Vaalekop Shelter

Vaalekop Shelter, a small and seemingly sparsely painted rock art site on the upper reaches of the iMpofana (Mooi) River, KwaZulu-Natal, was flooded by the construction of the Spring Grove Dam downstream.

In mitigation, the site was photographed using a proprietary digital imaging process with the acronym CPED (Capture, Process, Enhance and Display). CPED provides different views of the rock art: a 360° view of the painted rock surfaces and their surrounds, a very high-resolution mosaic of the painted rock surface, and enhancements of the painted rock surface that reveal details of the art invisible to the naked eye. These innovations literally change the way that we look at rock art.