graffiti-art: can it hold the key to the placing of prehistoric rock-art

Time and Mind Volume 3—Issue 1—March 2010, pp. 41–62

Time and Mind: The Journal of Archaeology, Consciousness and Culture

Volume 3—Issue 1March 2010pp. 41–62DOI 10.2752/175169710X12549020810452

Reprints available directly from the publishers

Photocopying permitted by licence only

© Berg 2010

Graffiti-Art: Can it Hold the Key to the Placing of Prehistoric Rock-Art?George Nash

The author is a coeditor of Time & Mind. He is affiliated with the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Bristol, England, and the Museum of Prehistoric Art (Quaternary and Prehistory GeoSciences FCT Center), Mação, Portugal. He wrote and presented for the BBC Drawings on the Wall, a five-part series on graffiti and prehistoric art.

AbstractCan we with a twenty-first-century mindset make meaningful statements concerning the commissioning and execution of prehistoric rock-art, and what are the mechanisms that encourage people to put their mark onto a rock surface? In a key text Taçon and Chippindale (1998) coined the term “informed methods.” This approach relied on the direct contact between artist and researcher and was successfully used in understanding some of the problems associated with narratives incorporated into indigenous art in Northern Australia. Using the informed-methods approach, the author was interested in drawing analogies between historic graffiti art from a coastal site in Morecambe Bay, northern England and prehistoric art. Bearing in mind the subversive nature of modern graffiti-art and probable positive endorsement of rock-art by status individuals in the prehistoric period, this article identifies a number of analogies between the two, such as landscape grammar and the way messages, signatures, and symbols are expressed and conveyed. By looking at the potential underlying socio-economic, political, and ritual mechanisms that allowed people to carve and paint onto rock in the modern period, can we make inferences as to why prehistoric people would want to carve and paint onto rock?

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42 Graffiti-Art George Nash


Keywords: folklore, graffiti-art, prehistoric, rock-art, signs, signatures, symbols

Introduction

Graffiti is not the lowest form of art. Some people become cops because they want to make the world a better place. Some people become vandals because they want to make the world a better looking place.

Banksy (2005)

Within the modern world there is a tendency to express one’s views, however trivial, through a series of sign systems. These signs perform a variety of roles and are controlled and used by various social groups. Regarded by some as a scourge on present-day society, graffiti remains an important mechanism for expressing and gauging public and private opinion (Bennett and Watson 2002; Matthews et al. 1998; Matthews et al. 1999). Indeed due to its unpopularity Whitley (2005, 159–60) has offered guidance to how graffiti can be removed (from prehistoric sites). Graffiti is found in many places, uses a variety of media, and conveys many different messages. It can be seen, most of it, on public display; but it is meant to be understood only by a limited number of initiates. So what does graffiti mean? What social, political, and economic mechanisms does it use to convey that meaning, and are these the same as are employed by other forms of visual display—in particular and most pertinently to this article, prehistoric rock-art?

On a small exposed headland south of the village of Heysham in Lancashire is a collection of carved textual inscriptions dating at least to the latter part of the nineteenth century, possibly much earlier

(Grid Ref. SD 406 616). These inscriptions are found on a set of interlocking rock panels, flat and highly polished, covering an area of roughly 20m × 10m; outside this immediate area, little carved text is found. This small area of rugged outcrops lies between Halfmoon Bay and Heysham Head (Figure 1). The graffiti-art,1 some of which is intricately carved, is a combination of personal names and personalized initials, with symbols such as heart shapes and crosses, and limited representative imagery in the form of a sailing boat and a cartoon face. The date-range extends over some 120 years, from 1890 to 2008, and a variety of calligraphic styles are used. Not surprisingly, the rock turns out to be soft, so that carvings were easily made. The earliest group, comprising surnames and forename initials, dates between 1900 and 1916 (see Figures 13 and 14). There are six or so of these names, incised in the stone

Fig 1 Location of the Heysham panel

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George Nash Graffiti-Art 43


using standard capital letter-forms in a script similar to Times Roman, and it would have been a time-consuming enterprise to make them. Other groups of text include personal names dating from the Second World War (e.g. “C. SNOWDEN 1939”) and personal names and initials from the days when Heysham and Morecambe were popular holiday destinations, between 1950 and 1985. Since the demise of the so-called British Holiday, the rock surfaces of Heysham Head have remained a popular place to inscribe one’s mark. Interestingly, little graffiti exists outside the immediate area of the panel, except for a recently-discovered labyrinth of unknown date (Grid Ref. SD 40788 61625). Interestingly a variety of accessible and favorable rock surfaces exist either side of Heysham Head creating empty canvases. Though the imagery dates only from the modern historical period, one can still deduce a number of underlying mechanisms that promoted the urge to make one’s mark onto a landscape such as this.

