Vandals ruin ancient art
Submitted by coldrum on Monday, 16 April 2007 Page Views: 1854
Rock ArtCountry: Australia Type: Rock ArtInternal Links:
It's about noon and the heat from the sun is relentless. The rocks of the gorge just outside Mount Isa have been soaking up the sun all day. At the rock paintings, a small breeze makes the coffee-coloured water of the pool about 6m below shimmer. "Look here," Gordon Connelly says taking off his hat and wiping his brow as he points at the rock face. "There's more graffiti since we were last here and that's just two weeks ago".
Connelly - who works for the North Western Queensland Cultural Heritage Community Council in Mt Isa, in Queensland's far northwest, which records cultural sites - is referring to initials written in a white paint or chalk across the arm of an ancient ochre painting of a man.
He points to other chiselled initials and scratchings on the rocks around the picture of the tall brown man as evidence of how people disrespect the many aged relics of indigenous people.
He suspects locals are the main culprits. The worst damage is to the head of the figure, from what looks like a gunshot blast.
"It's beautiful country out here and you try to preserve it and last year the council got the most funding for cultural heritage preservation work, but it's a drop in the ocean considering the work that needs doing," he says.
Mr Connelly, who is a local Kalkadoon man, works for the community organisation identifying the sites, mapping them using GPS technology and passing their location on to the Department of Natural Resources.
The council is charged with a vast area stretching south to Birdsville, east to Julia Creek and up to the Gulf.
Mr Connelly's is the only funded position for the work, otherwise the agency relies on volunteers.
The work is invaluable with state cultural heritage legislation making it mandatory for mining companies or other entities and pastoralists seeking to exploit or develop land, to check to ensure they don't encroach on or damage valuable cultural sites.
There is much art in the area that has not been discovered, Mr Connelly says, adding sadly that funding constraints mean a great deal of it will not be found.
That is all the more reason to protect what has been uncovered.
news.com.au.
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