A note for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers. This page is about the rock engravings of the Sydney region. They are cultural places that belong to the Aboriginal peoples of this Country, and many are still sacred today. This page names people who have died, including Cora Gooseberry and Governor Arthur Phillip, and it includes a historical portrait. Some quotes from colonial writers use words and ideas that are offensive today. I've only included sites that the National Parks and Wildlife Service, local councils or the Australian Museum already publish. Please don't go looking for, or share, the locations of sites that aren't public.
I acknowledge the Gadigal, Guringai, Darug, Dharawal and all the other Traditional Custodians of the land and waters of the Sydney region, and pay my respects to Elders past and present.
You can walk past them for years without knowing they're there. On a flat shelf of sandstone above the surf at North Bondi, or on a ridge in Ku-ring-gai Chase, there are outlines cut into the rock: a whale longer than a bus, a line of hopping wallabies, a man with his arms up, a trail of footprints heading off into the scrub. They are the rock engravings of the Sydney region, and they're among the oldest pictures in the city.
This page covers what they are, how they were made, how old they might be, whose Country they're on and what happened to them after 1788. That last part covers the roads built over them, the stonemasons who recut them and the long arguments about how to look after them. Where the sources don't agree, I've said so.
What the Engravings Are
Archaeologists split Sydney's rock art into two kinds. Pigment art (drawings, paintings and stencils in charcoal and ochre) sits in rock shelters, out of the weather. Engravings are mostly out in the open, cut into flat platforms of sandstone. Jo McDonald's study of Sydney Basin rock art uses exactly that split: there are two art contexts, "in rockshelters and on open engraving sites" [33]. Val Attenbrow, writing for the Dictionary of Sydney, says Sydney engravings "occur principally on open horizontal sandstone platforms", though some turn up in shelters and on vertical rock faces [13].
The style is local. The Australian Museum calls it "simple figurative" and says the style "is confined to the region" [30]. NPWS says engraving sites on Hawkesbury sandstone have "a distinctive style of engraving which is unique in Australia" [19]. Most of the figures are just outlines. The Wikipedia summary of McDonald's work puts it at 97 per cent outline only, with infilled bodies kept mostly for culture heroes [1].
The Sandstone
The rock is Hawkesbury Sandstone. The Ku-ring-gai GeoRegion guide to West Head describes it as a medium to coarse quartz sandstone of Triassic age, laid down between 247 and 242 million years ago [4]. Across much of the northern and southern bush the surface has cracked into a pattern of plates and polygons, which geologists call tessellation, and a lot of the engravings are cut straight across those cracks [3, 5].
Attenbrow makes the point that Sydney is lucky in its rock. Its sandstone shelters and platforms are where so much of the evidence of Aboriginal life has survived [13]. But the softness that made the stone easy to cut also lets it wear away. Waverley Council's page on the Bondi engravings, written with the Gujaga Foundation, says the markings "have eroded due to the softness of the rock, the natural influences of weathering and people treading on these sacred sites" [11].
How They Were Made
Most accounts agree on the basic method. The Australian Museum, describing an engraved echidna at West Head, says an outline was sketched first. Then "a series of holes would have been drilled along the lines with a pointed stone or shell or piece of hard wood", and the holes were joined by rubbing a sharp object along the line. The result is a U-shaped groove up to about 2 cm deep and 2 cm wide [30]. Natural grooves in sandstone are usually V-shaped, and grooves cut with steel tools are narrower and deeper [30, 1].
The Gujaga Foundation text on the Waverley Council site describes it as pecking a line of holes and then joining them, "similar to a joining of the dots" [11]. Archaeologists call this "conjoined-puncturing" [13]. You can see the method for yourself at the Resolute Track platform near West Head. The GeoRegion guide notes that two engraved eels there "began as a series of conical pits that were then joined as a line" [4].
One caution from Attenbrow: nobody actually knows what tool was used. No outsider recorded an engraving being made until the late nineteenth century, and on that one occasion the maker used a metal tool [13].
How Many Are There?
The honest answer is thousands, and the count depends on who's counting and what they count.
- Jo McDonald's PhD study used a sample of 717 open engraving sites. She says that was 39.5 per cent of the engraving sites known in the region in 1994 [33]. That works out to roughly 1,800 known engraving sites at the time (my arithmetic, not hers).