The Heysham Head site is located close to the present-day foreshore, just above

the high-tide mark, and has the Heysham Nuclear Power Station in full view (Figure 2). Between Heysham village and Heysham Head is a complex ecclesiastical center of early medieval date, including the seventh-century chapel of St Patrick (SMR PRN 4204) and the tenth-century church of St Peter (SMR PRN 419) (Newman 1996). It is probable that the settlement of Heysham grew around these two buildings. Before this, the surrounding area had a rich prehistoric past. Mesolithic presence is witnessed in the form of a large flint scatter, possibly from a settlement; there are also Neolithic stray finds; and the remains of several Bronze Age funerary mounds located south and east of the village.

Recent history has witnessed much change to the immediate coastline, mainly through quarrying. By the early part of the twentieth century, Heysham and nearby Morecambe had become major holiday destinations for north-west England’s working classes. Several natural features have survived 19th and 20th century quarrying, and a few hundred meters to the east of

Fig 2 The rocky headland of Heysham Head, NE Lancashire

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Heysham Head two of these are seen, both associated with fairies: the Fairy Bridge and the Fairy Chapel. These lie close to each other, a few meters from the high-tide mark within Halfmoon Bay.

A Recent History and an Ancient PastIn the past 150 years, the village expanded rapidly; in 1928, Heysham and Morecambe were amalgamated politically and by 1950 they had physically merged.2 Morecambe, once boasting two piers, was second in popularity only to Blackpool. Up until the 1980s this working-class holiday resort attracted many thousands of people from the Lancashire mills during the summer months. At the same time, the Isle of Man had also become a popular holiday destination for the middle classes, with a direct railway link running between the main cities of the north and Heysham where a ferry terminal existed until the latter part of the twentieth century. This transport link would take passengers from Heysham Docks to the Isle of Man via packet ferry.3

Morecambe (formerly Poulton) grew from a small fishing village in the 1840s to a major holiday resort by the 1870s. A railway station had been opened in Morecambe during the early 1850s and it was the expansion of the railway network that led to this rapid increase in population, as well as the town’s growing popularity as a holiday destination. By the 1920s Heysham had become an over-spill for Morecambe, and as a result many guesthouses, small hotels and tearooms began to take full advantage of the potential holiday market. During the early part of the nineteenth century, Heysham had become a fashionable bathing resort,

attracting the middle classes to its beaches. In 1904, a new harbor was constructed at Heysham to cater for the growing popularity of holidays to the Isle of Man. The new harbor, together with improved rail and road links, established Heysham as a popular holiday resort, and in 1925 the Heysham Towers Holiday Village, built on Heysham Head, was opened to its first visitors. At the height of its popularity, Heysham Towers could accommodate 400 guests, and postcard and photographic evidence shows that nearby Halfmoon Bay was a popular bathing beach (Figure 3).

During the Second World War, Heysham Towers—or, as it was later called, the Morecambe Bay Holiday Camp—was used as a training center for officers and cadets of the British Army. Soon after 1945 the holiday camp opened once more, but the heyday of the seaside holiday was over, and indeed Heysham Towers was described as “cheap and tawdry.” Inevitably it closed in the 1960s. While the holiday industry was dying within this part of Lancashire, Heysham and Morecambe became a popular area for retirement. As a result, a large swathe of housing was constructed to the east and south of Heysham, and more was built between Heysham and Morecambe. Further south, beyond Heysham docks, stood Pontin’s flagship holiday camp Middleton Towers. In its heyday this self-contained establishment could cater for up to 2,500 holiday residents (Nash 2005a and 2005b). Although holiday-makers were encouraged to remain within the confines of the camp, they had access to the beach nearby and Halfmoon Bay.

The emotional attraction of the sea and the folklore associated with the

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coastline, together with a rise in tourism and an increase in postwar housing south of Morecambe, would have made this part of the coastline popular with people who were prepared to embark on long walks, especially walks to and past Heysham Head, which was then an isolated spot.4

I have suggested earlier that the reasons for carving onto a particular rock surface may derive from various underlying mechanisms. One of these can be called the mystique of the site. Until the mid-twentieth century the rock-carving surface at Heysham lay close to two natural rock formations locally known as the Fairy Chapel and the Fairy Bridge. These large, impressive features comprised an arched stack of stone blocks forming a bridge between the headland and the intertidal shore south of Heysham Head, and a series of large cavities or inlets cut into the sandstone cliff nearby.5 These features were the subject of numerous postcards in the early twentieth century (Figures 4 and 5). The name of Fairy Bridge implies some supernatural meaning, and any inscription that was carved either on the bridge or close by would have fixed the inscriber

Fig 3 Beach scene south of Heysham Head, postcard dating to c.1950

and the inscribed on fairy ground. Thus it was probably the mystique of this site that provided a motive to carve the nearby rocks.

