Around the main Devils Rock Aboriginal engraving site are many more rock art sites on smaller rock platforms; the sites below are to the west.
Dingo
On a very small rock platform near the road, this site contains two figures. The main one is a dingo or dog, (it’s been surrounded by stones, which were placed there to protect the engravings and are not Aboriginal).
Near the engraving is a surveyors mark.
Snake and Fish
To the north of the dog/dingo is another very small rock, which has a very faint engraving of an infilled snake – a very unusual engraving. The snake consists of “a series of parallel and zig-zagging engraved lines” and is over a metre in length.
There also two small fish, which are also very faint (photo below by John Gray).
Emu and Man
A much larger rock platform to the west of the snake and fish has over twenty figures, including two anthropomorphs, an emu, a bird, boomerang, fish and multiple mundoes. These are the only engravings at Maroota documented by McCarthy which are not on the main rock platform – and he only recorded 4 of the 23 figures.
The most prominent figure was described by McCarthy as a “unique human figure, 3 ft 7 in high, with a very large head, two eyes, and a slender body”. It’s a very unusual figure. The damage or exfoliation of the rock at the bottom of the figure occurred prior to 1959.
The large emu was described by McCarthy as being in an “an alert suspicious pose” – but his sketch of this figure was somewhat imprecise.
In her analysis of the site, Jo McDonald suggested there may be eggs below the emu:
While several of these circles appear to be engraved, the natural configuration of the sandstone is “eggy” in this area – ie. there are numerous of these circular indentations – and it is possible that these are natural… If the eggs/circles are natural, the positioning of the emu may have been a deliberate mimic of the main platform composition.
Near the emu is a small fish, with another small figure next to it.
At top of the the platform is a waterhole, which may have been modified or enlarged – it is the only source of water in the immediate vicinity of Devils Rock.
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