- Those 717 sites held 7,804 motifs. The commonest was the human footprint, or "mundoe", at about 17 per cent, then unidentifiable shapes and fish [33].
- Wikipedia's article on the Sydney engravings, citing McDonald, says there are "approximately 2,000 rock engraving sites". It also says "many thousands" of individual engravings are known, though most locations aren't made public [1].
- The State Library of NSW's Eora story says the Eora "created hundreds of galleries" engraved in the sandstone of the Sydney Basin [32].
- Most sites are small. McDonald found the average engraving site has 10.9 motifs, almost one in five has just one, and only four sites in her sample have more than 90 [33].
Some park-level figures from NPWS: more than 350 Aboriginal sites in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park on one NPWS page, and over 800 on another (see "Where the Sources Disagree" below) [8, 2]. Brisbane Water National Park has "hundreds of rock engraving sites" [19]. Garigal National Park has around 100 recorded Aboriginal sites of all kinds [28, 29]. These figures count every kind of Aboriginal site, not just engravings.
How Old Are They?
This is the hardest question, and the sources are careful about it. Engravings on open rock usually have no soil or charcoal over them to carbon-date.
- Attenbrow (Dictionary of Sydney) says that apart from post-contact images like sailing ships, dating Sydney's engraved and painted images "has proved impossible". She gives two minimum ages from nearby. In the Macdonald Valley, engravings that had been partly buried must be older than 2,800 years, going by radiocarbon dates from the deposit next to them. In the Blue Mountains, a mineral crust over an engraved bird track gave a minimum age of 1,790 years [13].
- The Australian Museum says the style and condition of the West Head echidna suggest it was made "in the last few thousand years" [30].
- McDonald says the region's art fits the Simple Figurative styles, which are predicted to be "a relatively recent (Holocene) phenomenon" [33].
- Wikipedia says Sydney rock art dates to around 5,000 years, possibly up to 7,000. It cites popular articles, not a dating study, and puts the simple figurative style at around 3,000 to 4,000 BC [1].
- At individual sites the estimates vary. One is "possibly up to 2,000 years old" for the deeper-cut southern part of the Bondi group (Terri McCormack, Dictionary of Sydney) [12]. Another is "about 1000 years old" for the Balls Head carvings (Sydney Morning Herald, 2008) [14]. At Bulgandry, NPWS says most engravings are "more than 200 years old with many perhaps ten times that age" [17].
Some engravings are young. Sailing ships, a clay pipe, bulls and a woman in a skirt have all been recorded. They were cut after 1788, so engraving carried on after the British arrived [13]. There's a further complication: engravings were sometimes re-grooved during later ceremonies, which makes the age of the groove you see today even harder to pin down [30, 1].
Whose Country
The engravings sit across the Country of many peoples, and the names used for them vary between sources and over time. The Australian Museum lists the clans living between Botany Bay, Broken Bay and Parramatta in 1788. They include the Gadigal, Wangal, Wallumedegal, Boromedegal, Gamaragal, Borogegal, Birrabirragal and Gayamaygal, who spoke languages now known as Darug and Dharawal. Gundungurra was spoken to the south-west and Darginung north-west of the Hawkesbury [31]. The Museum also points out that the language names Darug, Dharawal, Darginung and Gundungurra only came into use after the 1870s, through early anthropologists and linguists [31].
Closer to particular places:
- Bondi: Waverley Council acknowledges the Bidjigal, Birrabirragal and Gadigal people of the Sydney coast [11].
- Balls Head: North Sydney Council describes it as Cammeraygal Country [16]. Karen Smith of the Aboriginal Heritage Office told the ABC that the Cammeraygal and Wallumedegal were living in the North Sydney area in 1788 [15].
- Kurnell / Kamay: NPWS says two nations, the Goorawal and the Gweagal, were living in what is now Kamay Botany Bay National Park when Europeans first arrived [26].
- Ku-ring-gai Chase and Muogamarra: NPWS runs walks in Ku-ring-gai Chase with Guringai Tours and Traditional Custodians [8]. For Muogamarra, NPWS reports that the Darug Tribal Aboriginal Corporation treats Berowra Creek as a boundary, with Darug people to the west and Ku-ring-gai people to the east [25]. Les McLeod, an Aboriginal guide on the Hawkesbury, is quoted saying "the Guringai people would have visited a couple of times a year to re-engrave" the figures [1].