A most curious motif: The Heysham Head LabyrinthApproximately 5m to the north of the main panel, but arguably part of the same assemblage, is a curious and rare labyrinth engraving (Figure 6). The presence of this isolated motif may have triggered the practice of carving one’s signature on the nearby rock panels. The labyrinth motif is a complex design, whose origin is not clear, but its geometry is not unlike prehistoric motifs such as cup-and-ring and cup-and-ring with groove motifs (Hadingham 1974; J. Saward 2002; A. Saward 2003). As far as I am aware, only three examples in Britain and Ireland have ever been loosely considered prehistoric. One was found at Hollywood, Co. Wicklow, in 1908; this resembles the Heysham Head example (Hadingham 1974: 104). The Hollywood labyrinth was at one time considered to be pre-Christian, possibly dating to the Bronze Age, and it shares the same design as European examples from a

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definitely prehistoric context. But it is now considered to be medieval.

The Heysham Head labyrinth was discovered by a local photographer, Clive Dainty, and the site was duly reported in the Morecambe Visitor on 13 September 1995. The motif appears to have been pecked, rather than inscribed, onto the horizontal outcrop—a technique used for other images nearby.

The Heysham labyrinth is a left-handed design, similar to the two carved in a rock

Figure 4 The Fairy Chapel with its female occupants. Dated to c.1930

surface at Rocky Valley in Tintagel, Cornwall. It measures around 16 cm in diameter and is constructed from eight pecked concentric rings, with a single straight line oriented SSW/NNE forming the access or entrance. The labyrinth is one of a number of petroglyphs located on a small area of exposed headland, carved onto a horizontal surface of the soft crystalline sandstone known as Ward sandstone (Nash 2008: 228). Since its discovery the labyrinth has markedly

Fig 5 Young girls posing against the once standing Fairy Bridge in Halfmoon Bay.

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where a plethora of designs, some made from discarded rope and large rounded pebbles, was constructed initially in the 1980s and later by school children in 2000 (Figure 7). Within the same group of islands, and probably acting as the inspiration to the children of St Martin’s, is the Troy Town labyrinth on the island of St Agnes. This labyrinth, measuring around 7.24 m × 6.40 m in diameter, now consists of rounded beach stones but may have originally been made from turf; it is believed to date from at least the early eighteenth century. At this time the term “Troy Town” (or the Game of Troy) was a common name for mazes in England (Matthews 1922). The origin of the Troy Town maze on St Agnes is unknown but it has been suggested that it was constructed in 1729 by Amor Clarke, a son of a lighthouse keeper. However, other sources suggest that Clarke was merely rebuilding an earlier labyrinth. It was controversially altered in 1989 by four dowsers; critics said that any chance to look for earlier remains of the original stone maze beneath the stones had been lost.

Fig 7 The labyrinth complex on St Martin’s, Isles of Scilly

Fig 6 The faint lines of the Heysham Head Labyrinth along with textual superimposition. View looking across Morecambe Bay

eroded and its southern section has been partly covered by graffiti.

The date of this engraving is difficult to assess. I do suggest, though, that it is not prehistoric. Larger turf-made and stone-laid labyrinths became a popular motif between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries across most of Britain. They had a variety of purposes, many very local in character, including the aim of luring evil spirits into the centre of the labyrinth; once there the spirits would be trapped (Harte 1986; Saward 2002).

The most recent labyrinths are to be found on St Martin’s in the Isles of Scilly,

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Considering the rapid rate at which the rock erodes, it seems unlikely that the Heysham Head image is prehistoric. It may be eighteenth- or nineteenth-century in date, perhaps inspired by the fairy features nearby. Local historian R.W. Withers suggested that the labyrinth may have had spiritual qualities (1996: 2–3), probably a link between the artist, the mystique of the site, and the supernatural world of the fairies.

The grammar of textual graffitiIn 2008 I wrote and presented five radio programs for the BBC on the underlying mechanisms that govern the art forms of rock-art and graffiti. In this series three of Britain’s most influential graffiti-artists—Banksy, Kelzo, and Mohammed Ali—were asked why they had chosen the medium of graffiti to express their artistic endeavor.6 Two of the three had originally started their graffiti careers as “taggers.” Tagging, a form of textual art, is mostly urban and consists of personal insignia, usually delineating the territory of gangs or special individuals (Abel and Buckley 1977; Percy-Smith and Matthews 2001). The tag is produced with spray paint, anonymously, which restricts knowledge of the identity of the tagger to his or her own peer group. Tagging and graffiti-art forms part of a sign system in youth culture along with alcohol, narcotics, and music. It is probable that varying quantities of alcohol, narcotics, and music, along with maybe sex, played an important role in the composition and execution of the recent graffiti-art on Heysham Head.

What matters here is not the particular choice of names and initials, but the place where they were carved. To uncover

the reason for this might lead to an understanding of why prehistoric rock-art, too, should be carved in particular places. Within the majority of the core prehistoric rock-art areas of Europe, the imagery appears to conform to a series of landscape rules, or what I have termed “landscape grammar” (see e.g. Nash and Children 2000). Recent work at Heysham Head (Nash 2008), together with an understanding of semiotics, makes it possible to draw conclusions about the mechanisms that control and manipulate contemporary graffiti-art, and suggests that similar underlying processes may have been in operation during prehistory. Few previous studies have drawn analogies between prehistoric rock and modern graffiti—analogies which may well be valid, if used with caution.

