Balls Head (Waverton)

Summary: An engraving of a whale around six metres in length, within the tail of which there is faded, but just-visible man.

  • Art type/s: Rock engraving
  • Number of motifs: 3
  • Motif/s: Man, Whale
  • Quality: 2/5
  • Condition of site: Good
  • View site sketch
  • Year first recorded: 1898
  • Originally Recorded by: W.D. Campbell, F.D. McCarthy
  • Campbell Reference: WILLOUGHBY Plate 4 Fig 4 in Aboriginal Carving of Port Jackon and Broken Bay (Download)
  • McCarthy reference: WILLOUGHBY Group 30 in Catalogue of Rock Engravings (1983)
  • Peter Stanbury & John Clegg, A field guide to Aboriginal rock engravings. 1990.
  • Sydney Morning Herald – “Ancient spirits lifted“. 13 July 2008

This Aboriginal engraving site was uncovered during renovations at the Coal Loader development, a Sydney industrial site at Balls Head (in Waverton). Part of the site have been destroyed, but a large whale with a man inside it remains and is protected by a fence.

img 5571 lr Balls Head (Waverton)IMG 5571 LR highlighted Balls Head (Waverton)

The whale and man and engraving were thought to represent either a magician performing magic to entice whales to become stranded – or a man who has entered the body of a stranded whale to cure an illness.

Engraving Balls Head Balls Head (Waverton)

A second “man-like figure” was recorded inside the whale in 1963. A new article in 2008 suggested that this second figure inside the whale appeared to be a dog or a horse: if correct, this would indicate the local Cammeraygal people were still carving at the site after the arrival of white settlers in 1788.

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