The White Lady is a
rock painting
In archaeology, rock art is human-made markings placed on natural surfaces, typically vertical stone surfaces. A high proportion of surviving historic and prehistoric rock art is found in caves or partly enclosed rock shelters; this type also ...
, located on a panel, also depicting other
art
Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas.
There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...
work, on a small rock overhang, deep within
Brandberg Mountain
The Brandberg ( Damara: Dâures; hz, Omukuruvaro) is Namibia's highest mountain.
Location and extent
Brandberg Mountain is located in former Damaraland, now Erongo, in the northwestern Namib Desert, near the coast, and covers an area of ap ...
. The giant
granite
Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies under ...
monolith
A monolith is a geological feature consisting of a single massive stone or rock, such as some mountains. For instance, Savandurga mountain is a monolith mountain in India. Erosion usually exposes the geological formations, which are often ma ...
located in
Damaraland and called 'The Brandberg' is
Namibia
Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...
's highest
mountain
A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually highe ...
. The painting's German name is ''Weiße Dame''.
The painting has long been an archaeological dilemma, and several different hypotheses have been put forth on its origins, authorship and dating. It is now usually accepted to be a
bushmen painting,
dating back at least 2000 years ago.
Location and description
The "White Lady" archaeological site is located close to the road from
Khorixas
Khorixas is a town of 6,000 inhabitants in southern Kunene Region, Namibia. It was the capital of the Damaraland bantustan before Namibia's independence. It is the administrative capital of Khorixas Constituency. Most of the inhabitants are fro ...
to
Hentie's Bay, in the area of
Uis, on the
Brandberg Massif
The Brandberg ( Damara: Dâures; hz, Omukuruvaro) is Namibia's highest mountain.
Location and extent
Brandberg Mountain is located in former Damaraland, now Erongo, in the northwestern Namib Desert, near the coast, and covers an area of ap ...
. The Brandberg itself hosts over 1.000 bushmen paintings, scattered around in rock shelters and caves.
[Namibia 1 on 1] The "White Lady Group" is found in a cave known as "Maack Shelter" and portrays several human figures as well as
oryx
''Oryx'' is a genus consisting of four large antelope species called oryxes. Their pelage is pale with contrasting dark markings in the face and on the legs, and their long horns are almost straight. The exception is the scimitar oryx, which ...
es, on a rock panel measuring about 5.5 m x 1.5 m. The "White Lady" is the most detailed human figure in the group, and measures about 39.5 cm x 29 cm. To reach The White Lady it is necessary to hike for about 45-60 minutes over rough terrain, along the
gorge of the normally dry
Tsisab river.
It is usually assumed that the painting shows some sort of
ritual dance, and that the "White Lady" is a
shaman
Shamanism is a religious practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with what they believe to be a spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spir ...
. She has white legs and arms, which may suggest that her body was painted or that she was wearing some sort of decorative attachments on her legs and arms. She holds a
bow in one hand and perhaps a
goblet
A chalice (from Latin 'mug', borrowed from Ancient Greek () 'cup') or goblet is a footed cup intended to hold a drink. In religious practice, a chalice is often used for drinking during a ceremony or may carry a certain symbolic meaning.
R ...
in the other. Because of the bow and the oryxes, the painting has also been interpreted as a hunting scene. Apart from the shaman/lady, the other human figures have less detail, and are mostly completely black or completely white. One of the oryxes has human legs. The painting was probably made of
ochre,
charcoal,
manganese
Manganese is a chemical element with the symbol Mn and atomic number 25. It is a hard, brittle, silvery metal, often found in minerals in combination with iron. Manganese is a transition metal with a multifaceted array of industrial alloy use ...
,
hematite, with
blood serum,
egg white, and
casein
Casein ( , from Latin ''caseus'' "cheese") is a family of related phosphoproteins ( αS1, aS2, β, κ) that are commonly found in mammalian milk, comprising about 80% of the proteins in cow's milk and between 20% and 60% of the proteins in hum ...
used as binding agents.
The painting has undergone severe damage since it was first discovered in the early 20th century. For a few decades, tourists would pour water on the painting to make the colors more clearly visible, causing the painting to fade quickly. The site is now a protected heritage site of Namibia, and visiting is only permitted with official guides. For the protection of the art, bags and bottles are not allowed at the far end of the trail.
Because of tourist protests, the metal wire netting has been replaced by only two metal bars, for a much better view.
Finding and interpretation controversy
The White Lady was first discovered in 1918 by German explorer and topographer
Reinhard Maack as he was surveying the Brandberg. Maack was impressed by the main figure of the painting, which he described as "a warrior". In his notes, he wrote that "the Egyptian-Mediterranean style of all the figures is surprising". He made several hand-drawn copies of the painting, which were later published in Europe.
In 1929, Maack's notes came into the hands of the well-known French anthropologist
Henri Breuil
Henri Édouard Prosper Breuil (28 February 1877 – 14 August 1961), often referred to as Abbé Breuil, was a French Catholic priest, archaeologist, anthropologist, ethnologist and geologist. He is noted for his studies of cave art in the Somme an ...
while he was visiting
Cape Town
Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...
. Breuil noted analogies between the White Lady and paintings of athletes found in
Knossos
Knossos (also Cnossos, both pronounced ; grc, Κνωσός, Knōsós, ; Linear B: ''Ko-no-so'') is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and has been called Europe's oldest city.
Settled as early as the Neolithic period, the na ...
(
Crete
Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, ...
), and suggested that the Brandberg might have been visited by a group of travelers coming from the
Mediterranean
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western Europe, Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa ...
area. It was Breuil who first referred to the painting as "the white lady". In 1945 Breuil could finally visit the White Lady site, and published his theories on the Mediterranean origin of the painting first in South Africa and then in Europe.
Breuil's arguments were influential of several later hypotheses concerning the painting, some of which suggested that it could be
Phoenicia
Phoenicia () was an ancient thalassocratic civilization originating in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenician city-states extended and shrank throughout their histor ...
n in origin.
In the second half of the 20th century, most theories on Mediterranean influences on the ancient history of subsaharan Africa (like those about
Great Zimbabwe being "non-African" in origin) were gradually dismissed.
[Davidson (1963)]
Notes
References
* Henri Breuil, (1948) ''The White Lady of the Brandberg: Her Companions and Her Guards'', «South African Archaeological Bulletin»
* Henri Breuil ''et al.'' (1955), ''The White Lady of the Brandberg''. Faber & Faber, New York.
* Clive Cowley, ''Journey into Namibia''
* Basil Davidson (1963), ''Old Africa Rediscovered''.
* Credo Mutwa (1991), ''Indaba: La favolosa storia delle genti africane''. Red.
Namibia 1 on 1 ''The White Lady of the Brandberg''
* Hugo Obermaier, Herbert Kühn: ''Buschmannkunst. Felsmalereien aus Südwestafrika''. Schmidt & Gunther, Leipzig. (193
{{DEFAULTSORT:White Lady
Rock art in Africa
Archaeological sites in Namibia
1918 archaeological discoveries
Archaeology of Southern Africa
Archaeological sites of Southern Africa
Archaeological history of Southern Africa
Pseudoarchaeology