Despite the rich pictorial imagery on many prehistoric rock-art panels, little can be deciphered of the meanings they were intended to convey. Conversely, street graffiti certainly intends to convey a meaning but it is linguistically restricted, both visually and in connotation and comprehension. Few archaeologists have studied it, and it has been neglected by writers on cultural heritage. There have been, however, several attempts to show analogies between prehistoric art and graffiti (Taçon and Chippindale 1998: 4–5; Chippindale and Nash 2004b: 14–16). Both of these cited works relied on what is called informed methods, with researchers either witnessing the artists at work or interviewing them after the event.

Graffiti usually represents anger, anti-establishment values, maleness, status, and territoriality, as might be expected from those that do it (Collins and Cattermole 2004). However, the textual graffiti of

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Heysham Head was inscribed onto the rock-panels some 120 years ago for different reasons, probably associated with place and the myths and folklore surrounding it. Prehistoric rock-art presents a similar scenario, since it lies close to special places such as the chambered monuments, cairns and barrows of Neolithic and Bronze Age date. In both cases the rock surface has been carefully chosen. At Heysham Head, the first graffiti-artists could have chosen any one of a number of suitable rock surfaces but settled instead for one particular set of panels close to the high-water tide mark. Their choice of panel would have been influenced by one or more of the following criteria:

• the accessibility of the site

• the immovability of the rock-art, which was carved onto a fixed point in the landscape

• the site’s proximity to other sites

• the site’s proximity to settlement, and

• the visibility or concealment of the site within the landscape.

These panels in a small corner of Morecambe Bay can serve to exemplify textual rock-art, but what was the thinking behind the execution of such art? Previous literature has tended to emphasize the ritual and symbolic components that make both the site and the art special (i.e., Bourdieu 1991; Bradley 2000; Chippindale and Nash 2004a). But it has ignored the structures which underlie and, perhaps, control the art—structures that lead people to identify

and use a place for carved or painted images, motifs and text (e.g. Sognnes 2002; Tilley 1991). Limited ethnographic evidence tends to follow a similar vein (Coote and Shelton 1996; Nash 2005).

In the early part of this paper I briefly discussed landscape and the way that rock-art interacts with it. It is clear that the practice of carving at Heysham Head is a deliberate tradition, probably associated with the earlier carving of the labyrinth to the north. This single carving in turn may have had links with the two fairy places. Within a fairly recent period of time Heysham has developed a number of histories, gaining momentum with the tourist industry until this in turn died out by, say, 1970. This history takes place against the geology and the topography of the rock surface (Table 1). The local rock is a smooth, soft stone, laminated and weathered, known to geologists as a Wards Sandstone (WRST). Away from the immediate area of the art on Heysham Head the stone is coarse and difficult to carve. To the north, toward St Patrick’s Chapel, there are several areas of smooth rock outcrops which would be suitable for cutting, but these remain largely untouched by the graffiti artist. As with most prehistoric art, the artist has carefully chosen the site, influenced by both landscape position and the carving quality of the rock (e.g. Hood 1988: 65; Díaz-Andreu 2002: 159).

Representations on rock-art have come under as much scrutiny as its location. Clegg (1998) and Frachetti and Chippindale (2002) have each proposed a series of key points for the deconstruction of representational imagery using such concepts as space, time, and human interaction. Philosophical approaches using the grammar and structure

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of individual images as well as complete panels have been promoted by Baker (2002), Clegg (1998), Clegg and Heyd (2007), and Heyd (2000). Several researchers have argued that textual imagery, too, should be seen as rock-art (e.g. Baker 2002; Nash 2004); many of the factors directing, promoting, and influencing figurative art, including the place of its execution, apply equally to the public display of text. Some of the primary factors in the location, media, composition, and use of rock-art are outlined in the following table, with comparisons between what I have termed textual and nontextual imagery (Table 1).

There are clear analogies between public text and representational art. Both are either carved or painted, with both techniques sometimes employed on the same panel. In more complex settings, images may be superimposed on or modified by later images, thus establishing a chronological development of the panel. This development can be over a few hours or over many hundreds or even thousands of years. It is

clear from many sites that there is a constant tradition in the choice of media, the position, size, and style of the art, and the subject matter. These choices establish a code or grammar; thus, at Heysham Head we have inscriptions that are textual, personal, and long-term. Although at this site the graffiti are written not figurative, they have as much rhetoric of representation as any prehistoric rock-art site; each image stamps a statement on the landscape in a powerful way. Interestingly, there appears to be little or no superimposition on the Heysham Head panel, suggesting that successive artists respected earlier engravings.

At Heysham Head, as with more conventional rock-art, the artist intended to convey certain messages to a particular audience. The Heysham graffiti-art consists mostly of names and personal initials. The artists that carved their names may have been solitary at the time, in which case they alone would know what they meant; to the onlooker each is just another name. However, there are several names and

Table 1 Comparing forms of textual and nontextual representations on rock surfaces.

