TREASURE HUNT: The Search for Thomas Bain’s 19th Century Sketch Book of Rock Paintings, the Copies of Rock Paintings he donated to the ‘SA Public Library’, and the Search for the Sites he painted”
By:
Kate McCallum
Date:
Tue, 09/05/2023 - 18:30
Venue:
SA Astronomical Observatory auditorium
Branch:
Western Cape
Date: TUESDAY 9 MAY
Time: 18:00 for 18:30
Place: S A Astronomical Observatory
“TREASURE HUNT: The Search for Thomas Bain’s 19th Century Sketch Book of Rock Paintings, the Copies of Rock Paintings he donated to the ‘SA Public Library’, and the Search for the Sites he painted”.
ABSTRACT: Thomas Bain (1830-1893) was a prolific road and pass builder with a deep interest in botany, palaeontology, and rock paintings, among other things. Kate read that he had kept a sketch book in his saddle bag as he rode around the Cape in which he recorded some of the rock paintings he came across: she went looking for the sketch book, and then for the sites he painted.
BIO: Kate McCallum has worked in the book publishing industry for 42 years. She was Managing Director of Oxford University Press Southern Africa for 12 years, after which she ran her own business as an international publishing consultant. A traveller and mountaineer, she has walked in most of the European countries, and been on mountaineering expeditions to Kyrgystan, Western China, Peru, Tibet and Siberia. She has also organised and led hiking trips to Bhutan, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia.
Since 2016, in her spare time, she has been surveying and recording rock art with eCRAG (eastern Cederberg Rock Art Group) of the W. Cape Branch of the South African Archaeological Society under the leadership of Dr Janette Deacon.