A Wyoming writer who has traveled the world brought some of his expertise home in the latest lecture of the World to Wyoming program.
University of Wyoming Writer in Residence and Laramie native Mark Jenkins spoke about his experiences exploring the Brandberg Mountains in the remote stretches of the Namib Desert in southwestern Africa as part of a lecture tour that crossed the entire state and ended Monday in the College of Education auditorium.
Jenkins, who works as a correspondent for National Geographic in addition to his work for the University, visited the Brandberg mountains to record ancient rock paintings. The Brandberg covers only about 650 square kilometers but has the greatest density of rock paintings out of any archaeological site in the world.
“There’s more rock paintings there than all of North America and all of Europe, combined,” said Jenkins. “All told, we estimate there to be about 40,000 rock paintings among about 800 different sites.”
Rock paintings like the ones found in the Brandberg are different than the petroglyphs found in areas of Wyoming. Petroglyphs are carved directly into stone, while rock paintings use some sort of pigment to paint the rocks a certain color.
While one would expect the paintings to have faded over millennia, the arid nature of the climate as well as unorthodox binding agents have allowed the paintings to last over 2,000 years.
“The last time it rained in the Brandberg was three years ago, so there’s no worry about the art being washed away,” said Jenkins. “The reds are made from red ochre mixed with human blood, the blacks are made from charcoal mixed with ostrich egg whites.”
“Brandberg” in German literally translates to “Fire Mountain,” named for both the red color of the mountains at sunset and the extreme heat the area is known for. The ancient people who lived in the area used the crevasses and gullies of the Brandberg for shade, as did Jenkins.
“By midmorning on the first day, the temperatures had soared well over 100 degrees. To someone from Wyoming, I can deal with very cold temperatures, but not so much hot,” said Jenkins. “And it only got worse. It was so hot that my boots de-laminated. I had to send them back when I got home to get a replacement.”
Jenkins and his team would hike for about a half hour, then would rest in the shade of the boulders scattered about the site, just like the tribes that left the paintings. While the ancient artists lived their whole lives in the desert, Jenkins only spent about a week among the pinnacles of the Brandberg.
“By the end of that week, I had lost 20 pounds,” said Jenkins. “That’s my diet strategy, to go on these grueling expeditions whenever I want to drop a couple pounds.”
For those interested in the full content of the lecture, Jenkins published a feature-length piece on his trip in National Geographic, titled “Climbing Fire Mountain,” and he will be around campus until he treks to another far-flung locale.
The World to Wyoming lecture series aims to bring stories like Jenkins’ to the state as a whole, in an effort to show Wyomingites that we live in an interconnected world.
