Good News For the Kimberley and Rock Art in Australia

From the Bradshaw Foundation

Rock art buffs and archaeologists everywhere will no doubt treat this as great good news. The Kimberley region of Western Australia is world-renowned for its so-called Bradshaw paintings or Wandjina figures, very ancient pictographs that abound in that part of the world. Nothing like them exists elsewhere in Australia. They speak to a past which is as far as we know incommensurable, even to the aboriginal people of the area. $1.5 million is a lot of dollars to get for 'significant' research into rock art! And that's just for starters. From Past Horizons

The Kimberley Foundation Ian Potter Chair in Rock Art will be established with the gift from Melbourne-based not-for-profit organisation, the Kimberley Foundation Australia (KFA).

The partnership between the Foundation and the University was formalised this week. The partners will endeavour to raise a further $500,000 through philanthropy and the University will provide matching funding of up to $2m to provide a total of $4 million to fund the chair on an on-going basis. The Ian Potter Foundation, a long-term supporter of KFA’s research has contributed to the project.

Wandjina figures from the Kimberley Range in northwestern Australia (From Past Horizons)

I know a good number of people in Australia who are going to be thrilled at the news (even if much of the money stays at UWA). 

Kimberley landscape. Image: yaruman5 (From Past Horizons)