Warrah Sanctuary Engravings – Man

Summary: An Aboriginal engraving of a man with upstretched hands on a sloping rock platform; nearby are three mundoes and some unfinished figures.

  • Site type: Rock engraving
  • Number of motifs: 6
  • Motif/s: Indeterminate figure, Man, Mundoe (foot)
  • Quality: 3/5
  • Condition of site: Good
  • View site sketch
  • Year first recorded: 1954
  • Originally Recorded by: F.D. McCarthy
  • McCarthy reference: PATONGA Mankind Group 54 Series 1 in Catalogue of Rock Engravings (1983)
  • McCarthy in Mankind Vol 5, No 1 (1954), Plate B, Fig 6B.  p.29-31

On a small, sloping rock platform surrounded by scrub is a man, with out-stretched arms; it is one of six indigenous rock art sites that form part of McCarthy’s Warrah Sanctuary group. (Like many other Aboriginal sites that are now overgrown, it was described in the 1950s as having “an open view to the north”.

AWAT2155 LR Warrah Sanctuary Engravings - Man

The man is described as having a “half oval head sweeping away to the arms, an oval with a pit at one end for the eyes, straight outspread arms 3 and 4 pointed fingers, convex right side and straight left side, body tapers from armpits to hips, slightly out-curved legs with feet close together and outward, flat truncated feet pointing downward at 45°, pointed penis”. Not mentioned by McCarthy but shown on the site sketch is a small figure on the man’s chest.

AWAT2148 LR Warrah Sanctuary Engravings - Man
AWAT2159 LR Warrah Sanctuary Engravings - Man

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