- The south: Dharawal National Park is "the traditional land of the Dharawal Aboriginal people" [21]. NPWS says the Jibbon Headland engravings in Royal National Park show "the Dharawal People's past and present links to the land" [27].
The State Library's Eora story uses Eora, meaning "the people", for the coastal clans, and credits them with the engraved galleries of the Sydney Basin [32].
What They Show
Attenbrow lists the commonest subjects of engraved and painted images around Sydney: men and women, hands, footprints, ancestral or supernatural beings, kangaroos and wallabies, dingoes, wombats, echidnas, fish, eels, sharks, dolphins, whales, sun-fish, turtles, snakes, lizards, emus, lyrebirds, brush turkeys, shields, boomerangs, axes, spears, clubs and dilly bags [13]. The State Library adds "sky heroes" to the list [32].
Whales are a Sydney speciality. The Australian Museum notes that engraved whales are found "on rock platforms along the coast and around the shores of Sydney Harbour", naming Balls Head and Grotto Point at Clontarf [31]. The Garigal plan of management calls large whale motifs "an uncommon feature" that "may have been culturally significant" [29]. The Museum also records what may be part of the reason. Stranded whales were a feast. In September 1790 Watkin Tench described about two hundred people gathered around a dead whale on the beach at Manly Cove, cooking it on fires [31].
Ancestral beings turn up too. Wikipedia describes Baiame with a striped head-dress and Daramulan with a large club foot, possibly part-emu [1]. The GeoRegion guide records a large "Daramulan-like ancestral figure" at the Elvina Track site [5].
As for what it all meant, the sources are modest. Attenbrow says the original cultural meaning of Sydney's rock images "has not been retained in oral histories and was not recorded by the first British colonists". She suggests they may have been made for ceremony as well as everyday reasons: to bring luck in hunting and fishing, to teach, to tell stories or simply to show something the artist had seen [13]. The Gujaga Foundation text calls engraving sites "our classrooms" and says they also pointed to local sources of food [11]. Karen Smith told the ABC that Balls Head "was a really big rock art gallery", but "what the story was they were trying to tell, we don't know." She added: "Nobody actually asked or cared enough to ask the people here what that story is" [15].
Well-Known Sites
All of these sites are publicly described by NPWS, a local council or the Australian Museum. I've only repeated what those bodies already publish.
Bondi Golf Course, North Bondi
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On the sea side of the golf course, on a cliff-top platform above a fishing rock known as Murriverie or Marevera, is Sydney's best-known engraving group [12]. Waverley Council (with the Gujaga Foundation) describes two large groups. The southern group is covered over and includes a whale, porpoise, fish, human figures, boomerangs and footprints. The northern group, the one you can see, has a seal, shark, fish and a boomerang [11].
Terri McCormack, in the Dictionary of Sydney, says the carvings stretched more than 60 metres south. She describes the largest as an eight-metre shark that appears to be attacking a male figure, possibly "the first record of a shark attack at Bondi". She says it was earlier thought to be a whale, but the fins identify it as a shark [12]. The Hiking the World site record calls the central figure a whale and thinks the shark-attack reading is "incorrect" [36]. More on that below.
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Bondi is also where the re-grooving argument came to a head (see "Protection and the Re-grooving Debate").
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Ku-ring-gai Chase: the Basin Track
NPWS calls the Basin Aboriginal art site "one of the best examples of rock engravings" in Ku-ring-gai Chase. It's near the start of the Basin Track off West Head Road, and NPWS says to come in the early morning or late afternoon, "when the shadows give an edge to the faint, yet impressive engravings" [2]. The GeoRegion guide says it has about 40 figures and part-figures. They include fish and wallabies in profile, men and women alongside shapes that may be crescent moons, and a few mundoes [4].
Ian Sim recorded the site in 1965. His record includes a man with a four-rayed head-dress holding a fish and a boomerang, and a man and woman engraved side by side with arms overlapping and raised. There's also a line of seven wallabies hopping north and a wallaby with a young one following [3].
