{"id":"KTBULL2026-001","label":"Kings Tableland bullroarer stencils","people_or_site":"Kings Tableland, Blue Mountains (NSW)","country_current":"Australia","historic_region":"New South Wales / Blue Mountains / Kings Tableland","macroregion":"Australia","local_name":"","source_term":"bullroarers / stencilled bullroarers","source_language":"English","object_description":"Red-ochre oval bullroarer stencils among hand stencils and other pigment traces in Shelter 2.","function_summary":"Not recorded.","attestation_type":"rock_art_depiction","source_key":"hikingtheworld2024_kings_tableland_bullroarer_stencils","source_type":"public_rock_art_photo_page","source_url":"https://hikingtheworld.blog/engravings/kings-tableland-bullroarer-and-stencils-shelter/","page_or_plate":"Shelter 2; enhanced images 1X3A7669_yre and 1X3A7668_yre; regional chronology context from McDonald 2008 ch.10 and Taçon et al. 2006","map_confidence":"medium_high","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Representative public Kings Tableland / Wentworth Falls plateau anchor, not the shelter coordinate; should not be read as exact site coordinates.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Three red-ochre ovals pressed among hand stencils on a Kings Tableland shelter wall are bullroarers — the swung wooden voices that, in this Gundungurra country of the Blue Mountains, summoned men to the Bunan initiation. R. H. Mathews described that whirring roar drawing boys toward manhood; across south-eastern Australia it was heard as the sky-being Daramulan himself, an instrument no woman or uninitiated man was permitted to see. Here the hidden object was set openly into the rock in plain ochre.","pull_quote":"the majority of the region’s art coincides with the recent archaeological evidence in the region - the late Holocene Bondaian periods","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Jo McDonald 2008, Dreamtime Superhighway, ch.10, p.229; regional Sydney Basin context, not a direct date for this stencil.","term_gloss":"","cls":"sacred","class_label":"Sacred / spirit","color":"#8A5A2B","is_candidate":false,"flags":["initiation","women_taboo"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":true,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"f_archaeology":true,"archaeology_kind":"rock_art","date_display":"Within the last c. 4,000 years","date_qualification":"Phase 3 regional stencil horizon; motif undated.","date_basis":"stylistic","date_confidence":"low","date_citation":"hikingtheworld2024_kings_tableland_bullroarer_stencils, Shelter 2 images 1X3A7669_yre and 1X3A7668_yre; Dibden 2019 pp. 127 and 159; McDonald 2008 pp. 343 and 349","sources":[{"citation":"Hiking the World, 'Kings Tableland Bullroarer and Stencils Shelter' (2024), Shelter 2; R. H. Mathews, 'The Bunan Ceremony of New South Wales', American Anthropologist 9 (1896), pp. 327-344; Jo McDonald, Dreamtime Superhighway (2008), ch. 10, p. 229; Taçon, Kelleher, Brennan, Hooper and Pross 2006","url":"https://hikingtheworld.blog/engravings/kings-tableland-bullroarer-and-stencils-shelter/","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20250520135743/https://hikingtheworld.blog/engravings/kings-tableland-bullroarer-and-stencils-shelter/"}],"source_citations":"Hiking the World, 'Kings Tableland Bullroarer and Stencils Shelter' (2024), Shelter 2; R. H. Mathews, 'The Bunan Ceremony of New South Wales', American Anthropologist 9 (1896), pp. 327-344; Jo McDonald, Dreamtime Superhighway (2008), ch. 10, p. 229; Taçon, Kelleher, Brennan, Hooper and Pross 2006","source_display":"Hiking the World, 'Kings Tableland Bullroarer and Stencils Shelter' (2024), Shelter 2; R. H. Mathews, 'The Bunan Ceremony of New South Wales', American Anthropologist 9 (1896), pp. 327-344; Jo McDonald, Dreamtime Superhighway (2008), ch. 10, p. 229; Taçon, Kelleher, Brennan, Hooper and Pross 2006","date_citation_display":"Shelter 2 images 1X3A7669_yre and 1X3A7668_yre; Dibden 2019 pp. 127 and 159; McDonald 2008 pp. 343 and 349","object_display":"Red-ochre oval bullroarer stencils among hand stencils and other pigment traces in Shelter 2.","function_display":"Not recorded.","confidence_display":"medium to high","attestation_label":"rock art depiction","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"kings tableland","display_name":"Kings Tableland bullroarer stencils","image":{"full":"assets/objects/KTBULL2026-001.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/KTBULL2026-001_thumb.jpg","credit":"Hiking the World, 1X3A7669_yre","license":"Copyright status not stated; rehosted for research atlas context","source_page":"https://hikingtheworld.blog/engravings/kings-tableland-bullroarer-and-stencils-shelter/","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Enhanced view of the Kings Tableland Shelter 2 bullroarer stencils among hand stencils."},"slug":"ktbull2026-001-kings-tableland-blue-mountains-nsw"}