Introduction

South Africa has a rich resource in rock art and the ability to preserve it as part of the cultural history remains a key concern. The archaeology department at the University of Cape Town has an interest in preserving the rock art that is found at the various sites in South Africa. As such, the department has acquired a large database of rock art data that includes rock art images, overlays of cave scans and bushman stories. In light of the preservation of rock art, the department required a system that would make use of the data that was available. The data would need to be used for educational purposes and provide a means for scholars to learn through and about rock art.

The School of Rock Art Website was the proposed solution. The website would provide a means for users to access the data in a useful and usable manner by providing three components to the website namely, Cave Navigation, Guided Tours and StoryTelling. The three components provide the following functionality:

• Cave Navigation: Developed by Kaitlyn Crawford, this component allows users to navigate 3D models of the cave scans that were taken by the Archaeology Department.
• Guided Tours: Developed by Marco Lawrence, this component allows users to view guided tours of the images while learning about the images through the descriptions provided by the creator of a tour. Users could also create and edit a guided tour.
• Story Telling: Developed by Joanne Marston, this component allows users to read Bushman stories, as well as design the look-and-feel of each of the stories.

A description of these components can be found by clicking on the links in their description or clicking on the links in the menu. The School of Rock Art website can be found at: http://simba.cs.uct.ac.za/~jmarston/School_of_Rock_Art/homepage.html Please note that this is non-permanent external link.