Textual Imagery* Representational Art

carved and painted forms carved and painted forms

chronologically phased chronologically phased

coded by grammar coded by grammar

graffiti present little graffiti present

rhetorical power rhetorical power

usually superimposed and phased rarely superimposed and phased

usually communicating to some but not all usually communicating to some but not all

usually socially unstratified usually socially unstratified

*From Heysham Head.

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personal initials that are incorporated into pecked hearts, suggesting that the artists wanted to inform onlookers of their affection for the recipient. It is more than likely that the inscriber’s initials were the first to be carved.

The various holiday establishments on either side of Heysham Head catered mainly for the working classes, in particular for those families that were employed by the cotton mills of Lancashire. Holidays, known as Wakes Weeks, witnessed a large influx of people to Morecambe Bay.7 The names inscribed were probably those of holiday-makers, each placing his or her signature on this special place. By inscribing themselves onto the landscape, they acquired a kind of immortality.

Alfred Gell (1996) and Coote and Shelton (1996) have discussed the aesthetic and rhetorical power of art, though art still remains in the eyes of the beholder; the meanings of art and the knowledge of what it represents are restricted to certain social groups. In the urban environment, the subversive work of making graffiti is usually limited to young males, and at Heysham Head the carving of texts would have been done for a small intimate audience. The choice of a suitable panel was what mattered most; it needed an appropriate setting within the immediate landscape and an association with other sites of traditional importance. Of course any site, ritual or otherwise, requires a history. Bradley (1993) has suggested that Neolithic places of burial ritual lay along pathways between two known landscape points, probably settlements, with the intention of turning a space into a place. The older the site, the more history it will have, and at Heysham Head we find that the

early twentieth-century carvings lie close to an earlier carving—the labyrinth which is probably eighteenth-century (or earlier) in date and is now much faded. It would have been much sharper and more visible to the artists when they carved their texts. The history of this landscape of graffiti-art probably extends much further back in time, before the carving of the labyrinth, when the natural features of the coastline were linked with the supernatural.

A Multitude of Meanings and HistoriesCynics could argue that graffiti-art is simply the product of surplus leisure—nothing more than a way of passing the time. This view derives from the “Art for Art’s sake” debate of the early to mid-nineteenth century. Lartet and Christy, discussing mobilary art in 1864, thought it was leisure time and an abundance of game that led to the nourishment of the arts. In this view art was without meaning, merely the work of someone’s idle moments. However, even in contemporary Western society the intention to paint or carve on wall or stone implies some intended meaning. Graffiti-art is regarded by many as meaningless, mindless, and sometimes obscene. However, the graffiti that is freely sprayed by angry youths establishes personal identity, makes a signature on their landscape, and carries an encoded grammar restricted to others within their peer group. Their art delineates a space on which the dramas and the day-to-day life of the street are enacted. Whether or not such social dramas were being played in prehistory remains a question of debate. We take it for granted that prehistoric art was a legitimate and

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accepted medium, while characterizing graffiti-art as socially unacceptable and subversive.8

I have previously argued that carved text can be considered a form of rock-art (Nash 2004). The rhetorical and aesthetic power of incised text can be as powerful as any nontextual representation. Texts, being texts, are more directly associated with the people who are carving them or whose names are being carved. It is true that any mark inscribed onto a rock surface can be seen as nothing more than idle graffiti, doodling or defacement; it would be easy to denigrate the art at Heysham Head in this way. But in a more generous perspective, inscribing can be seen to carry meaning; it is an act of intentionality, and when it is done it survives as the basis of a history and a point of visual reference. The history of the site, as it is reflected in the age and condition of the imagery, can also evoke myth and storytelling, irrespective of any figurative hints in the art.

Prehistoric rock-art can be seen as a pictorial language or sign system conveying messages both comprehensible and cryptic (Nordbladh 1981; Tilley 1991). Sometime there is a clear line of communication between artist and audience; some signs are universally recognizable and there is no doubt about what they mean. But representative imagery may not be what it seems. In the polysemic understandings of Australian indigenous art, for example, the meaning behind the image is often known only to the artist and a few other individuals. (Whitley 2001 has also recognized similar points regarding the bighorn sheep imagery in California.) Dreamtime imagery may seem to depict certain animals clearly enough,

but in fact the form chosen by the artist represents only one stage in an evolution or transformation from something else entirely; thus the Rainbow Serpent may often be portrayed as a wallaby or emu. Graffiti-art is not like that. It takes fixed forms, in which it may express sometimes the mood of a nation. The Red Army graffiti on Berlin’s Reichstag building spoke for the social and political mood of that time (Baker 2002), as did the nineteenth-century carvings at Callen Point, Sydney, Australia (Clegg 1998). Though political commentary is lacking at Heysham Head, politics is not; the graffiti-art reflects the mood of the period on both social mobility and attitudes toward leisure time.

