Prehistoric Cave Paintings And Stone Carvings

A selection of stamps and items featuring cave and stone paintings, issued either as single stamps or as the only cave and stone paintings design within a set. Issuing countries are: Swaziland, Ethiopia, Chile, Algeria, Botswana, Lesotho and China.

Lesotho is home to numerous prehistoric rock paintings created by the San (Bushmen) people, who inhabited the region for thousands of years. Found mainly in rock shelters and mountain areas such as the Drakensberg–Maloti range, these paintings depict animals, hunting scenes, and ritual activities. Using natural pigments in red, brown, and white, the San artists expressed both daily life and spiritual beliefs. The rock art of Lesotho forms part of the broader cultural tradition of San painting found across southern Africa.

Here is one of the attractive sets of prehistoric paintings in my collection, Lesotho, 1968.

Tribute to early painters and engravers...Cuba, Romania, Guinea, Namibia and Cuba again.

South Africa's rock paintings, created mainly by the San people, are among the world's richest records of prehistoric art. Found across cliffs and shelters, they depict animals, especially the eland as depicted on the first stamp, alongside human and spiritual figures linked to trance and ritual life. These vivid images, some thousands of years old, reveal the deep spiritual and cultural world of early hunter-gatherer societies.

Rock paintings, South Africa, 1987.

Stone engravings, Pre Columbian Societies and their customs, issued by Grenada in 1992 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the discovery of the Americas.

Second visit to Altamira cave, Spain with its famous bison paintings...

Monaco, 1949.

Spain, 1967 and 2025.


Mozambique, 22010 and 2011.



Madagascar, 2019. Bison painting on the SS's margin.

Spain is famous for its prehistoric cave and stone paintings. Two areas with several prehistoric caves and rocks paintings were declared by UNESCO as world heritage sites: the cave of Altamira and Paleolithic cave art of Northern Spain heritage sites and the rock art of the Iberian Mediterranean Basin heritage sites. A set of ten stamps was issued by Spain in 1967 to mark the "Stamp Day". They show famous prehistoric paintings from both sites. Here are the first group.

- Cave of Morella
- Cave of Remigia
- Cave of La Silla
- Cave of Altamira with the famous bison painting
- Cave of El Castillo

Second group.

- Cave of Saltadora
- Cave of Covalanas
- Cave of Cingle
- Cave of Remigia
- Cave of Los Caballos, Valltorta with the famous hunting scene prehistoric painting

The Vallée des Merveilles in Mercantour National Park, southern France, contains over 35,000 prehistoric stone engravings dating from the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. The carvings, found mainly around Mount Bégo, depict horned animals, weapons, geometric shapes, and human figures. They are thought to represent ritual or agricultural symbols created by early alpine communities.

Stone engravings of Mercantour National Park, Monaco, 1989.

Cave and stone paintings, Central African Republic, 2016.

- Chauvet cave, France
- Font-de-Gaume cave, France
- Lascaux cave, France
- Valle de Toro Muerto, Arequipa, Peru - Volcanic rock surfaces engraved with prehistoric petroglyphs depicting animals, humans, and geometric patterns dating from around 500 to 1000 CE.





Stone paintings and engravings, Kakadu Park, Australia.

A selection of stamps and items featuring cave and stone paintings and engravings, issued either as single stamps or as the only cave and stone paintings design within a set. Issuing countries are: New Caledonia, South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago, Brazil, Israel, Spain







Enlargement of detail of Argentina stamp:

Prehistoric rock paintings of the Tassili n'Ajjer World Heritage Site, third set, Algeria, 1981.

Prehistoric rock paintings of the Tassili n'Ajjer World Heritage Site, fourth set, Algeria, 1987.

More about the prehistoric rock paintings of the Tassili n'Ajjer World Heritage Site in Algeria.

Laszlo Almasy (1895 – 1951) was a Hungarian desert explorer who visited and explored in the early 20th century the Tassili n'Ajjer rock paintings. This stamp stamp issued by Hungary in 1995 commemorating the 100th anniversary of the death of Laszlo Almasy. (I think the paintings are from different site that Almasy explored).

UNESCO stamp, France, 1993.

Algeria, 1983 and 2007.

Rock paintings, South Africa, 2006.

- Linton panel (detail) - on display in the Iziko South African museum
- On display in the South African museum of rock art
- On display in the South African museum of rock art
- On display at the Wildebeest Kuil public rock art
- On display at the Game Pass public rock art site