Carnarvon Gorge Art Gallery

Described as “one of Australia’s finest examples of stencil art”, the Art Gallery along the Carnarvon Gorge Main Track has an enormous and complex panel of Aboriginal rock art over a 65.25m long rock wall.

The rock art has been estimated to be over 4,000 years old, with almost 2,000 ochre stencils, freehand paintings and rock engravings.

The Art Gallery site was extensively surveyed (along with another 43 sites in Carnarvon National Park) by Michael Clifford Quinnell in 1976, and a number of sites – including the Art Gallery – was documented by R.H Goddard in 1940/41. The entire length of the site, except for two small areas at both ends, is covered by art in a broad band from ground level to a maximum height of 4 metres.

Stencils

The Art Gallery site has almost 600 stencils, with the majority being in red ochre, followed by yellow ochre.

Motif	Red	Yellow	White	Black	TOTAL
Hand (left)	147	29	24	5	205
Hand (right)	71	10	10	3	94
Hand (other) / arm	94	20	8	9	131
Foot	33	8	2		43
Axe	17				17
Boomerang	35	9	3	4	51
Shield	3				3
Emu/Bird Track	19				19
Macropod Track	1				1
Leaf + Finger/s	8				8
Lines	2	1	1
Unidentified	22	2	3		27
	450	78	50	21	599

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Hands are the most common motif (there are over 400 variants), followed by boomerangs and feet.

Two types of boomerangs can be seen:

The leaf shaped boomerangs were used for hunting. The Aborigines were able to throw them with great accuracy to bring down prey such as waterfowl. These were not returning boomerangs, as the blade was flat and lacked the twist of the returning boomerangs.

The ‘V’ shaped boomerangs were possibly used for fights between tribes. They could be thrown sidearm, skimming just above the ground and would easily break an opponent’s leg. They were also used for bringing down kangaroos in the same manner.

Don’s Maps – Carnarvon Gorge

An arrangement of crossed forearms is said to symbolise the neighbouring tribes from the north, south, east and west.

Two oval-shaped figures may be seed pods (they are also found in other Carnarvon National Park shelters:

Paintings of seed pods as well as the seeds of the bottle tree (Sterculia rupestris) or black kurrajong (Sterculia diversi/olia) are seen in this rock shelter ; the seed pods are in bunches and are possibly depicted to represent the fertility of this remarkable tree, which grows to great height in the surrounding districts. The aborigine found the stem of the bottle tree abounding in a nutritious mucilageinous substance.

Goddard and Mitchell (1941)

Paintings

Although there are far fewer paintings, the grid motif is one of the most striking and prominent figures at the Art Gallery site. As with the grids or nets at the The Tombs site, they are thought to denote an Aboriginal burial site.

Motif	Red	Yellow	White	Black	TOTAL
Face	0.5	0.5			1
Goanna			6		6
Solid Disc	1				1
Grid	4	3	3	4	14
Cross	3				3
Chevron			4		4
Linear/Other	11	3	4		18
	16.5	6.5	17	4	47

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The grid motifs have been created by the drawing of overlapping lines, and appear in red, yellow, white and black.

Engravings

An unusual feature of the Art Gallery site is that as well as stencils and paintings, there are hundreds of engravings on the wall, which include ovals, grooves and tracks.

Below the paintings and stencils every available face of the rock shelter has been carved where a suitable surface has been found. Some of these carvings have been cut very deeply into the rock, the predominating designs being ovals: (a) ovals with an outline cut to varying depths up to 2 inches with a perpendicular cut in the centre and (b) symmetrical groups of concave ovals the size of emu eggs, which have been carefully “carved”. These designs may represent fertility in this are.

Goddard and Mitchell (1941)

Motif	TOTAL
Cup and ring/hole	275
Human Track / Toes	23
Macropod Track	148
Animal Track	62
Emu / Bird Track	118
Grid / Circle / Zig-Zag / Meander	31
Groove	532
Hole / Circle / Oval	153
Goanna	1
	1,343

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A long sinuous engraving is thought to represent Mundagurra, a creation ancestor.

The dreaming says that the rainbow serpent Mundagurra created Carnarvon Gorge as he travelled through the creek system, coming in and out of the water, and carving the sandstone as he travelled.

Parks Queensland

Don Hitchcock (Don’s Maps) calls this “The Wall of One Thousand Vulvas”, as the second most common engraving motif found here is of the human vulva (documented as “cups and rings”). The significance of these are not known, and while they are common along the cliffs of the Great Dividing Range in this area they’re very uncommon thoughout the rest of Australia.

Many stencils are superimposed on these engravings, which are likely to have been added much later.

As well as the vulva motif, there are human, bird and animal tracks and over 500 grooves.

Motif Analysis

Analysis of the Art Gallery site by Michael Clifford Quinnell grouped the motifs into five figurative groups, and four non-figurative. Linear motifs are the most numerous group closely followed by human features, and hands are the most important component of the human features motif group comprising 78% of these.

	Motif Group	No.	%
Figurative	Human Features	497	24.99%
	Tools & Weapons	71	3.6%
	Animal Features	355	17.85%
	Plant Features	8	0.4%
	Unidentified	27	1.36%
Non-Figurative	Cups and Rings	275	13.8%
	Geometric Designs	55	2.8%
	Linear Motifs	542	27.3%
	Solid Motifs	159	7.99%
		1,989

Getting to the Art Gallery Aboriginal rock art site

The signposted Art Gallery site is along the Carnarvon Gorge Main Track, 5.1km from the Visitor Centre. A short side-track (340m one-way) leads to the tall sandstone wall which is at the top of a steep boulder and scrub-covered slope on the left bank of Kamaloo Creek.

More information

• Parks Queensland – Carnarvon Gorge – Nature, culture and history
• Parks Queensland – Main gorge track