Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
October 2000
This small polychrome stone, found buried with a human skeleton near the Lottering River in the southern part of the Western Cape province of South Africa, is famous not only for its great age but also its beautiful and unusually well-preserved imagery. Three figures with white faces and vibrantly elongated ocher bodies stride across this round stone’s surface.
Documentations of South African Khoisan religious and trance practices recorded in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have been used to interpret not only more recent rock art but also rock paintings and engravings thousands of years old. Southern African rock paintings and engravings often combine geometric forms with images of humans and animals, in what some scholars have argued represents hallucinatory trance imagery. Although the Coldstream Stone itself does not contain references to animals or geometric patterns, some scholars have interpreted it in terms of Khoisan trance practices because of the nasal hemorrhaging of some of the figures.
Citation
Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “African Rock Art: The Coldstream Stone.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cold/hd_cold.htm (October 2000)
Additional Essays by Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “La Venta: Sacred Architecture.” (October 2001)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “La Venta: Stone Sculpture.” (October 2001)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Monte Albán.” (October 2001)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Monte Albán: Sacred Architecture.” (October 2001)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Monte Albán: Stone Sculpture.” (October 2001)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Teotihuacan: Mural Painting.” (October 2001)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Teotihuacan: Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon.” (October 2001)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Valdivia Figurines.” (October 2004)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Hopewell (1–400 A.D.).” (October 2002)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Indian Knoll (3000–2000 B.C.).” (October 2003)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Poverty Point (2000–1000 B.C.).” (October 2003)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “African Rock Art.” (October 2000)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “African Rock Art: Tassili-n-Ajjer (?8000 B.C.–?).” (October 2000)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Apollo 11 (ca. 25,500–23,500 B.C.) and Wonderwerk (ca. 8000 B.C.) Cave Stones.” (October 2000)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “The Monumental Stelae of Aksum (3rd–4th Century).” (October 2000)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Tikal.” (October 2001)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Tikal: Sacred Architecture.” (October 2001)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Tikal: Stone Sculpture.” (October 2001)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Art and the Fulani/Fulbe People.” (October 2002)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Great Zimbabwe (11th–15th Century).” (October 2001)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Ife Pre-Pavement and Pavement Era (800–1000 A.D.).” (October 2001)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Foundations of Aksumite Civilization and Its Christian Legacy (1st–8th Century).” (October 2000)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Ife (from ca. 6th Century).” (originally published October 2000, last revised September 2014)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Inland Niger Delta.” (October 2000)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Lydenburg Heads (ca. 500 A.D.).” (October 2000)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Nok Terracottas (500 B.C.–200 A.D.).” (October 2000)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “The Empires of the Western Sudan.” (October 2000)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “The Empires of the Western Sudan: Ghana Empire.” (October 2000)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “The Empires of the Western Sudan: Mali Empire.” (October 2000)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “The Empires of the Western Sudan: Songhai Empire.” (October 2000)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “The Trans-Saharan Gold Trade (7th–14th Century).” (October 2000)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Trade and the Spread of Islam in Africa.” (October 2001)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Mangarevan Sculpture.” (October 2003)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Tahiti.” (October 2003)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Cave Sculpture from the Karawari.” (October 2003)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “The Fulani/Fulbe People.” (October 2002)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Great Serpent Mound.” (October 2002)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Ancient American Jade.” (October 2001)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Jade in Costa Rica.” (October 2001)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Jade in Mesoamerica.” (October 2001)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “La Venta.” (October 2001)
Related Essays
- African Rock Art
- African Rock Art of the Southern Zone
- Introduction to Prehistoric Art, 20,000–8000 B.C.
- African Rock Art of the Central Zone
- African Rock Art of the Northern Zone
- African Rock Art: Game Pass
- African Rock Art: Tassili-n-Ajjer (?8000 B.C.–?)
- Apollo 11 (ca. 25,500–23,500 B.C.) and Wonderwerk (ca. 8000 B.C.) Cave Stones
- Arts of the San People in Nomansland
- Ife (from ca. 6th Century)
- Ife Pre-Pavement and Pavement Era (800–1000 A.D.)
- Ife Terracottas (1000–1400 A.D.)
- Inland Niger Delta
- The Monumental Stelae of Aksum (3rd–4th Century)
- San Ethnography