The Basin Trail Aboriginal Engraving Site, West Head KCNP

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Recorded by I.M. Sim (1965). This site is a relatively large and high tesselated sandstone outcrop. Motifs at this site include an unfinished male figure, another male figure with a 4-rayed head-dress holding a fish in one hand and a boomerang in the other with two narrow objects at his right hand side, a female figure with an oval object at her left-hand side, and two other anthropomorphic figures with ‘girdles’ (Sim 1965) together with two associated mundoes. Further south-east is a large fish with a line projecting from its head, another male anthropomorph with an object connected to his head and a small fish with 3 internal lines drawn within the middle of his figure. Another male anthropomorph and small fish are engraved nearby. Genitals are shown on most of these latter figures. On the eastern side of the group is a small bisexual human figure, with outstretched arms and legs with a girdle and necklet.

Nearby is a fish and a boomerang and a composition of a man and a woman engraved side by side and with overlapping and upraised arms and two lines on their northern side, and three fish on their southern side. West of these is a line of seven wallabies hopping northward. At their head are two fish. North of these are two fish, a bird (?), and an eel-shaped object. On the western side of the group are three fish, and a bird (?) with a transverse line across its neck. A further 10m south-east, on a separate patch of rock, is a wallaby with a young one following it, and an indeterminate line.

The Basin Aboriginal Engraving Site KCNP, highlighting the tessellated rock surface on which the engravings are recorded.

The large number of engraved motifs recorded at The Basin Rock Engraving Site in KCNP, from Sim (1965).

Recent and NPWS authorised highlighting of engraved motifs undertaken in collaboration with local Aboriginal groups, The Basin Engraving Site, KCNP.

Connected male and female engraved motifs, The Basin Engraving Site, KCNP.