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Ku-ring-gai Chase: the Elvina Track
Fred McCarthy recorded the Elvina Track engraving site off West Head Road in 1954. According to the GeoRegion guide it has at least 53 motifs spread over several heavily tessellated platforms. They include a large whale, emus (one with an egg), goannas, fish, shields, wallabies, eels and the large Daramulan-like figure. Natural cracks in the rock seem to have been used to suggest one or two long snakes [5]. The NPWS page for the Elvina trail itself is about the walk down to Elvina Bay and doesn't mention the engravings [7].
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Ku-ring-gai Chase: West Head and the Lion Island View
NPWS's Aboriginal Heritage walk links the Resolute and West Head tracks. It passes Red Hands Cave (stencils, not engravings), a set of rock engravings and an old occupation shelter, then comes out at West Head Lookout [6]. On the Resolute platform, the GeoRegion guide points out a man with outstretched arms and a club or axe at his waist, two eels with cross-bars, and the leftovers of older engravings. It adds that other engravings "were destroyed when the trail was constructed" [4].
From the lookout NPWS says you can see across the Hawkesbury to Lion Island Nature Reserve and the Central Coast beaches [9]. The GeoRegion guide adds that 20,000 years ago this view "would have been across a forested valley", with the coast 8 to 12 km further out. When the sea rose after the last Ice Age it drowned "a landscape that was occupied by Aboriginal people" [4].
The Australian Museum's echidna engraving is also at West Head. It's 90 cm long with 12 lines for quills, and it shares a site with six fish up to 1.9 m long, a shark, two shields, two stingrays and at least 75 mundoes [30].
Mount Ku-ring-gai
Mount Ku-ring-gai station is the start of the NPWS track to Berowra. NPWS says it passes "an Aboriginal midden" and that middens are common through the park [10]. I couldn't find an NPWS, council or Australian Museum page that names an engraving site on that track, so I'm not pointing to one.
Muogamarra Nature Reserve
Muogamarra, between Cowan and the Hawkesbury, is only open for about six weeks a year around August and September, to protect "sensitive natural and cultural heritage values". Visits are by booked guided tour, and NPWS says visitors get the chance to see Aboriginal rock engravings [24]. NPWS also says Aboriginal sites in the reserve "will be preserved and managed in partnership with Aboriginal people". It notes some engravings in the reserve date from the nineteenth century and belong to its European history [25].
Balls Head, Waverton
Balls Head was dedicated as a public reserve in 1926, and North Sydney Council says it and Berry Island both "feature Aboriginal rock carvings" [16]. The best known is a whale about six metres long with the faint outline of a man inside it. Some read the man as a "clever man" singing the whale into the harbour, but Karen Smith told the ABC that interpretations have conflicted over the years [14, 15]. The Herald reported in 2008 that another animal carved near the whale's tail looks like a dog or a horse. If it's a horse, the Cammeraygal were still carving there after 1788 [14].
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Balls Head also shows how much has been buried. In the early 1900s a road was built to service the coal loader, and it covered four engravings and part of the whale's tail. A 2008 dig, done to turn the site into a community nursery, found them again: a man, two "spirit men" with rays from their heads and what looks like a school of fish [14].
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Bantry Bay, Garigal National Park
Wikipedia describes the Bantry Bay site in Garigal National Park as an "extensive engraving site" with animals, people, symbols and a whale [1]. The NPWS plan of management for Garigal describes one large engraving site in the park with more than 80 separate figures. It says it "is believed to be the group noted by White in 1788 during an expedition led by Governor Arthur Phillip … the first seen by Europeans in Australia". The same site was noted by the geologist Etheridge in 1890 and by W. D. Campbell in 1899, and the plan calls it "one of the most important surviving sites in the Sydney area" [29]. The plan doesn't name the site. The Hiking the World record says it's Bantry Bay, with 116 figures over five platforms after a 1966 survey, up from 84 counted in the 1890s [37].
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Kurnell / Kamay
Kamay is where Aboriginal people and the crew of the Endeavour met in 1770. NPWS says "significant Aboriginal sites have been recorded in the park, including middens and engravings" [26]. I couldn't find an NPWS page pointing visitors to a particular engraving at Kurnell, so the best way to learn about the area's Aboriginal history is on NPWS's guided Aboriginal cultural tours there [26].
