Hong Kong’s Bronze Age rock carvings

via South China Morning Post, 19 Februrary 2021: I’ve known about this cluster of rock art in Hong Kong for a long time, but never had the chance to visit them.

These Bronze Age petroglyphs, or designs carved into rock, all feature swirling, geometric and zoometric patterns, mostly cut directly into coastal cliffs facing the sea. Thought to be about 3,000 years old, the designs were chipped into Hong Kong rock at the time of the Chinese Shang dynasty from 1600 – 1046BC or the Zhou dynasty that followed.

According to Rock Carvings in Hong Kong, written by William Meacham, former head of the Hong Kong Archaeological Society, the best linguistic and ethnographic data suggest the carvings are the work of the Yueh tribes which then inhabited the coastal regions of southern China. The dating of the carvings to the Bronze Age is based primarily on the similarity in patterns found on the carvings to the designs on pottery from the same era.

Source: A trek through Hong Kong’s Bronze Age history, visiting its ancient rock carvings | South China Morning Post