Baker (2002: 20) has suggested that rock-art may have been cut in times or circumstances of stress. Graffiti-art certainly is, as witness the role of tagging in the delineation of urban gang territories. Baker’s record of the Red Army graffiti on the walls of the Reichstag building in Berlin shows the rhetoric used by the officers and men who scratched a series of provocative statements there in 1945. These combine to create a polyphony that Baker refers to as the “landscape of the Reichstag.” The images can be regarded as trivial and personalized, but the messages which they convey were poignant enough at the time of execution. Text, which varies according to Red Army rank, include:

We Russians were here and always beat the Germans

A cock down the Fascists’ throat not Russia

Long Live Stalin, his army and soldiers! Death to the Germans. R.M. Boiko, Kiev

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and, simply …

Moscow—Stalingrad—Berlin.

The context here is historical, but much of the rhetoric familiar from contemporary football graffiti, with its messages of male sexual aggression, invasion,and victory.

Using a similar approach to that of Baker, John Clegg looked at the mid-nineteenth- and early twentieth-century rock engravings along the foreshore of Iron Cove on Callan Point within Sydney Harbour. He sets out to decipher their subject matter, the personality of the artists, and the perspective chosen in the landscape (1998: 336–45). Both writing and imagery have been engraved onto the rocky shoreline; here there are animals, crescents, the figureheads of ships, fish, stars both eight- and six-pointed,

people, and an ironclad battleship (Figure 8). The text includes dates, which range between 1855 and 1922, and women’s names, including Josephese and Jamhambon. Carving this imagery would have taken time and effort, and it is probably the work of day visitors to Callan Point. One of the artists was employed as a helmsman and another a European seafarer (Clegg 1998: 345); as might be expected, the engravings have a nautical theme and their mood is imperialistic.

In a similar vein is the engraving of a ship found close to the main Heysham Head panel, partially hidden below a small rock overhang; it is a sailing boat with fully extended mainsail (Figure 9). This simply carved figure, nineteenth- or early twentieth-century in date, is probably contemporary with some of the wording that survives on the main panel. Such a sailing craft would have been a common sight within this part of Morecambe Bay, where it was probably used for shrimp fishing rather than leisure.

At many rock-art sites around the world a historical sequence can be deduced from the defacement, modification, or superimposition of their primary images (Reisner 1971). At Heysham Head there is little evidence of deliberate superimposition, although some graffiti were carved over earlier faded text. In the world of urban graffiti the same unwritten rule applies, with different tags painted side by side rather than over each other. This mutual respect may be the result of changing territorial boundaries, changes to the hierarchies within a particular gang, or the toleration of multiple tagging by rival gangs. In prehistory, however, defacement, modification, and superimposition can be found within most

Fig 8 One of a number of early twentieth-century carvings at Callen Point, Sydney, New South Wales. (After Clegg 1998)

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of the core rock-art areas of Europe. For example, at the rock shelter of Cogal in the province of Lerida, Spain, Roman graffiti has been superimposed on a hunter-gatherer fresco (Beltrán 1982; Dams 1984). This rock shelter, where bulls, chamois, human figures (mainly female), and red deer are depicted in black and red paint, is isolated and hard of access (Breuil and Cabré 1909). Inscribed

across the upper section of the panel is Roman graffiti (Figure 10). This imprint, however trivial, imposes one personal statement over another. The text has become part of the rock-art narrative.

Both subtle modification and blatant defacement can be found at Bardal, Nord-Trondelag, Norway, on a panel carved in successive phases by a community of hunters, fishers, and gatherers (traced by Gjessing [1936]). Here, the original art depicted elk, reindeer, and bear. At the centre of this, and positioned with subtle modification of the earlier images, is a life-size humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae). Strategic lines from the previous engravings of animals have been modified to outline the whale’s body. Thus there have been at least two phases of carving but the second phase, far from stamping its authority over the earlier one, has used modification to create a sub-plot for the complex narrative of this panel. However, a series of Bronze Age ships appears on the same panel and these

Fig 9 A sailing boat, one of two probable carved representations at Heysham Head

Fig 10 Roman graffiti inscribed over the Spanish Levantine panel of Cogal

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are carved deeply into the stone, blatantly defacing earlier animal imagery (Figure 11). The artist who pecked these was clearly intent on replacing an older ideology with a new one, at a time when the ancestral ways of hunting and fishing were being abandoned for a world of farmers and warriors; here different histories and meanings are played out on the panel by different artists at different times.

At Heysham Head the only superimposition consists of one set of personal initials inscribed over the faded labyrinth. However, the different types of lettering at the site are enough to prove a sequence, showing that the panel had a history with different art created at different times. Much of the graffiti represents

amorous encounters; usually involving the initials or full names of one or two people.

I have previously argued that rock-art, whatever its immediate intent, should be seen as part of a wider event or performance (Nash 2008). Whitley goes further and suggests graffiti, along with religious imagery, ritual performance, and sacred objects is art (2001: 23). I would add that graffiti forms are altogether meaningful and in many respects global. The context of the wider event can be economic, political, ritual, social, or symbolic. The motives for graffiti-art at Heysham Head were probably ritual and symbolic. However, the question remains, why carve here?

