Ashdale Spur engravings

Summary: An Aboriginal engraving site in Maroota depicting a kangaroo hunt, the figures include a man, two kangaroos, three koalas and two eels.

  • Site type: Rock engraving
  • Number of motifs: 16
  • Motif/s: Eel, Goanna, Kangaroo, Kangaroo - Speared, Koala, Man, Mundoe (foot)
  • Quality: 5/5
  • Condition of site: Good
  • Year first recorded: 1959
  • Originally Recorded by: F.D. McCarthy
  • McCarthy reference: CORNELIA Sydney-Hawkesbury No 3 in Catalogue of Rock Engravings (1983)
  • Fred McCarthy, 1959. “Rock engravings of the Sydney-Hawkesbury District. Part 2: Some important ritual groups in the County of Cumberland” in Records of the Australian Museum, Vol 24, No. 14, p.207

On a remote spur to the east of the Old Northern Road is an Aboriginal rock engraving site, which was described as depicting a kangaroo hunt.

At one end of the platform are two barred eels and a goanna.

AWAT6319 LR Ashdale Spur engravings

The eels are both about five feet in length, with four bars cross their bodies. The phalanger (possum) or goanna overlaps one of the eels.

AWAT6315 LR Ashdale Spur engravings
AWAT6316 LR Ashdale Spur engravings

Near the eels are three koalas (“koala bears”), all described as being “in typical profile pose on a tree or in the fork of a tree”. (The koala, eels, and goanna or phalanger were probably totems of the members of the local group which occupied this locality.)

AWAT6304 LR Ashdale Spur engravings
AWAT6307 LR Ashdale Spur engravings

A kangaroo (4′ 3″ in length) has two mundoes on one side, and another three mundoes on the other. A short bar in its tail may represent a spear.

AWAT6297 LR Ashdale Spur engravings
AWAT6301 LR Ashdale Spur engravings

A bit further to the east is an unusual figure of a man, with an oval head, two eyes, upraised arms and legs outspread. An oval intagliated penis tapers from the top inside his crotch to a narrow end.

AWAT6327 LR Ashdale Spur engravingsAWAT6327 LR highlighted Ashdale Spur engravings

Near man is a large (8′ 6″) kangaroo, which is “leaping westward in a classical pose”.

AWAT6339 LR Ashdale Spur engravingsAWAT6339 LR highlighted Ashdale Spur engravings
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