Narrative temporalities in a Bushman rock painting site

Abstract

Proposing narrative readings of Bushman rock painting in terms of historical timeframes and narrative temporalities, this investigation of the consequences of musealisation at the Tandjesberg rock art site examines certain discursive functions of museum metaphors as emplotment schemes in historiography. In particular, the quasi-neutral use of the “panel” category for defining rock paintings in archaeology is critiqued. The final additions to the Tandjesberg rock paintings and possible connections with the politics of millennarian resistance receive special attention. Though the approach is essentially that of the history of art, it would seem that archaeology is subject to related ideologically charged discourses.