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Figure 1: The major panel of rock carvings at Häljesta, in early 1998, with the images recentlypainted red. Note the barn at top right, oozing its own red oxide down onto the rock. (Click Image to Enlarge)
One of the problems for those who try to study rock carvings is created by the presence of lichen on the rocks. This can blur or mask surfaces. Lichen comes in a variety of shapes, colours and thicknesses and its effects on the rock are also varied. Its use in developing a chronology for some rock carvings is acknowledged, but the example noted here has no dating impact at all, just frustration.
One of Sweden's largest rock carving sites, and one barely known in the literature, lies just below the farm of Häljesta in Västmanland, about 120 km west of Stockholm. The gently sloping rock face currently exposed extends along a sloping rock for 40 m, and from base to top it is about 10 m. Much of this surface has rock carvings, arranged in panels, of boats, discs, frames, humans and cupmarks.
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Figure 2: Lichen invading the rock surface, and barn effluent
stripping off the red paint. Scale totals 25 cm.
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Figure 3: The same panel in mid 2000, with lichen obscuring the entire panel of carvings.
About half of the surface lies well away from the farm buildings, and is washed by rainwater, but the other half is dominated by a huge barn perched directly upslope of the carved rock and perhaps upon carved surfaces now lost to us (Figure 1). This barn until recently housed cattle whose effluent flowed downslope over the carved surface. In the past several years the cattle have been housed elsewhere, and lichen has invaded the surface, growing rapidly and thickly. In 1996 the carvings were covered by effluent; in 1998 the heritage authorities cleaned the surface and painted the carvings; by 2000 the entire surface was obscured by lichen except for the uppermost area of rock where red oxide paint from the barn had drifted down onto the rock, killing all life and probably weakening the surface (Figure 2).
In 1998, during its brief exposure, I made a plan of the whole site, relying upon the painted images as representing all of the known carvings. In 2000 I returned for landscape work and a final check of the site plan.
By now, half of the site was totally hidden, and most of the rest was indistinct (Figure 3). I made a large number of rubbings of lichen-free carved surfaces on the rainwater-washed part of the site, to check some of the more complex images, and some new details were revealed. Then I turned to the hidden surfaces and tried to penetrate through the lichen by experimenting with different papers and applications of carbon upon them; the rock surfaces were left untouched, and lichen was also left in place.
The complete plan will appear in Germania 2001. The authorities are now at work on the site to assess the lichen problem and when all is clear again we will be able to see what even the rubbing technology has failed to deliver.
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Figures 4 & 5: Rubbings made through lichen, showing human figures and boat designs.
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Figures 6: Drawn plan of a small part of the panel, to show the images of Figure 4. (Click Image to Enlarge)