The art at Heysham Head survives in various states of preservation; the older the carvings, the more faint they have become. This is due mainly to erosion, with the panel lying near to the high-tide mark. In some cases part of the imagery has disappeared; including names and dates. The original imagery on the Heysham Head panel, most of which must now be lost, seems to have provided the focus for successive generations of artists. Similarly, it is probable that prehistoric rock-art also bears witness to more than one generation of artists. There are numerous examples of retouching and modification, and these acts, together with the custom of long-term use within a single cave or rock-shelter, suggests that the original art at the site continued to have meaning and status for those who came afterward.

Present-day street graffiti is a product of our time and probably the original meaning will only survive a few years before it is superseded by a new crop of graffiti artists who have new ideas of how their world should be portrayed. Bristolian graffiti-artist

Fig 11 Blatant defacement of boats over animals on the Bardal panel, Nord-Trondelag, Norway

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Banksy has recently seen some of his street art superimposed upon, or even obliterated, no doubt because he himself has shifted status from street artist to installation artist. In the graffiti world this is regarded as being a disrespectful act—selling yourself out! Interestingly, there is little or no intentional superimposition on the Heysham Head panel, suggesting that here there was respect between different groups of carvers.9

Creating Short- and Long-term HistoriesI have suggested that there may be an association between the graffiti-art at Heysham Head and the Fairy Chapel around 60m to the west. Other natural features are known to have been remodeled in this area,

such as the Fairy Steps near Arnside which form part of an ancient corpse road (NGR SH 477 788) (Devereux 2003: 92). Here, a natural gully between two large domes of rock has been cut to form a run of steps for moving the dead through the landscape (Figure 12).

If the place-name Fairy Steps could be shown to be contemporary with the cutting of the steps themselves, this would establish an association between fairies and death. In any case, the example shows how the presence of natural features can have a profound influence on tradition at sites. Apart from providing an ideal canvas to carve on, the rock-panels of Heysham Head were intervisible with the Fairy Chapel. The site also lies within the inter-tidal zone

Fig 12 The Fairy Steps, Arnside (Cumbria): a cut feature in a wild landscape. (photo: Paul Devereux)

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between two sandy beaches and can be accessed from the Burrows, an area of undulating grassland a few meters to the east which is traversed by a network of footpaths. As the early Ordnance Survey maps show, the site also lies some way from the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century village of Heysham and Heysham Dock; being at a distance from inhabited areas, it offers an ideal spot to carve in privacy. Up until the mid-twentieth century, as pictorial postcards of the area suggest, the Fairy Chapel would have attracted visitors.

Concluding RemarksThe use of this panel over the past 120 years is due in the first place to its physical attributes, in particular the presence of a smooth rock surface, although equal importance could be given to its position in the landscape near the much-visited natural rock features in Halfmoon Bay. The same factors apply to the choice of sites for prehistoric rock-art. The history of a site—its successive phases of activity over time—are as important for graffiti-art as they are for rock-art. The composition, execution, and use of ancient and contemporary rock-art from around the world can only be understood in a context of drama, history, myth, personal interaction, and storytelling. In its associations with these, the panel on Heysham Head shares similarities with its prehistoric forebears.

It is more than probable that tourists would have walked along the coastline from Heysham and Morecambe to Heysham Head and beyond, and that the first inscriptions were merely the work of those who wanted to stamp their mark or signature on the landscape, a permanent reminder of a

temporary visit. The Fairy Bridge and Chapel were special places where fairies lived within the niches of the natural rock overhangs. At some time during the latter part of the nineteenth century, visitors attracted by local myth may have proceeded to inscribe nearby rock surfaces, initiating the tradition of graffiti-art. Weathering means that earlier inscriptions are now indecipherable, and it may be the case that inscriptions such as “BRADFORD 1900” and “L.E. JENKINSON 1916” overlie much earlier ones (Figures 13 and 14). But when the Fairy Bridge collapsed or was quarried away, sometime after c.1920, the practice of making inscriptions survived, though there was now no other motive than that of adding names to those already present on the panel.

The outline of a labyrinth, now faint through erosion, lies to the north of the main panel; this is probably the earliest carved image so far discovered, and may date to the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries. This image, along with the fairy connections of the surrounding landscape, may have provided the impetus to carve names and initials onto the flat panel just above the high-tide mark. The personal names and initials inscribed here are probably commemorating amorous encounters, brief meetings made permanent through the act of carving. The most recent is dated 2008 (Figure 15).

Both the labyrinth and the textual graffiti-art sit just above the high-tide margin, but an exceptional high tide will wash over the platform on which they are pecked. Many of the petroglyphs on the lower section of the platform have been eroded away and it is possible that graffiti earlier than the late nineteenth century once existed here but have been lost.

