SULAWESI- Indonesia, is the island in which a discovery of hand paintings on the cave walls were found within the Maros (district) cave sites. Initially, the Leang Petta Kare cave's rock art was first discovered by Dutch archaeologist, Heeren-Palm in the 1950s. However, it wasn't studied and many archaeologists believed it to date up to 10,000 years old, in the times before the New Stone Age.
In this age of modern science and technology, discoveries of the painting's astonishing age has been determined through the latest phase of research and excavations by a team of Australian and Indonesian researchers in 2011. A report on their studies and finds have been published in October 8, 2014, detailing on their method in exacting the age of the rock paintings.
Present, on the cave wall is a hog-like animal named the babirusa (pig-deer) which is hand painted about 35,400 years ago, and accompanying it are hand stencils that has an age estimate of 39,000 years old, resulting it to be among the oldest known cave paintings in the world. The oldest is known to be in Spain, El Castillo cave, which dates to 40.000 years of age.
Looking at these images above gives off a surreal and chilling aura. The random placements of hands with a copper red halo surrounding them emanates a horror scene, one that truly belongs to a Shakespeare play. Much more with the fact that few of these hands has a thumb missing.......according to traditional practices, when one is in mourning, they would cut off their finger.....
Well, thanks to that, we get a much more interesting and horrifying painting for our eyes to see!
On the other 'hand', is this amazingly oldest figurative animal that's a pig-deer. Personally, I love this part of the rock painting....the animal isn't painted like many other animal figures found in Africa etc. There sure is a huge comparison between those figure paintings.
This animal is painted with strokes to portray the animal's coat...and is that shading that i see?
It is a known fact that Indonesia is a country which produces one of the finest arts and artists...so it shouldn't be surprising that the oldest known figure painting (and beautiful too) is located in Indonesia. These cave paint of Sulawesi sure does enhance the already rich culture of Indonesia. I do believe that excavating and studying these archaeological finds are really important in order to establish valuable rich cultures and knowledge.
Sources:
& For more details and information of Sulawesi cave paintings:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/10/141008-cave-art-sulawesi-hand-science/
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/journey-oldest-cave-paintings-world-180957685/
http://www.dw.com/en/indonesian-cave-paintings-revolutionized-our-idea-of-human-art/a-17984021
http://jakartaglobe.id/features/exploring-leang-leang-caves-maros/
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