Dharawal National Park and Jibbon
Dharawal National Park, near Helensburgh and Appin, became a national park in 2012 [21]. Its plan of management highlights "exceptionally well-preserved drawings, stencils and paintings", not engravings [22]. The plan also commits NPWS not to publicise the locations of Aboriginal sites without the agreement of the local Aboriginal land council and other Aboriginal representatives [22]. If you want to see engravings on Dharawal Country, NPWS points to Jibbon Headland in Royal National Park. It calls these "some of the region's most outstanding engravings" and has built a boardwalk and viewing platform there [27].
Over the Hawkesbury: Bulgandry
Bulgandry, near Kariong in Brisbane Water National Park, is on the Central Coast rather than in Sydney. I've included it because NPWS says it's cut into the same Hawkesbury sandstone, in the same distinctive style, and NPWS has made it easy to visit [19]. Its name belongs to the large engraving of a man "thought to represent an ancestral hero, depicted with an impressive headdress". There are also wallabies, fish, a dolphin, what may be a canoe and a bird, and axe-sharpening grooves nearby. A 290-metre path and a boardwalk around the engravings mean you can see it all without stepping on the rock [17, 18, 20].
What the Colonists Saw
The British noticed the engravings almost straight away. The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay, published in London by John Stockdale in 1789, says that on Phillip's excursions around Botany Bay and Port Jackson "the figures of animals, of shields, and weapons, and even of men, have been seen carved upon the rocks". It says fish were often shown, and "in one place the form of a large lizard was sketched out with tolerable accuracy". On top of one hill there was a man "in the attitude usually assumed by them when they begin to dance" [34]. The writer goes on to claim these people had no clothing and somehow made art before shelter. It's a reminder of how little the newcomers understood about what they were seeing.
In April 1788 Phillip and the surgeon John White camped two nights in what is now Garigal National Park, exploring west of Manly [29]. NPWS believes the large engraving group White noted on that trip is the one in the park [29].
W. D. Campbell's 1899 Survey
The first big attempt to record the engravings came more than a century later. William Dugald Campbell measured and described them for Aboriginal Carvings of Port Jackson and Broken Bay, published by the NSW Government Printer, W. A. Gullick, in 1899 [35]. The Garigal plan of management calls it Campbell's "1899 treatise" [29]. Later recorders still use his plates as reference points. The Hiking the World site records cite Campbell's plate numbers for Bondi and Bantry Bay, and say he recorded 85 figures across three neighbouring groups at Bondi, of which only one group can still be seen [36, 37]. Later recorders built on his work, including Fred McCarthy, whose papers on Sydney engravings appeared in the Records of the Australian Museum from 1956, and Ian Sim in the 1960s [1, 3, 5].
Aboriginal people still held knowledge of these places through the colonial years. The Gujaga Foundation text notes that coastal people such as Cora Gooseberry and Johnny Baswick's son Freddy "continued to hold knowledge of engravings in the 19th century" [11].
Damage, Vandalism and Loss
Sydney grew straight over a lot of this. A few examples from the sources:
- Development. The Garigal plan of management says most Aboriginal sites in that district "have been destroyed by development" [29].
- Roads and trails. The Balls Head road buried engravings for more than 80 years [14]. At West Head, the GeoRegion guide thinks building the fire trail probably destroyed engravings beside the Resolute platform [4]. At Bantry Bay, Hiking the World says a cart track and then the road that became the Wakehurst Parkway ran over the site, and mountain bikes later rode across it until it was fenced [37].
- Feet. At Jibbon, NPWS says that for decades visitors walked along the engravings and "this led to deterioration" [27]. Waverley Council lists people treading on the Bondi site as one cause of erosion [11].
- Vandalism. The GeoRegion guide says the Basin Track engravings "are occasionally vandalized" [4]. Wikipedia notes most locations aren't publicised so that they're protected from vandalism and kept sacred [1].
- Weather and plants. McCormack describes the Bondi carvings as "poorly drained, blistering, and in danger of being damaged" [12]. At Bondi and Jibbon, grass and soil are creeping over the edges [36, 27].
Protection and the Re-grooving Debate
Aboriginal people kept the engravings fresh themselves. Several sources say grooves were re-cut during later ceremonies [1, 30], and Les McLeod's description of the Guringai re-engraving a site a couple of times a year makes the same point [1].
