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Kondoa Rock-Art Sites

Tanzania, United Republic of
Date of Inscription: 2006
Criteria: (iii)(vi)
Property : 233600.0000 ha
Region Dodoma, District Kondoa
S4 43 28 E35 50 2
Ref: 1183rev

Brief Description

On the eastern slopes of the Masai escarpment bordering the Great Rift Valley are natural rock shelters, overhanging slabs of sedimentary rocks fragmented by rift faults, whose vertical planes have been used for rock paintings for at least two millennia. The spectacular collection of images from over 150 shelters over 2,336 km2, many with high artistic value, displays sequences that provide a unique testimony to the changing socio-economic base of the area from hunter-gatherer to agro-pastoralist, and the beliefs and ideas associated with the different societies. Some of the shelters are still considered to have ritual associations with the people who live nearby, reflecting their beliefs, rituals and cosmological traditions.

SF 0094X | Paul Joynson-Hicks © UNESCO/Paul Joynson-Hicks More pictures ...

Statement of Significance

Criterion (iii): The rock art sites at Kondoa are an exceptional testimony to the lives of hunter-gathers and agriculturalists who have lived in the area over several millennia, and reflect a unique variation of hunter-gather art from southern and central Africa and a unique form of agro-pastoralist paintings.

Criterion (vi): Some of the rock art sites are still used actively by local communities for a variety of ritual activities such as rainmaking, divining and healing. These strong intangible relationships between the paintings and living practices reinforce the links with those societies that created the paintings, and demonstrate a crucial cultural continuum.

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