Twyfelfontein (pronounced “Twih-fel-fon-tane”) meaning “doubtful fountain” in Afrikaans is a small spring in a remote valley in North-West Namibia.
A German settler named David Levin arrived in the mid-1940s and named it Twyfelfontein because he was doubtful the spring would produce enough water for his livestock.
But Mr. Levin didn’t just inherit an unreliable spring.
While walking through the rocks, he noticed strange markings. Upon looking closer, he found these weren’t just random natural etchings - they were shapes of animals. Then he found more. And more.
Levin had no idea the weight of his discovery: as of today, we know this is to be one of the largest concentrations of rock art in Africa.
Eventually, scholars counted over 2000 individual rock engravings: rhinos, giraffes, ostriches, elephants, oryx, kudu, zebra and flamingos - interestingly, few humans.
Giraffe - By Schnobby - Own work
Rhino - By Robur.q - Own work
Human - By Schnobby - Own work
It’s estimated the first engravings are about 10,000 - 6,000 years old and the newest 2,000 years old. That’s roughly 200-300 generations of the same people coming back, again and again over millennia.
These engravings were chipped deep into the rock, not painted. One figure could take hours removing the dark outer varnish of sandstone to reveal the lighter surface beneath - a slow process.
This raises the question: why did people spend so much time here?
Archaeologists believe the area and art must have been part of rituals. It’s known Southern African hunter-gatherer communities used rock art to express spiritual beliefs.
Shamans (spiritual healers) are thought to have created many of the images. During or following a transcendental experience they might capture their visions by carving images in the rock.
That might explain the human-animal hybrids. The iconic “Lion Man”, for example, has five toes on each paw - a detail that hints it as a shaman in lion form. Some giraffes are carved with legs tapering into thin lines, evoking the feeling of floating. Footprints carved beside cracks and fissures mark thresholds in the rock, as if the carvers saw them as portals into the spirit world.
We can only speculate. It’d be wrong to claim certainty where none exists.
The engravings are placed deliberately around the area. Some are hung above entry and passage ways to create portals into different realms.
It’s stunning how this practice lasted for so long with such consistency.
One answer is the isolation of the area and land. Namibia, being so sparse and remote, partially allowed people to live in relative solitude. With few pressures from outside groups, culture had no reason to change - life was stable, predictable, and reliable.
It feels peaceful to imagine that.
In many parts of the world culture is restless, pulled in a dozen directions at once. Twyfelfontein feels like the opposite: a quiet thread stretching across time, people returning to the same spring, carving the same images, holding to the same meaning.
Yet even this came to an end. By around 1000 CE the site was gradually left behind, likely due to the arrival of new groups and changes in climate. A long era closed and another began.
Even here, everything’s temporary.
Twyfelfontein offers a glimpse into a different rhythm of life. A rhythm of repetition, care and long memory. Thousands of years of people returning to a single place with purpose, and then, when the time came, knowing how to let it go.
Best,
Jamie Paul