The trouble started when non-Aboriginal authorities did the recutting. At Bondi, Waverley Council fenced the northern group in 1933. Then it had a stonemason "recut and deepen the grooves in 1951 and 1964". The Gujaga Foundation text says "some of the images were not traced exactly to the original imagery and were not done using a traditional method" [11]. McCormack calls the 1964 work "a misguided attempt" [12]. Hiking the World gives more background. An advisory panel of twelve academics chaired by Fred McCarthy recommended re-cutting by a majority, not unanimously, and Ian Sim supervised the work in August 1964. The site record says "none of the discussions involved any members of the Aboriginal community", and that the Local Aboriginal Land Council later condemned it as "an act of desecration" [36]. The same writer admits that without the recutting "there would be very little left to see" at Bondi [36].
Today the approach is gentler and done with Aboriginal people. At the Basin Track, the GeoRegion guide says "Aboriginal teams" sometimes enhance the engravings using "narrow nylon brushes and water to remove lichen" [4]. Its Basin page shows "NPWS authorised highlighting" done "in collaboration with local Aboriginal groups" [3]. NPWS has put boardwalks at Bulgandry and Jibbon to keep feet off the rock [18, 27]. In Dharawal National Park it monitors sites with the Tharawal Local Aboriginal Land Council [23]. At Muogamarra, sites are managed "in partnership with Aboriginal people" [25].
Visiting Respectfully
If you go to see the public sites, here's what NPWS and the councils ask:
- Don't walk on engravings or touch rock art, and don't use flash photography [20]. At Bulgandry, keep off the rock shelf altogether [17].
- Stay on boardwalks and tracks where they exist [18, 27].
- The GeoRegion guide says school groups take their shoes off to limit damage at the Resolute platform, "you could too" [4].
- Go early or late in the day. NPWS and the Australian Museum both say the grooves show up best when the sun is low and the shadows are long [2, 30].
- Don't remove anything, and don't post the location of any site that isn't already published. NPWS policy is not to publicise site locations without the agreement of Aboriginal communities [22, 20].
- Better still, go with Aboriginal guides. NPWS lists Guringai Tours in Ku-ring-gai Chase and Aboriginal cultural tours at Kamay [8, 26].
Timeline
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| 247–242 million years ago | Hawkesbury Sandstone is laid down [4] |
| 18,000–8,000 years ago | The sea rises after the last Ice Age and drowns valleys like the one now under Broken Bay [4] |
| More than 2,800 years ago | Minimum age for partly buried engravings in the Macdonald Valley [13] |
| Last few thousand years | Australian Museum's estimate for the West Head echidna engraving [30] |
| 1788 | Phillip's parties see figures carved on rocks around Botany Bay and Port Jackson. In April, Phillip and John White camp in what is now Garigal National Park [34, 29] |
| After 1788 | Sailing ships and other contact images are engraved [13] |
| 1789 | The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay is published, describing the carvings [34] |
| September 1790 | Tench describes about 200 people feasting on a stranded whale at Manly Cove [31] |
| 1890 | Etheridge notes the large Garigal engraving group [29] |
| 1899 | W. D. Campbell publishes Aboriginal Carvings of Port Jackson and Broken Bay [35] |
| Early 1900s | A road to the Balls Head coal loader buries four engravings and part of the whale's tail [14] |
| 1926 | Balls Head and Berry Island dedicated as public reserves [16] |
| 1933 | Waverley Council fences the northern Bondi group [11] |
| 1951 | Bondi engravings recut by a stonemason [11, 12] |
| 1954 | Fred McCarthy records the Elvina Track site [5] |
| August 1964 | Bondi engravings re-grooved again, supervised by Ian Sim [11, 36] |
| 1965 | Ian Sim records the Basin Track site [3] |
| 1966 | Bantry Bay recount: 116 figures over five platforms [37] |
| 1994 | Jo McDonald's sample of 717 engraving sites, 39.5% of those then known [33] |
| July 2008 | Buried Balls Head engravings are uncovered again [14] |
| 2012 | Dharawal National Park proclaimed [21] |
| 2026 | North Sydney marks 100 years of the Balls Head and Berry Island reserves [16] |
Where the Sources Disagree
- How many sites in Ku-ring-gai Chase? NPWS's park pages say "more than 350 Aboriginal sites" [8]. Its Basin art site page says "over 800" [2]. NPWS doesn't explain the difference.
- How many in Garigal? The plan of management says "nearly 100" [29]. The current NPWS page says "over 100" [28].
