Vandals Have Destroyed 30,000-Year-Old Australian Cave Art

Vandals Destroy Aboriginal Cave Art

In a devastating hit to global world heritage, vandals struck South Australia’s Koonalda Cave on on Nullarbor Plain, destroying 30,000-year-old artwork at the national heritage site. The cave is considered sacred by its owners, the Mirning people.

“This is quite frankly shocking,” South Australia Attorney-General and Aboriginal Affairs Minister, Kyam Maher, told Australia’s ABC Radio. “These caves are some of the earliest evidence of Aboriginal occupation of that part of the country.”

He called for a “severe penalty” for those responsible. Under the law, damaging an Aboriginal site could lead to six months jail time or a fine of A$10,000 ($6,700).

The cave is protected by a steel gate installed in the 1980s, but the vandals appear to have dug under it to break in. Due to national heritage laws and governmental bureaucracy, even the Mirning people need to get a key from the environment department in order to access the site, making it difficult for them to properly safeguard it.

The ancient rock art is now obscured by graffiti, with messages like “don’t look now, but this is a death cave” scrawled across the age-old markings.

“The vandals caused a huge amount of damage. The art is not recoverable,” Keryn Walshe, an archaeologist of ancient Aboriginal sites, told the Guardian. “The surface of the cave is very soft. It is not possible to remove the graffiti without destroying the art underneath. It’s a massive, tragic loss to have it defaced to this degree.”

Another blow to Tradition.

It seems the Culture Wars are everywhere, even in Sacred Sites.

Heartbreaking news.

a reply to: GENERAL EYES

That is seriously depressing...it’s gonna take 30,000 years for that vandalism to become the art it replaced.

This makes me soooooo mad. What a bunch of morons to destroy something so precious, I just can't understand it. Words fail me 😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡

We've also been having waves of Native American art in National Parks being vandalized here in the States.

I'm absolutely furious at these developments.

a reply to: GENERAL EYES

Who would do that other than the same people destroying everything else.

btw, I tried like the devil to star your op and it didn't show up.

Unsurprising though appalling.

a reply to: GENERAL EYES

I’m struggling to find words for the level of anger and disgust that this makes me feel.

Not only are these type paintings precious and sacred to Aboriginals but should be treasured by anyone who calls themselves Australian.

I hope they identify and jail the f wits that did this and then as a condition of parole have them perform community service in an Aboriginal community.

Why are some people so ignorant and destructive?

originally posted by: Notabot12345666
a reply to: GENERAL EYES

That is seriously depressing...it’s gonna take 30,000 years for that vandalism to become the art it replaced.

Except by then it will just be imbecilic thirty thousand year old vandalism on sixty thousand year old art and evidence of existence.

a reply to: GENERAL EYES

To blow up the Buddha statues because of of your religion is one level of stupidity but to vandalize ancient art????

Oh, what wretched times we live in when grown men will say, ‘Ni’, to an old woman!!

(To explain: the absurd humor of an old Monty Python skit is as about the the same level of absurdity so it is something of an example and statement because words fail me! It is our past and we enough problems with the present before we can even begin to think about letting go of the past.

And some other idiot has a quote attributed to him: Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.)

a reply to: GENERAL EYES

Humans are their own worst enemy.

This is the biggest loss in the art world since Muslim armies blew up those 50 foot tall Buddhist carved rock statues in...Afghanistan I think. People who don’t appreciate things like that that the rest of the world treasures are so simpleton, moronic, ugly hearted, and a six month penalty at worst is a joke. They should be raked over the coals of given a backpack and some water and told to go search the outback till they find an equally important cave with artwork or keep search in’, heat and thirst be damned.

And in Europe there are arson attacks against 500 yr old cathedrals, and here in the US they are tearing down statues of our historical heroes.

Our cultures and our heritage are the enemy of the NWO.

originally posted by: CthulhuMythos
This makes me soooooo mad. What a bunch of morons to destroy something so precious, I just can't understand it. Words fail me 😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡

If that makes you mad, imagine all the things we'll never even know because they've been destroyed. Take the face of the Sphinx for example...

a reply to: GENERAL EYES

This is so sad, I don't understand people anymore. There really is no need to deface a piece of history like that. The human race disappoints me everyday, even though I still try to look for the good in it.

I'm pretty pissed off, being a big history buff, indeed.

However, let this asshole vandalism be a STARK signpost to buckle down & disavow erasing or rewriting history because you don't like that history.

This is ideological fruit off the same tree that houses the "redefining words" tainted apple. Tread carefully.

a reply to: GENERAL EYES

I was also saddened to see this news this morning. But I'm wondering if the Mirning peoples or archaeologists can use some sort of plaster-based mix to put on the carvings to get their impressions and then recreate the carvings where they can house them in a museum or more secure location for future generations to enjoy.

deeply depressing but pretty unsurprising, went to the Temple of Hatshepsut some years back as i took my kids up the Nile for them to see a bit of the ancient world for themselves so this kind of damage is not new but it is deeply depressing and indicative of a culture that can't sustain itself..

a reply to: Nyiah

for other reasons (namely safeguarding) I've come to the conclusion our society is terminally ill.. and things like this only serve to reinforce that conclusion.

Such as ?

a reply to: GENERAL EYES

a reply to: chris_stibrany

Native American Pictographs Vandalized