Digital imaging and the revelation of ‘hidden ’ rock art: Vaalekop Shelter, KwaZulu-Natal

Vaalekop Shelter, a small and seemingly sparsely painted rock art site on the upper reaches of the iMpofana (Mooi) River, KwaZulu-Natal, will be flooded by the construction of the Spring Grove Dam downstream. In mitigation, the site was photographed using a proprietary digital imaging process with the acronym CPED (Capture, Process, Enhance and Display). CPED provides different views of the rock art: a 360˚ view of the painted rock surfaces and their surrounds, a very high-resolution mosaic of the painted rock surface, and enhancements of the painted rock surface that reveal details of the art invisible to the naked eye. These innovations literally change the way that we look at rock art. Instead of the traditional approach to rock art photography in which many separate images are recorded of the paintings, CPED takes the painted rock surface as the basic unit of analysis and users may zoom in and out of the the high-resolution mosaic image depending on the level of detail required. Rock art that was formerly considered ‘indecipherable ’ due to the deterioration of the painted surfaces, becomes more clearly visible after applying image-enhancement algorithms that produce ‘false-colour ’ and greyscale images. Direct tracing of rock art images could be obviated because better copies can be obtained from the digital images. The benefits of CPED imaging should be shared as widely as possible. Strategies suggested are the creation of a nationa