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Historically, the cave painting is very much related to pictures. Pre-historical remains have shown that since thousand years ago human ancestors have begun to make drawings as part of creative expressions on the cave walls to project an image of their important lives, especially hunting events and their rituals. The hunting spirits were described through stories and experiences of the ancient people in a number of motifs incised in the form of preys and hunting activities in the cave hollows. All the cultures in the world have cave paintings. This is because a cave painting or picture can be easily made. A cave painting can be undertaken by only using a simple material, such as carbon, chalk, and blood. One popular way of prehistoric paintings done by the ancient hunters living in the cave is by sticking their hands on the cave walls, then spraying them with the chewing of leaves or colorful mineral stones. The results were the colorful copies of hands on the cave walls that can still be seen up to now. Cave paintings were mostly made on the flat objects, like walls, floors, and cave ceilings. In line with the civilization development, human ancestors became more intelligent in making shapes and composing them into pictures, thus automatically their works began to form a kind of shape or profile composition and narration of life and hunting events in their works. In 2005 in a rock cave hollow of Liang Kaung, Kalimantan, I along with the Team of Environmental Conservation Study (called HIMAKOVA) of the Faculty of Forestry of Bogor Institute of Agriculture discovered a number of ancient images. This accidental discovery was very important for archeological data in the world to disclose human society life of the past in Kalimantan. The whole day I explored the rock cave hollow before finally I in disguise saw a carbon scratch under the thickness of the rock cave mosses. I found a new image stored on the rock cave walls hidden in the mosses and mushrooms. Some geometric images and motifs appeared from the rock cave ceilings after cleaning them from the thick mosses closing off the ancient hunters’ motifs of carbon paintings. These art works calibrated on the rocky ground were not only considered as inheritance containing much information about human behavior in life, but also more than that, namely a proof of achievement on human taste of art carving in the media of stone. The ancient image describes the hunting spirit to become the center of metaphysical power, and the hunting rituals symbolize the creativity of the ancient society. The repetition of hunting symbols was expressed in the forms of cave or carbon paintings on the cave walls. In principal, rock cave paintings indicate the socio- economical life and faith of the society at the time. The drawings of hand marks with red background have a meaning of power or symbol for protection from a devil spirit. Such a spiritual life emphasizes the worship procession towards the soul of forefathers and metaphysical power trusted available in the surroundings (Kosasih, 1991). The objects frequently employed in the ancient works are human beings, animals, and other natural objects and the situations of the hunting events. The painted objects were not always similar to their origins. This is called an image, and it is very much influenced by the artist’s insights upon the objects. For instance, the picture of a deer was made with extremely big horns rather than its origins in proportion. This image was affected by the artist’s views that horns were the most impressive organs of a deer. Therefore, the image of an object can be various depending on the ancient people’s 1 cultural understanding. This imaging becomes crucial because it was also influenced by the imagination. In the development of rock cave paintings, the imagination has played an important role for an image that illustrates the hunting spirits. In the outset, the development of cave paintings was very much connected to the development of human civilization: the system of language, the way of sustaining life through gathering foods, and hunting and setting a trap for animals. The ancient people’s faith towards metaphysical life was the affecting factors of the development of the cave paintings. These influences can be recognized from the objects, images, and narrations in which the objects were visualized. At the moment, cave paintings had a special function, for example, a recording medium (in drawings) for retelling stories. Some leisure time in the prehistoric age was fulfilled, among other things, with activities where the ancient people did drawing or painting the cave walls. The hunting society’s ways of communication through pictures finally brought about the establishment of writing system because letters were actually derived from the symbols of paintings which were then simplified and standardized. In a group of prehistoric society where the people spent more time for drawing rather than seeking foods, they began to be skillful in painting and realized that a certain composition of a shape or profile, if arranged in such a way, would seem more attractive rather than in a normal condition. They came to find a sort of good taste of beauty in their activities and continuously kept it so that they became more expert. They were the first creative artists in the world, and it was since then that the painting and drawing activities tended to become the hunting society’s artistic activities. 2 UNDERSTANDING ROCK CAVE ART OF KALIMANTAN Achmad Sopandi Hasan The Visual Art Department, State University of Jakarta, Indonesia [email protected] Abstract: The Kalimantan prehistoric karst cave is a hilly beautiful natural landscape with potency of archeological heritage in the form of an exotic rock art. The trail of prehistoric civilization of Marang and Betung Karihun is a karst area famous with ornate caves, hand paintings, human figures, and animal figures reasoning of estimable red paint and charcoal. This paper is aimed to report the discovery of rock cave art of Kalimantan. The result is a very creative art with ancient motifs and the transformation of idea onto cave walls, and the production of unique design that captures the essence of rock cave art. The paper will also look at current issues and challenges of ancient cultural heritage for visual art which must be appreciated as a cultural educational effort to teach the public about of the patterns and functions of rock cave art. Key words: Kalimantan, rock cave art, ornate caves Introduction Kalimantan is one of the places with the biggest ancient rock arts in the world. At precipitous hill bevels is met a number of black holes known as a cave becoming men’s dwelling in the period of prehistory. Prehistoric civilization in Kalimantan is firstly expressed in a book entitled “Borneo: Memory of the Caves” written by Jean-Michel Chazine in 2010. In 1988 a French team found a prehistoric cave painting in Liang Kaung, West Kalimantan. They found a charcoal drawing on the cave walls in Marang area in the form of red hand prints, human figures, and animals, especially in the Tewet cave in the mountain of Marang, Semenanjung Mangkalihat, East Kutai, East Kalimantan. Since then prehistoric studies in Marang and Betung Kerihun karst area is done more intensively. According to Kosasih (1989), the patterns were adopted to ancient hunters, magic rituals, the stories of their ancestors, and the ancient community’s faith. Rock cave arts were mainly used in rituals, ceremonies, and activities associated with the beliefs of the people. The case study was the main focus for the research activities where the prehistoric sites were primary areas. The emphasis was given to the research which has relevance to the ancient time providing information that can be used for policy making and which may be expected to lead to the improvement in the quality of public life. This study is intended to identify the significance of rock cave art in Kalimantan. The symbolization of their ancestors began to establish rock cave art represented by incredible figures of animals, human beings, and stamps on the cave walls describing a hunting event done by mysterious forgotten people. It is intended to study the meaning attached in the paintings. The legacy of the first artists will continue in unimagined ways. An ancient painter always exists and mysteriously paints the experience of life. The hunting skills of the prehistoric community in Liang Kaung were not limited to hunting for terrestrial and arboreal animals. The rock cave art created and expressed a heritage and civilization, as if the ancient 3 painters had a natural creative power (Sopandi, 2011). Talking about creativity, let us first consider its two possible meanings: creativity in the sense of creating something new, something which can be seen by others, for example, a drawing, or creativity as an altitude, which is the condition of any creation in the former sense, but which can exist although nothing new is created in the world of things (Glover, 1989). In this paper, I herewith present the time of the message of the ancient community to be viewed and appraised. We hope this effort will help us maintain the sensitivity. This paper tries to assist the extent of the ornate caves motifs engraved on the rock cave which has important information. Information on human figures, animal figures and hand stencil motifs was recorded in one of the rock arts of human behavior that is hunting. Rock cave arts have similar animals, such as paintings of animals describing the hunting activity at the prehistoric times. According to Toruan (1995), every work of art contains at least two elements worth observing: message and immortality.

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