Tesselate Hill Grinding Grooves and Rock Art

Summary: Tesselate Hill (or Tesselated Pavements) has an Aboriginal engraving and many grinding grooves over the large rock surface.

  • Site type: Axe Grinding Groove (AGG), Rock engraving
  • Number of motifs: 1
  • Motif/s: Woman
  • Quality: 4/5
  • Condition of site: Good
  • Year first recorded: 1976
  • Originally Recorded by: Ian Sim
  • Sim Reference: Sim Collection, Site 1 (Blue Mountains)
  • Ian Sim, Archaelogical Sites in the Sydney Region – A Record of Field Surveys 1958-1973 (“Sim Collection”), Site 1 (Blue Mountains), p.65
  • Bushwalking trail: https://hikingtheworld.blog/2024/04/24/tesselated-pavements-mt-irvine/

Tesselate Hill at Mount Irvine (or more specifically, the Tesselated Pavements) was likely an Aboriginal site of some significance to the Dharug and Gundungara people. It has rock art engravings first documented by Ian Sim in 1976: a woman, two boomerangs and tracks.

Tesselated Pavements

The only obvious and still distinct Aboriginal engraving is of a woman, with large breasts and upstretched hands.

1X3A0886 LR Tesselate Hill Grinding Grooves and Rock Art

The enormous platform also has many potholes with axe grinding grooves.

1X3A0870 LR Tesselate Hill Grinding Grooves and Rock Art
1X3A0868 LR Tesselate Hill Grinding Grooves and Rock Art
1X3A0876 LR Tesselate Hill Grinding Grooves and Rock Art
Tesselated Pavements
1X3A0866 LR Tesselate Hill Grinding Grooves and Rock Art
1X3A0864 LR Tesselate Hill Grinding Grooves and Rock Art
1X3A0884 LR Tesselate Hill Grinding Grooves and Rock Art
1X3A0882 LR Tesselate Hill Grinding Grooves and Rock Art
1X3A0894 LR Tesselate Hill Grinding Grooves and Rock Art

This Aboriginal rocx art is reached by the Tesselate Hill bushwalk.

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Aboriginal Sites by National Park

Aboriginal Rock Art in the Greater Blue Mountains
The Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area protects over 3,000 known Aboriginal heritage sites, and many more which are yet to be recorded. This area includes the Blue Mountains National Park, Gardens of Stone, Wollemi National Park and Yengo National Park.
Aboriginal Rock Art – Blue Mountains National Park
Red Hands Cave, Glenbrook (Blue Mountains)
The Blue Mountains National Park (and surrounding areas along the Great Western Highway) is thought to have over a thousand indigenous heritage sites, although much of the park has not been comprehensively surveyed. The Aboriginal rock sites in the Blue Mountains include grinding grooves, stensils, drawing and rock carvings.
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.
Aboriginal Rock Art – Lane Cove
Over 40 sites have been recorded within the park; many were located along the river bank and were flooded by the building of the weir in 1938.