- How many engraving sites in Sydney? About 2,000, according to Wikipedia citing McDonald [1]. McDonald's own 1994 figures imply about 1,800 known at the time [33]. The State Library says "hundreds of galleries" [32].
- Whale or shark at Bondi? McCormack (Dictionary of Sydney) says the eight-metre figure is a shark attacking a man, "earlier thought to be a whale" [12]. Hiking the World calls it an eight-metre whale with a shark and dolphin overlapping it, and rejects the shark-attack reading [36]. Waverley Council lists a whale in the covered southern group and a shark in the visible northern group [11].
- When was Bondi recut? Waverley Council says a stonemason recut the grooves in 1951 and 1964 [11]. McCormack says the carvings were "retouched and fenced in 1951", with the re-grooving attempt in 1964 [12]. But Waverley dates the fence to 1933 [11].
- How old? The estimates run from "about 1000 years" at Balls Head [14] and up to 2,000 years at Bondi [12] to minimum ages of 1,790 and 2,800 years elsewhere [13], and "around 5,000 … possibly 7,000" in Wikipedia [1]. Attenbrow says reliable dating "has proved impossible" [13].
- What tool? The Australian Museum suggests a pointed stone, shell or hard wood [30]. Attenbrow says the implement "is not known" [13].
- Who is in the Balls Head whale? A man, a clever man singing the whale in or a creator figure. The Herald says "it is unclear", and Karen Smith says the story isn't known [14, 15]. The animal near the tail could be a dog or a horse [14].
- Names of peoples. The sources use Eora, Gadigal or Cadigal, Cammeraygal or Gamaragal, Guringai or Ku-ring-gai, Darug and Dharawal or Tharawal. Spellings vary, and the Australian Museum notes the language names date only from after the 1870s [31, 32, 25].
My Earlier Posts
- Pemulwuy – Bidjigal Resistance Leader of Botany Bay and Parramatta
- Cora Gooseberry – Queen Gooseberry – Widow of Bungaree – Sydney 1777–1852
- Bungaree – The Broken Bay Man Who Sailed Around Australia with Flinders
- Colbee (Colebee) – The Cadigal Man Kidnapped with Bennelong at Manly
- Barangaroo – Cammeraygal Fisherwoman, Wife of Bennelong
- Manly – From Kai'ymay and Phillip's 'Manly Cove' of 1788 to the Ferries, the Quarantine Station and the Surf
- Bondi Beach and Surrounds – Pictures
- Aboriginal Land Names Across The Eastern Beaches
- Names Of Railway Stations In New South Wales – Including Aboriginal Names & Meanings
- Randwick – How Simeon Pearce's Village Began – From Bidjigal Country to the Steam Trams
- Botany Bay
- Bare Island – La Perouse – Botany Bay
- The Tank Stream – Sydney – From Gadigal Water to Stormwater Drain
Sources
- Wikipedia, "Sydney rock engravings" (revision 1316216953). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Rock_Engravings
- NSW National Parks (NPWS), "Basin Aboriginal art site", Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/things-to-do/aboriginal-sites/basin-aboriginal-art-site
- Ku-ring-gai GeoRegion, "The Basin Site". https://kuringgaigeoregion.au/the-basin-site/
- Ku-ring-gai GeoRegion, "West Head" geosites guide. https://kuringgaigeoregion.au/geosites/sandstone-plateaus/west-head/
- Ku-ring-gai GeoRegion, "Elvina Trail". https://kuringgaigeoregion.au/elvina-trail/
- NPWS, "Aboriginal Heritage walk", Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/things-to-do/walking-tracks/aboriginal-heritage-walk
- NPWS, "Elvina trail", Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/things-to-do/walking-tracks/elvina-trail
- NPWS, "Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park – Learn more". https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/visit-a-park/parks/kuringgai-chase-national-park/learn-more
- NPWS, "West Head lookout". https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/things-to-do/lookouts/west-head-lookout
- NPWS, "Mount Ku-ring-gai track to Berowra Station". https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/things-to-do/walking-tracks/mount-kuringgai-track-to-berowra-station
- Waverley Council Library, "Rock engravings – North Bondi" (text courtesy the Gujaga Foundation). https://celebrating.waverley.nsw.gov.au/nodes/view/73407
- Terri McCormack, "Bondi rock carvings", Dictionary of Sydney, 2008. https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/bondi_rock_carvings
- Val Attenbrow, "Archaeological evidence of Aboriginal life in Sydney", Dictionary of Sydney, 2012. https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/archaeological_evidence_of_aboriginal_life_in_sydney