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Fig 14 Well-executed, time-consuming lettering “L.E. JENKINSON 1916”

Fig 13 “Bradford 1900” with a probably later name added along with cross and dot insignia

The Heysham Head site appears to have been created in two phases. The first reflects the magical attractions of the nearby Fairy Bridge and Chapel; the second derives from the casual use of the site and surrounding beaches when Morecambe Bay’s tourist

Fig 15 The permanency of affection: one of a number of amorous insignia at Heysham Head

industry was at its height during the mid- to late twentieth century. The first image to be carved was the labyrinth, and at a time when the place had a special reputation due to its fairy connections, and visitors were few. The majority of the textual art, as appears from the sequence of dates, was carved during the second phase, when the nearby fairy structures had lost their potency and when the panel was frequently visited.

The rules which directed the practice of carving at Heysham Head are not unique to that site; they can be tentatively applied to the execution, construction, and use of prehistoric rock-art. As Table 2 shows, there are many analogies between the principles underlying modern graffiti-art and prehistoric art, even though graffiti-art is usually considered subversive and prehistoric rock-art is not. The social and symbolic devices at play in Heysham Head are not unlike those which seem to have prevailed in prehistory, in particular the importance of a natural setting evident in the relationship between

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coastal landscape and special places such as the Fairy Chapel and Bridge.

Prehistorians with a twenty-first-century mindset can only surmise what reasons lay behind the choice of sites for rock-art; to go beyond that and interpret meaning is a near-impossible task. The mechanisms that are seen at work in the carvings at Heysham Head show that similar agencies applied to both modern and ancient rock-art. This is

evident in such factors as restricted access, religious and symbolic significance, and the social or political and economic signing of the landscape. The act of inscribing or painting is, as it always has been, intentional and strategic. Rock-art—and, in this case, contemporary graffiti-art—is a living laboratory which can provide potential answers to the questions of why prehistoric rock-art was initiated, executed, used, and

Table 2 Similarities and differences between prehistoric and modern art assemblages

Prehistoric Art Heysham Head

PRODUCTION

panel composition panel composition

carved/painted carved/painted

time-consuming time-consuming

IMAGERY (narrative)

representative images representative images

abstract images abstract images

textual images textual images

hidden meaning? hidden meaning

multi-phased multi-phased

superimposition little or no superimposition

socially/politically engineered? socially/politically engineered

socially manipulated? socially manipulated

PLACE

marginal land marginal land

restricted access? restricted access

away from settlement away from settlement, but urban

special places special places (civic buildings, dangerous places, historic places)

REASON

ritual/symbolic (secondary)? social/political/economic/symbolic

socially accepted socially subversive

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abandoned. Although even in the modern period we can only guess what traditions were associated with the natural features at this site, it is clear that people still feel the need in the twenty-first century to apply their signature or make their mark to this most ancient landscape; signing the present over the past.

AcknowledgmentsI am indebted to the following people. First, thanks to James Pilkington and James Athelstan Nash who both assisted in locating, recording, and researching the site. Secondly, to Peter Iles (SMR, Lancashire County Council) for providing the necessary site information. I would also to thank Abby George, Paul Devereux, Jeremy Harte, Jeff Saward and Laurie Waite for invaluable comments on the various drafts. All mistakes are of course my responsibility.

Notes

1 Heyd (2004) aptly states: “[rock-art] … the name conventionally given to a variety of marks on rock made, arranged, or framed by human beings, from all areas around the world, from all cultures, and from all time periods, beginning in prehistory and ranging into the present. Marks made by adding material to the surface, such as paintings, stencils, and drawings, are called pictographs; marks made by removing material from the surface are called engravings or petroglyphs.” For the sake of this article I regard textual graffiti as part of an intentional sign system that conveys messages to an audience, be it restricted or otherwise. I suggest that the mechanisms governing pictorial imagery (i.e., rock-art) are also common to textual graffiti as well, and generically shall refer to this form as graffiti-art.

2 During political boundary reorganization in 1974, Morecambe became amalgamated within Lancaster, the county town of Lancashire.

3 Heysham Docks, lying immediately to the south of Halfmoon Bay and Heysham Point, also has a limited graffiti assemblage located on the walls of two former lighthouses, nineteenth-century stone buildings.

4 Recent housing development now occupies the ridges east of the Fairy Chapel.

5 The upper stratigraphy of the cliff comprises Devensian till.

6 The Drawings on the Wall, made for BBC Radio 4 by Culture Wise Productions and first broadcast in February 2008.

7 Wakes [week] holidays were originally set aside for religious festivals and commemorated church dedications. The Wakes holiday was adopted during the Industrial Revolution when the mills closed down for maintenance, usually during the summer. Each cotton town had a particular Wakes Week and all the cotton mills within that town would close for that week.

8 Although tagging (initializing the street with personal insignia) is regarded as antisocial behavior, some graffiti-art has been realized as being an accepted art form and has now become “installation art.”

9 Recently, however, personal initials have been superimposed on the labyrinth carved nearby. It is not clear if this was an intentional act, as the labyrinth is severely weathered.

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graffiti-art: can it hold the key to the placing of prehistoric rock-art

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