Archaeologists reveal musical instruments depicted in Zimbabwe’s ancient rock art

A study published in Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa by archaeologists Dr. Joshua Kumbani and Prof. Margarita Díaz-Andreu explores the intriguing relationship between Zimbabwean rock art and musical instruments.

Southern Africa has a long history of rock art research. However, research examining the relationship between rock art and music is scarce, especially in Zimbabwe.

“The subject of musical instruments in the rock art or archaeological excavations has not been prioritized. Rock art is one of the most reliable sources of music archaeology if we want to reconstruct the music and sound production of people in the past, and hence, this research focused on rock art. Most previous rock art research in Zimbabwe has focused on other aspects like themes in the rock art and regional variations across Zimbabwe,” says Dr. Kumbani.

However, in the past few years, Prof. Sarah Wurz of the University of the Witwatersrand’s research team has started addressing this research gap and identifying and documenting musical instruments in South Africa. Dr. Kumbani and Prof. Díaz-Andreu’s research is an extension of this research into Zimbabwe.

Rock art is one of the most prevalent archaeological sites in Zimbabwe, found chiefly in the country’s eastern half. Many sites have been located and identified, and more are being discovered today.

The rock art at these sites is composed of two main types: finely painted hunter-gatherer art made by the San and finger-painted farmer rock art made by incoming farmers. For this study, the researchers analyzed only the former.

Once identified, instruments were categorized into four types according to the Hornbostel-Sachs system: ideophones, membranophones, chordophones, and aerophones.

According to Dr. Kumbani, to ensure the objects they were identifying were indeed musical instruments, the postures of the instrument players were taken into account. “We were focusing on the postures of the figures to determine whether they were just holding objects or were playing instruments. For example, flute playing can be identified by someone holding a pipe with both hands, and the pipe is near the mouth, which is the source of the air that is blown into the aerophone.

“Rattle playing is usually characterized by someone holding the gourds or pear-shaped implements, and the hands are normally flexed at an angle, which may indicate the movement of hands as one shakes the idiophones.”

The researchers successfully identified rattles, a drum, trumpets, flutes, and a bullroarer. Most of these were concentrated in the Harare Province, Mashonaland East Province, and the Matobo World Heritage Cultural Landscape in Matabeleland South Province.

The researchers noted interesting differences and commonalities in the rock art instruments depicted. For one, there were regional differences. Rattles, which could be hand-held gourds or attached to shoulders and upper arms, were found in Zimbabwe.

However, leg rattles commonly depicted in South African rock art and used in “traditional” Zimbabwean dances today were absent from Zimbabwean rock art.

Dr. Kumbani says this absence of leg rattles in Zimbabwean rock art may stem from cultural differences. “This could be because of different instrument type preferences among the groups who made the art, and it shows regional variation, which may indicate that the art was made by different cultural groups.”

Similarly, musical bows, which are bows whose strings are plucked to make a sound, are absent in Zimbabwe. While depicted in other southern African rock art, these regional distinctions are mirrored in other known regional differences, such as Zimbabwe’s preference for depicting Kudu compared to South Africa’s focus on the eland.

In addition to regional trends, it was noted that many musical instrument depictions also had links to trance motifs. San shamans perform trance dances for various reasons, including healing. When depicting this act in rock art, various motifs are often used, such as therianthropes (human-animal hybrids), crouching or bending forward, having one’s hair stand erect, having elongated bodies, or having distended stomachs.

Many of these trance motifs were seen accompanying musical instruments, such as rattle images painted with therianthropes, erect hair, and a distended stomach, or a drum depicted together with dancers. These motifs indicate that drums and rattles were closely associated with ritual and ceremony, more so than with entertainment.

Meanwhile, trumpets and flutes were less clearly associated, and in both Zimbabwe and South Africa, could be depicted as being played together with trance motifs or possibly for entertainment.

The rock art sites also reveal interesting gender dynamics in the depiction of musical instrument usage. Rattles were found to be used by both male and female figures. While some shelters only had males or only females using them, at others, like Ngomakurira (Mashonaland East), both males and females were depicted using them.

Meanwhile, other instruments, such as trumpets and flutes, were only associated with males. According to Dr. Kumbani, “We are not quite certain why the pattern is like that. Ethnographically, it is known that among the San communities, women would normally sing and clap, but we do not have much information on instrument playing by women.

“There are no women playing aerophones in the rock art of Zimbabwe, and this might have deep cultural meaning where there are dos and don’ts that are gender constructed. However, we are not sure if the same applied to musical instrument playing. We are of the view that if there were no deep cultural symbolism, it was by choice that men wanted to associate themselves with playing aerophones like flutes and trumpets.”

Dr. Kumbani elaborates, saying, “In some cases, it could be by default; for example, the musical bows players that are depicted in southern Africa seem to be all men, because normally men hunted using the bows which doubled sometimes as musical instruments.”

The insights gleaned from this study of Zimbabwean rock art open up avenues for future interdisciplinary research on the connections between music, rock art, trance, and cultural identity among the San.

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