1.) schw.weiss - StoneWatch

The rock art of Namibia is very well researched and recorded. At the beginning there were
amateurs and archaeological interested laymen as the German Hauptmann (captain) Flaskamp
32 or the already mentioned German surveyors Maack and Volkmann. Their successors were
archaeologists specialised in rock art as H. Obermaier and H. Kühn (1930), L. Frobenius
(1931), H. Breuil (1955/57), J. Rudner (1957), A. Viereck (1959), E. R. Scherz (1970/86), W.
E. Wendt (1974), J. D. Lewis-Williams (1981/89), P. Breunig (1989), H. Pager (1989/95), J.
Richter (1991) etc. etc. Two of them I would like to mention in more detail, Erich Wolfgang
Wendt and Harald Pager:
Apollo 11 returned at the 24th of July 1969 from the moon back to the earth. The first man had
entered the moon. The German archaeologist Erich Wolfgang Wendt, then digging in a unnamed
grotto in the Huib Plateau about 100 km south of Bethanien, got knowledge of this important
human event by the broadcasting. Spontaneously he named the place he was doing excavations
Apollo 11 Grotto. Some times later he detected in an 2 m thick and up to 70.000 years
old stratum hand-shaped painted slabs showing a rhino, a zebra (?) and a cat-like animal with
human legs. A radiocarbon dating was found by an age of 26.000 to 28.000 years. 33 These
paintings, found in the deposits of the cave by E. W. Wendt, are the earliest examples of human
art ever found in Africa. And from their age they suit in the early art found in Europe like the
Venus of Willendorf (Austria), the Venus of Lespugue (France) or many others. 34
The Heinrich-Barth-Institute of the Cologne University is working since 1963 in Southern
Africa supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). One main point of the activities
is concentrated to the rock art of Namibia and here in particular to the Brandberg. Harald
Pager (1923 - 1985) joined these activities in 1977. Eight years (up to his sudden and unexpected
decease in July 1985) he made documentations of the paintings in the upper Brandberg,
assisted only by the two Namibians Angula Shipahu and Johannes Toivo 35. He did his work
with an incredible enthusiasm documented in tracings of about 900 different sites with 43.000
single figures on more than six km transparency foil. I had the possibility to see this heritage
at the Heinrich-Barth-Institute. And Tilman Lenssen-Erz who is now in charge of the evaluation
and interpretation of Pager’s material told me: “There are no differences in quality between
the earliest and the latest tracings. Pager did his work with an invariable exactitude and
a constant passion”. Lenssen-Erz compiles the results of Pager’s investigations. In total there
are planned seven volumes (each as a text and catalogue). Part I “Amis Gorge” was published
in 1970, part II “Hungorob Gorge” in 1975 and part III “Southern Gorges” in 1995. 36 With
regard to what I have seen in Cologne the Brandberg will finally be the best recorded rock art
area of Africa.
31 Willcox, A. R.: The Rock Art of Africa, London & Canberra 1984.
32 Flaskamp (Hptm.): Zwischen Otawi und Grootfontein, Deutsches Kolonialblatt, 1908, pages 289 - 291.
33 Wendt, W. E.: "Art mobilier" aus der Apollo 11-Grotte in Südwest-Afrika, die ältesten datierten Kunstwerke Afrikas, Acta
Praehistorica et Archaeologica 5, 1974, pages 1 - 42.
34 Gutbrod, K.: DuMont's Geschichte der frühen Kulturen der Welt, Köln 1977/88.
35 Kuper, R. (Hrsg.): Weiße Dame - Roter Riese, Felsbilder aus Namibia, Heinrich Barth-Institut, Köln 1996.
36 Pager, H.: The Rock Paintings of the Upper Brandberg; Part I: Amis Gorge, part II.: Hungorob Gorge, part III.: Southern Gorges, Köln
1989/93/95.
26