WELCOME TO PHILLIP'S CAVE !
Visiting the Cave
This Earthcache is located in a conservancy area on Ameib Ranch in the South-Eastern Erongo.
It is accessible to the public for a fee (N$80 at time of publication of this cache), which is included in the price if you camp or stay at the farm. Enquire current rates there.
The Philipp’s Cave is well worth a visit. At least two hours should be planned in for the walk to the cave and the visit thereof. It is highly advisable to visit the cave in the cooler morning hours and to take enough water along for the walk there and back.
The rock paintings in the cave were declared a national monument in 1951 and it is strictly prohibited to touch, wet, scratch or write on them or anywhere in the cave! At all times do adhere to these regulations! Take nothing but photos and leave nothing but footprints!
About the Cave
The numerous rock paintings in the Erongo Mountains proof that thousands of years ago the ancestors of today’s San have lived in the area. Especially during the dry winter months the Erongo Mountains offer a reliable water supply, thanks to impermeable granite pans, which are filled during the rainy season. Consequently the area has always had a rich wildlife – another reason for the Bushmen to inhabit the area! In the rocky Erongo the San lived mainly in caves or crevices.
Philipp's Cave is a cave shelter or abri in insoluble granite rocks, formed by erosion. It is famous for its Bushman paintings which include hunting scenes, antelopes, and a White Elephant. It was named after the former owner of the farm, Emil Philip, who had discovered the cave and the bushman paintings.
The cave became widely known, because it was visited by famous archaeologist Abbé Henry Breuil in 1950. He was invited by Emil Philip and spent some time on the farm Ameib. The world famous archaeologist published the cave and its paintings in volume II of his six volume book Rock Paintings of southern Africa in 1957 ( Trianon Press, London). He also published the results of the C14 dating of remains from the cave, which was 3368 BC ± 200 years. As a result the cave became world famous and was subsequently declared a National Monument and inscribed on the Namibian Heritage Register in 1951. Before the importance of the rock paintings at the Brandberg Mountain became known the paintings of the Philipp’s Cave were arguably the most important testimony of rock art in the north-west of Namibia
The most famous painting shows a white elephant. The large white paintings are the older ones, the smaller painting are younger. They show giraffe, quagga, and ostriches, and a man hunting an ostrich. The youngest paintings show a springbok and a procession of people carrying weapons.
The rock here is granite and while most rock formations were formed by spheroidal weathering, which is typical for granite, the cave was formed by tafoni weathering. Probably completed by some aeolian weathering. Tafoni weathering is found on the shaded side of rock formations, probably caused by water on the surface in the shade. Philipps Cave faces in a northerly direction and is located on the southern hemisphere, which is actually the sunny side. But during the early months of the rainy season, December and January, the site is shady, because it is located north of the Tropic of Capricorn.
Spheroidal weathering
Spheroidal weathering is a form of chemical weathering that affects jointed bedrock and results in the formation of concentric or spherical layers of highly decayed rock within weathered bedrock that is known as saprolite. When saprolite is exposed by physical erosion, these concentric layers peel off as concentric shells much like the layers of a peeled onion. Within saprolite, spheroidal weathering often creates rounded boulders, known as corestones or woolsack, of relatively unweathered rock. Spheroidal weathering is also called onion skin weathering, concentric weathering, spherical weathering, or woolsack weathering
Tafoni weathering
Tafoni are commonly defined as small (less than 1 cm (0.39 in)) to large (greater than 1 meter (3.3 ft)) cavity features that develop in either natural or manmade, vertical to steeply sloping, exposures of granular rock (i.e., granite, sandstone) with smooth concave walls, and often round rims and openings. Recognized subcategories of tafoni include honeycomb and stonelace.
Aeolian weathering
Aeolian Processes are related to wind activity and how wind can erode, transport, and deposit sediments.
- credits: Text taken from showcaves and Wikipedia
How to log this Earthcache:
Please send the answers to the following questions to the Cache Owner via the message function above, do NOT post them to your log!
Once you have sent your answers you may log as FOUND. Thank you!
Question 1) How old are the paintings and how was the age of the paintings determined? Explain the method.
Question 2) What main weathering processes have created the cave? Which different weathering process has created most of the surrounding rock formtions?
Question 3) What is the most stunning, brownish animal painted almost in a modernistic style most likely that you can see above the historical monument plaque, slightly to the right, on the ceiling? (If you cannot tell, attach a photo to your message to me).
Question 4) Looking at the cave from the posted coordinates, what species of tree is in your back? (If you don't recognize it, you can read about this tree on the info board at the guest parking just in front the Ameib Guest Lodge when leaving the farm!)