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I spent a couple of days wandering from cave to cave with experts who knew exactly what they were looking at. With one look they can explain the whole thing. It’s like reading a book. Through their study of 1880s ethnographies, modern-day Bushmen, and the rock art of the Drakensberg range, they’ve figured out how to interpret what’s going on in the paintings like no one has ever done before. One particular painting, they said, was the most instrumental in unlocking the whole secret to interpreting the art. It is like the Rosetta stone. It was a great thing to be able to share that discovery with them.
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One of the worst things is to see caves where once-beautiful paintings have been destroyed by domestic animals that use the caves as shelters. All the pigments are natural, made from blood, lime, and other ground pigments, with egg whites used as a binder. Pastured animals from up in the mountains get into some of the caves, rub against the murals, and ruin them. In some rare cases, humans have come along and defaced the art.
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I had to plan what equipment I was going to take into the field, things such as lights and large-format cameras. One of the scientists told me not to worry about transporting everything because the cave is right by where we would park the truck. “It’s real easy,” he said. “You can see the cave from the truck.” Well, you could see the cave from the truck—with a telescope. I had to fit about 100 pounds (45 kilograms) of equipment into a large backpack, go about 3,000 feet (900 meters) down into the bottom of a valley, ford a river, and climb 3,000 feet (900 meters) back up on the other side to reach the cave entrance. It wound up taking a lot more effort than I thought it would, and I was pretty tired when we finally got there. But once we set up, the cave turned out to be a delightful place to work.
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