation

Synthesis based on UNESCO · ǂKhomani Cultural Landscape; UNESCO · Tsodilo; UNESCO · Maloti-Drakensberg. The comparison serves to formulate questions, not to fill gaps in the record with certainties.

Catalogue facts

Civilisation or trajectory
San peoples of southern Africa
Scope
Visual and Material Arts
Main area
Kalahari and regions of southern Africa, from Namibia and Botswana to South Africa; it was never a single state territory.

A closer look

About 1 min to read · 1 section. Further reading and sources · free access. Editorial review recorded: .

Shade also preserves pigment

UNESCO notes that removing trees that gave shade to the shelters of Maloti-Drakensberg can harm their paintings. It also identifies smoke from fires, ultraviolet radiation and surface alteration of the rock as deterioration factors. Conservation therefore depends on the immediate surroundings of the panel and decisions about vegetation and access. A photograph that crops this context can conceal why an image survived better than another. Looking at the shelter roof, its orientations and the vegetation helps understand the material fragility of what we can still observe.

Location and territory

Physical world map with routes of human evolutionPresent-day world coastline from Natural Earth in an equirectangular projection. The overlaid markers let you explore each milestone.Map base: Natural Earth 1:110m · public domain · present-day reference coastline

REGIONAL AREA

Orientative scope of San communities and landscapes in southern Africa; not an ethnic or state boundaryOrientative scope of San communities and landscapes in southern Africa; not an ethnic or state boundary. The footprint marks the orientative centre of the scope, not a boundary nor an exact point.

Sources and references

Consult the sources of this cultural synthesis

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