- "Ancient spirits lifted", Sydney Morning Herald, 13 July 2008. https://www.smh.com.au/national/ancient-spirits-lifted-20080713-gdslxe.html
- "Archaeological dig reveals mystery death in picturesque Sydney Harbour park", ABC News, 2 November 2017. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-02/mystery-burial-aboriginal-woman-balls-head-sydney-curious-sydney/9069892
- North Sydney Council, "Exhibition marks 100 years of Balls Head and Berry Island Reserves". https://www.northsydney.nsw.gov.au/news/article/435/exhibition-marks-100-years-of-balls-head-and-berry-island-reserves
- NPWS, "Bulgandry Art Site Aboriginal Place", Brisbane Water National Park. https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/things-to-do/aboriginal-sites/bulgandry-art-site-aboriginal-place
- NPWS, "Bulgandry Art Site Aboriginal Place – Visitor info". https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/things-to-do/aboriginal-sites/bulgandry-art-site-aboriginal-place/visitor-info
- NPWS, "Bulgandry Art Site Aboriginal Place – Learn more" (Brisbane Water National Park). https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/things-to-do/aboriginal-sites/bulgandry-art-site-aboriginal-place/learn-more
- NPWS, "Where nature, culture and art collide". https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/get-inspired/stories/where-nature-culture-and-art-collide
- NPWS, "Dharawal National Park – Learn more". https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/visit-a-park/parks/dharawal-national-park/learn-more
- NPWS, Dharawal National Park, Dharawal Nature Reserve and Dharawal State Conservation Area Plan of Management. https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/dharawal-national-park-nature-reserve-state-conservation-area-plan-of-management-220491.pdf
- NPWS, "Dharawal National Park – What we're doing". https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/visit-a-park/parks/dharawal-national-park/what-we-are-doing
- NPWS, "Muogamarra Nature Reserve". https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/visit-a-park/parks/muogamarra-nature-reserve
- NPWS, "Muogamarra Nature Reserve – What we're doing". https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/visit-a-park/parks/muogamarra-nature-reserve/what-we-are-doing
- NPWS, "Kurnell area – Learn more", Kamay Botany Bay National Park. https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/visit-a-park/parks/kurnell-area/learn-more
- NPWS, "Conservation and coastal engravings in Royal National Park". https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/conservation-programs/conservation-and-coastal-engravings-in-royal-national-park
- NPWS, "Garigal National Park – Learn more". https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/visit-a-park/parks/garigal-national-park/learn-more
- NPWS, Garigal National Park Plan of Management. https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/garigal-national-park-plan-of-management-130789.pdf
- Australian Museum, "Rock engraving of an echidna". https://australian.museum/learn/collections/natural-science/australian-archaeology/indigenous-rock-engraving-of-an-echidna/
- Australian Museum, "Aboriginal people of coastal Sydney". https://australian.museum/learn/cultures/first-nations-collections/sydney/
- State Library of NSW, "Eora – Mapping Aboriginal Sydney 1770–1850". https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/stories/eora
- Jo McDonald, Dreamtime Superhighway: An Analysis of Sydney Basin Rock Art and Prehistoric Information Exchange, Terra Australis 27, ANU E Press, 2008, Chapter 5. https://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p109931/pdf/ch055.pdf
- The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay, John Stockdale, London, 1789 (Project Gutenberg eBook #15100). https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15100
- The Online Books Page, record for W. D. Campbell, Aboriginal Carvings of Port Jackson and Broken Bay, W. A. Gullick, Government Printer, 1899. https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupid?key=ha001666598
- Hiking the World, "Bondi Golf Course Aboriginal Site (Murriverie)". https://hikingtheworld.blog/engravings/bondi-golf-course-aboriginal-site/
- Hiking the World, "Bantry Bay Aboriginal Site". https://hikingtheworld.blog/engravings/bantry-bay-aboriginal-site/
All web pages were read on 18 October 2026. Pictures are from Wikimedia Commons, with the photographer and licence shown under each one.