Browsing by Subject "rock art"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    Dancing with two sticks: Investigating the origin of a southern African rite
    (South African Archaeological Society, 2006) Jolly, Pieter
    Photographs of San descendants from Prieska, Northern Cape, form part of the Bleek Collection, Oppenheimer Library, University of Cape Town. They show some of the Prieska San performing a dance and were taken by Dorothea Bleek in late 1910, or possibly early 1911. A particular posture adopted by dancers in some of these photographs, stooped and supported by two sticks, is represented in San rock paintings. It has also been observed in the rites of some San-speakers, as well as those of some southern Bantu-speakers in South Africa. his article investigates the symbolism of the dancing sticks and whether the rites in which these sticks are employed originated with the San or whether they originated with southern Bantu-speakers. It is suggested that the sticks were used to support trancing San shamans, as has been proposed previously, but that in at least some cases they also symbolized the front legs of an animal into which a shaman was transforming. The rite probably had its origins amongst the San, but, in some cases, the meaning attached to it may have changed as San and southern Bantu-speakers exerted a mutual influence on each others' cultures.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    A multimodal social semiotic analysis of a museum rock art display
    (Common Ground Publishing, 2009) Rall, Medeé
    This paper will report on research on different design aspects of museum displays in a permanent and a mobile museum context. This research has been undertaken in order to understand how different aspects of museum displays contribute to meaning making. It looks at the interrelationship between different design elements and how these influence meaning making. Drawing on Kress and van Leeuwen's (1996; 2001) theory of multimodal discourse and on recent research on communication in museums (Ravelli: 2006; Meng in O'Halloran: 2006), this study considers why it is apposite to consider museums as multimodal, co-deploying different modes to make meaning. The paper investigates the design elements employed in museum displays, which include: linguistic design (labels and captions); visual design (objects on display, photographs and drawings); audio design (video recordings) and spatial design (lay-out of the display). The paper discusses a multimodal analysis of the rock art and rock engraving displays, drawing on inter alia the work of Kress and van Leeuwen (1996; 2001), which is done with the intention of formulating a metalanguage. It is envisaged that this metalanguage will enable museum practitioners and educators to talk about and better understand meaning making in museum displays and contribute to current debates on communication and meaning making in museums.