Eerie Figures With Giant Heads Found Painted in a Rock Shelter in Tanzania

Science ^ | June 29, 2022 | Michelle Starr

[SunkenCiv]

In 2018, archaeologists made a staggering discovery in Swaga Swaga Game Reserve in central Tanzania: 52 previously undocumented rock shelters, deliberately painted with rock art. Weathering had mostly destroyed all but a handful; but of those that were preserved, one was an absolute enigma.

The site, named Amak'hee 4, was elaborately painted with a frieze of figurative art – including three mysterious, anthropomorphic figures with extremely oversized heads...

The Amak'hee 4 panel is difficult to date, but in 2021 Grzelczyk was able to gauge that it's at least a few hundred years old. It's painted almost entirely in red pigment, except for five figures in white.

The weathering on this pigment, and the absence of domestic animals, suggests that it's fairly old, dating back to the time of hunter-gatherer societies in the region.

Depicted on the panel are animals that appear to resemble wildebeest, elands, buffalo, and even a giraffe, as well as a smattering of human-like figures with large heads. But one group stands out...

The culture of the Sandawe people, who are descended from those who used to inhabit the region, does not include motifs of buffalo-headed people or people who can shape-shift into buffaloes (or vice versa), so the images may depict something else. But, Grzelczyk notes, buffalo horns do play a significant role in some Sandawe rituals.

Whatever they may be, the strange figures are not without precedent. Not far from Amak'hee 4, in the Kondoa region in central Tanzania, two rock shelter paintings in particular bear a strong resemblance to the trio...

All three sites show similar figures, with large heads, although the Kolo figures sport a striped motif, interpreted as a headdress.

[SunkenCiv]

A diagram of the artwork.

M. Grzelczyk, Antiquity, 2021

[gundog]

[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

[x]

So I guess that must be where the Irish came from.

[riverrunner]

Dang kids just will not stop drawing on the walls.

[SunkenCiv]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC87WUEOSUk

(and the inability to pronounce “th” syndrome is a scourge as well)

[atc23]

It’s a shame black girls don’t wear their hair like this anymore. This is hot

[DoodleBob]

Everywhere I look, pumpkin atrocities!!

[Hatteras]

Loyal Order of the Water Buffalo?

[Larry Lucido]

[Larry Lucido]

I hear they had a hard time getting a taxi.

[gundog]

Too easy to grab in a fight, probably. Gotta have those break-away extensions.

[Libloather]

[Rurudyne]

Or ancestors of Mr Mackey on South Park.

[Wuli]

bare skeletons look like figuress with giant heads

[SunkenCiv]

Skeletons and fossils of extinct megafauna make some think giants used to walk the Earth.

[seowulf]

Did Erich von Däniken know about this?

[Vaduz]

Ego problems have been around longer than we thought.

[SunkenCiv]

Probably why they lived in caves, big big doors.