Deep Bay Two Fish engravings

Summary: An Aboriginal engraving site on a boulder along Berowra Creek; two fish are very distinct, and another seven figures have weathered away.

  • Site type: Rock engraving
  • Number of motifs: 10
  • Motif/s: Bird, Fish
  • Quality: 4.5/5
  • Condition of site: Good
  • View site sketch
  • Year first recorded: 1961
  • Originally Recorded by: F.D. McCarthy, Ian Sim
  • McCarthy reference: COWAN Mankind Group 126 in Catalogue of Rock Engravings (1983)
  • Sim Reference: Mankind 6(2) 1963 Sheet 3, Fig M, p.59

Visible from a considerable distance away, this Aboriginal engraving site is on the vertical face of a small boulder along the edge of Berowra Creek.

IMG 1578 LR Deep Bay Two Fish engravings

The two fish were first documented by Ian Sim: “The figures of two fish, one with a number of pits within its outline, and a bird, together with several lines of parts of figures weathered away, engraved on a vertical rock face on the eastern shoreline of Berowra Waters”.

1X3A9955 LR Deep Bay Two Fish engravings

McCarthy later recorded ten figures, which included a bird and the tail of an incomplete fish – these have weathered away. He described the slightly and more distinct fish as a groper (“slit mouth on rounded head, 2 eyes, good tail, 13 pits scattered over its body in 4 pairs”) and the other as a broad leatherjacket (“2 eyes, 2 opposite fins, lozenge shaped body, good tail at angle to body”).

1X3A9944 LR Deep Bay Two Fish engravings

Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to Hiking the World, and receive notifications of new posts by email. (A hike is added every 1-2 weeks, on average.)

Join 667 other subscribers

0 Comments

Leave a Reply

Aboriginal Sites by National Park

Photographing Aboriginal rock art
A review of different techniques for photographing Aboriginal rock art. This includdes oblique flash, chain and planar mosaic imaging which combines hundreds of overlapping photos.
Aboriginal Rock Art – Hornsby Shire
Hornsby Shire - which is the largest LGA in the Greater Sydney Metropolitan region - contains approximately 600 recorded Aboriginal rock art sites (and over 1,200 Aboriginal heritage sites). These date back from thousands of years to post-European contact art.
Aboriginal Rock Art – Maroota and Marramarra NP
Located to the north-west of Sydney, just south of the Dharug and Yengo National Parks, Maroota has a high concentration of (known) Aboriginal sites. Many more Aboriginal heritage sites are located in the Marramarra National Park. The original inhabitants of the area were the Darug people.