Kondoa Irangi Art Paintings
The Kondoa Irangi Rock Paintings are found in Kondoa Irangi village, between the Singida and Irangi Hills, and other rock paintings can be found in Kolo village in Dodoma. The rock paintings in central Tanzania are a series of ancient paintings on rock shelter walls.
The photographs portray both hunter-gatherer and agro-pastoralist cultures, illustrating how lives have changed over the last two thousand years. In the Kondoa region, there are over 450 rock art locations. Because of its impressive collection of rock art, it was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2006. The
locations lie on the steep eastern slopes of the Masai escarpment, which runs along the Great Rift Valley’s eastern boundary. These locations are utilized for rituals.
Location of the Kondoa Irangi Art Site
The rock art sites of Kondoa Irangi are located on the slopes of the Irangi hills, near the little community of Kolo, some 3 kilometers from Kondoa town on the Dodoma Arusha route.
How were the Kondoa Art Paintings Drawn?
Local cultures used a mixture of animal fats, red tree sap, and ash to create the rock murals thousands of years ago. The ones that have survived are all situated on sheltering rock faces, where overhanging boulders have offered rain protection for ages. Each site included a large number of individual paintings, which were typically 4m broad by 2m high.
The paintings ranged in size from a handful of inches to several feet. The Kondoa Irangi Tour takes you to a number of caves and shelters that are decorated with paintings of elongated humans, animals, hunting scenes, and abstract marks.
The majority of the paintings have been determined to be over 2,000 years old, and they resemble those seen in Eastern and Southern Africa.
Overview
Kondoa Irangi Tour; The Kondoa Irangi rock art sites are located on the slopes of Irangi hills, near the small village of Kolo, located about 3 kilometer from Kondoa town along the Dodoma Arusha highway. The rock paintings were painted thousands of years ago by local tribes, using a mixture of animal fats, red tree sap and ash. The ones that have survived are all found on sheltered rock faces, where the overhanging rocks have provided shelter from rain over the centuries. Each site had scores of individual paintings, which usually covered an area of around 4m wide by 2m high.
The paintings varied in size from a few inches to a couple of feet. The Kondoa Irangi Tour brings you to dozens of caves and shelters with paintings of elongated people, animals, hunting scenes, and abstract markings. Most of paintings are recorded to be dated at more than 2,000 years old and they look similar to those which in Eastern and Southern Africa.
The Kondoa rock paintings are associated with pastoralist and agriculturalist communities. The paintings shows the cultural link among the communities that live in the Kondoa Area over time.
