{"id":"MCCARTHY1956-001","label":"Flat Rocks Ridge oval-and-line engraving","people_or_site":"Flat Rocks Ridge, Group 10, Series IV, motif 30","country_current":"Australia","historic_region":"New South Wales / Hawkesbury River / Dharug (Daruk) country near Gunderman","macroregion":"Australia","local_name":"","source_term":"oval and line, probably a bullroarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"Engraved sandstone motif, not an object: a small oval with a line running from it, numbered 30 in McCarthy's Fig. 11 plan of Group 10 Series IV. No measurement is given for motif 30 in particular; the group's outlines run about half an inch wide and an eighth to three-sixteenths of an inch deep. Group 10 occupies a saddle on the main ridge and holds 145 engravings and 49 axe-grinding grooves.","function_summary":"Not recorded.","attestation_type":"rock_art_depiction","source_key":"mccarthy1956_flat_rocks_ridge_motif30","source_type":"archaeological_article","source_url":"https://doi.org/10.3853/j.0067-1975.24.1956.643","page_or_plate":"McCarthy 1956, Fig. 11 (printed p. 52) and the Group 10 Series IV catalogue entry for motif 30 (printed p. 53); article pp. 37-58","map_confidence":"low","plot_status":"candidate_only","coordinate_basis":"Gunderman, New South Wales, the public locality at the south-western end of Flat Rocks ridge. The ridge runs about ten miles north-east from here to Mangrove Creek, and McCarthy publishes no coordinate for the Group 10 saddle; as with other Australian rock-art points in the atlas, this is a representative public locality, deliberately generalised rather than a site coordinate, to protect the site.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"On a saddle of Flat Rocks ridge above the Hawkesbury, north-east of Gunderman, one gallery carries a hundred and forty-five engraved figures and forty-nine grooves worn by the sharpening of axes. Frederick McCarthy numbered every mark in 1956 and worked down the list — possum, echidna, bird track, wallaby, a boomerang thrown at a rodent — and at number 30 wrote an oval and a line running from it, probably a bullroarer. Here the instrument is shown rather than found: an outline pecked into sandstone on a ground he published as a Daruk ceremonial place.","pull_quote":"(30) oval and line, probably a bullroarer","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"McCarthy 1956:53, Group 10 Series IV catalogue","term_gloss":"","cls":"unknown","class_label":"Function not recorded","color":"#6B7884","is_candidate":true,"flags":[],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"f_archaeology":true,"archaeology_kind":"rock_art","date_display":"c. 3000 BC–AD 1800","date_qualification":"Age range of the region's rock engravings; this motif is not directly dated.","date_basis":"broad_context","date_confidence":"low","date_citation":"mccarthy1956_flat_rocks_ridge_motif30, McCarthy 1956 pp. 37–58 fig. 11 p. 52 and motif 30 catalogue p. 53; Stanbury and Clegg 2000","sources":[{"citation":"Frederick D. McCarthy, 'Rock engravings of the Sydney-Hawkesbury District, Part 1: Flat Rocks Ridge: a Daruk ceremonial ground,' Records of the Australian Museum 24(5) (1956): 37-58, at pp. 52-53, fig. 11","url":"https://doi.org/10.3853/j.0067-1975.24.1956.643"}],"source_citations":"Frederick D. McCarthy, 'Rock engravings of the Sydney-Hawkesbury District, Part 1: Flat Rocks Ridge: a Daruk ceremonial ground,' Records of the Australian Museum 24(5) (1956): 37-58, at pp. 52-53, fig. 11","source_display":"Frederick D. McCarthy, 'Rock engravings of the Sydney-Hawkesbury District, Part 1: Flat Rocks Ridge: a Daruk ceremonial ground,' Records of the Australian Museum 24(5) (1956): 37-58, at pp. 52-53, fig. 11","date_citation_display":"McCarthy 1956 pp. 37–58 fig. 11 p. 52 and motif 30 catalogue p. 53; Stanbury and Clegg 2000","object_display":"Engraved sandstone motif, not an object: a small oval with a line running from it, numbered 30 in McCarthy's Fig. 11 plan of Group 10 Series IV. No measurement is given for motif 30 in particular; the group's outlines run about half an inch wide and an eighth to three-sixteenths of an inch deep. Group 10 occupies a saddle on the main ridge and holds 145 engravings and 49 axe-grinding grooves.","function_display":"Not recorded.","confidence_display":"low","attestation_label":"rock art depiction","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"flat rocks","display_name":"Flat Rocks Ridge oval-and-line engraving","image":{"full":"assets/objects/hunt_rounds123_2026_10_30/mccarthy1956-001_mccarthy1956_fig11.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/hunt_rounds123_2026_10_30/thumbs/mccarthy1956-001_mccarthy1956_fig11.jpg","alt":"Plan of scattered rock engravings: animals, figures and small ovals with lines.","credit":"F. D. McCarthy, Records of the Australian Museum 24 (1956), fig. 11","source_page":"https://doi.org/10.3853/j.0067-1975.24.1956.643","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"McCarthy’s plan of the Flat Rocks Ridge engravings; the oval-and-line motif is no. 30."},"slug":"mccarthy1956-001-flat-rocks-ridge-group-10-series-iv-motif-30"}