San Landscape Escape

Journey progress

San Landscape Escape

START

You are traveling through a remote rocky landscape when your vehicle breaks down. No signal. No road signs. Just silence. As the sun begins to drop, you notice something on the rock face nearby—faint red figures. You remember something: San rock art is not just art. It is knowledge. It is direction. It is survival. If you can read the stones correctly, they might guide you back to the highway.

INVESTIGATE

THE GATHERING

You move closer to investigate the painting, it shows a cluster of people together but what are they doing. Remember; Where people gather, water is often near. "you should move downhill" Select the correct answer to get to the next stage.

You follow the path downhill in search of water but still no stream or river or lake. You look around and spot another panel. Maybe you will find more clues or directions...

GO

The Animal Guide

FOLLOW

YEEY!! Finally some water, I should rest for a bit. "what is that on the panel? It looks different. is that a human or an animal?" I need clues to answer the question to get to the next point. LETS INVESTIGATE

After resting a bit enjoying the art visuals you start to get a little hungry. There is a 'muhacha' tress (African Mahogany) across the lake. You walk towards it to get some fruit and you realise there is more art around. What more can you learn about these people...

LET'S GO

The Hunters

The Place

You met the landscape, got to know the human figures, hunters and the animals too. What ties all these images together? Spiritual worldview connecting humans, animals, and land “You are part of the landscape too. Lets move toward openness.”

GO

You emerge from the rocks just as the last light fades. Finally a house in the distance and a road, you can finally get some help. You made it. Not by chance, but by reading the land the way its first storytellers did. The stones did not just show you where to go. They taught you how to see.

Escape Complete

Makumbe Cave Rock Art

This panel from the lower cave at Makumbe shows a depiction of kudu and antelope. These animals are depicted on most rock art sites around Zimbabwe in large numbers.

You must follow the direction the animals are pointing

The white hunter

The hunter is wearing a headdress and holding six arrows in the right arm, there is also a bow and one arrow in the left hand. This indicates that these communities would hunt game adding to our understanding of the societies’ subsistence strategies. (Chikupo cave)

Hunt

This depiction from the lower Makumbe cave shows a hunter holding an arrow pointing towards an antelope.

Hunting bags

Behind these men are weapons and bags, hanging from branches, on one of which a warthog head is impaled. The presense of the human figures in what might be a dance as they have instruments may indicate this was a hunting ritual being done. (Chikupo cave)

Usually Hunting scenes involve weapons and animals together with the human figures. It can also be depicted by just the presense of weapons (bows and arrows)

There isn't much depictions of migration scenes in Zimbabwen rock art however we can see human figures in moving positions like walking or dancing. Dancing is associated with ritual ceremonies and social gatherings

Most depictions of hunting on the panels are belived to be associated to hunting rituals. The artists would depict a scene as part of the ritual in hopes of capturing that particular animal in the same way. thus, being part of a spiritual connection.

Hybrid figures

In Southern African rock art scholarship, bending postures, elongated legs, outstretched limbs and implied movement are seen as visual traces of altered states of consciousness. Usually associated with ritual activities.