A new exhibition at the University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology highlights rock-art - the ancient pictures made on natural rock surfaces which survive there to this day. On Saturday 3 May the Museum also hosts a research day-meeting on rock-art, a growing field of study within archaeology when the informal CR-aG - Cambridge Rock-art Group, its host - is expected to enlarge and transform itself into a national BR-aG, British Rock-art Group. The British Rock-Art Group was duly created, and held its first meeting at Newcastle University in May 2004.

The title of the exhibition stresses its themes.

These are first of all images, often striking images, and with all the complexity of meaning images can and do carry. And each set of images was made by people and reflect their own and singular world-view and experience: if people painted rhinoceroses, as they did in the Ice Age depths of Grotte Chauvet, in what is now central France - then that is because the rhinoceros held fitting meaning for them. Unlike portable artefacts and paintings, rock-art images are fixed in place, anchored to the land. And - as a final theme - they carry knowledge: they expressed the knowledge of the people who made them, and they have in turn become sources of knowledge for us today.

The exhibition has many modern images, ranging from research drawings to contemporary fine art. In many regions of the world rock-art is closely related to resurgent indigenous art, which draws strength from the old traditions while using - often - contemporary and western media.

The University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology is open Tuesday to Saturday 2-4.30. Admission is free. The Museum is on Downing Street, near the corner of Tennis Court Road.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page.