The devil’s in the detail: revisiting the ceiling panel at RSA CHI1, Kamberg, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Abstract

ABSTRACT Recent work on a well-known San rock art panel from South Africa shows that continued movement between, on the one hand, San beliefs and rituals and, on the other, the images themselves allows us to move from general statements about San rock art to specific understandings. We demonstrate that continuing field research, combined with the revisiting of painted panels, is uncovering diverse ways in which San rock painters deployed and, at the same time, individually transmuted abstract ideas and experiences into material images, often in easily missed details. One of these instances, hitherto unknown, is described. By following-up the heuristic potential of this approach researchers are able to explore the ways in which San imagery played a social role at different times and in different places in San history.