If we imagine any HOST of the web as a directory and every URL as a file of a unique computer, we can immediately realise that we are working with the biggest data "store" ever created by man. The electronic memory grows day by day, HTML by HTML, JPG by JPG. If Rock Art plays a good role in the web, it's sure that the web could play the best role for Rock Art.
The problem is one, and perhaps the most significant: Rock Art researchers
need to exchange data (texts) and images (pictures and tracings).
Books are the best tool, the most scientific and accurate, but sometimes
hard to find, to reach, even to know.
Why not ask the web to play this role of world-wide overview being
able by its nature to link many different situations, to trace the way
to reach a complete bibliography or to show a short summary of a site like
a visual fieldtrip?
It's time to propose to all Rock Art researchers
and organisations the finding of a place in the web, creating a
specific URL for each Rock Art site and/or culture.
It's not a problem of standardisation: research is different from area
to area.
In fact I can (obviously) propose for each relevant site:
I recently reached 180 Rock Art (virtual) sites on the web. I found a great assortment, from a picture without any explanation to a complete exhibition of a site. I can briefly refer to some of them (see also Rock Art links by Bob Edberg).
At Lascaux
cave we have an excellent presentation, with archaeological text and pictures
of many painted panels. We would need perhaps more information about the
problems which caused the building of a perfect duplicate in these last
years (Lascaux 2). 
We can find a fascinating choice of images about Knowth
tumulus (Ireland, Neolithic), unfortunately without text. If you are looking
for a good pattern for your Rock Art web page you must reach Uppland
rune stones in Sweden. The touristic management of the Sanilac
Petroglyphs, Bad Axe, is very attractive, with interpretive program
and nature trail hike. You can have the best visual idea of what is an
engraved rock at Owens
Valley California site, by Frank Lyon Cox. A B/W enhanced photo of
the engraved surface is accompanied by a panoramic view.
The Rock Art Foundation
site is waiting for your visit: here you find exhaustive texts, a spectacular
choice of images, and also a newsletter page. If you are looking for a
reliable archaeological exposition reach the Petroglyphs
of Fujairah page, by Grégoire De Ceuninck: iconography and interpretation.
A curiosity: you can hear
(Real Audio needed) or read a good report about the Chauvet
cave discovering. (an Earth and Sky program).
On the other hand it's impossible to find something about Rock Art of the Sahara or of Africa.
In Europe we have only 1 picture of Altamira, nothing about Mt. Bego, and even in Australia it's not easy to find a completely described site.
The web is growing, now and tomorrow, like each hard disk of our computers.
There is the space to upload if not a huge Rock-Art graphic database
(but the web IS by its nature a huge database...), at least a choice of
the most interesting materials.
I hope that it will be possible to open a debate in this sense!
From 1970 GIPRI (Grupo de Investigation de Arte Rupestre Indigena) is
working on documentation of Colombian Rock Art.
The result of those investigations show that not more than 10% of
the total rock art zones were described by earlier investigators.
As of today (1996) more than 700 pictograph and petroglyph zones
have been discovered. Some rural traditions and beliefs have developed
from some of the rock art design.
The activity of painting or engraving rocks in Colombia may have begun
before the formative period. The scarce references seem to refer to activities
which occurred much sooner than just a few years before the appearance
of Spanish conquistadors.
The differences in rock art themes, the variety of zones, the diversity
of picture forms and engravings, seem to indicate that there existed long
periods of rock art activity from the paleoindian to the classic Muisca
times.
In 1970 investigations by the GIPRI group began.
The focus during the early years was in the search, study and preservation
of national rock art zones.
The work began in the eastern central zone, in the high plains area
of the states of Cundinamarca and Boyaca. The first expeditions (1970-1975)
had the aim to confirm the ancient references and descriptions of Spanish
chroniclers of the 19th and 20th centuries.
The GIPRI group has developed some unique systems and procedures of
recording and documenting rock art. The adaptation of the Frottage
system (Priuli-Novoa), the use of a field record sheet, and the digitalisation
of images, are some of the procedures used to record rocks and zones.
Each rock, and each painting or engraving is registered with all its
attributes on a field record sheet which is complemented with ethno-historic
studies: the history of the area, terror stories, aesthetic traditions,
associated medical practices and archaeoastronomical alignments.
RESULTS:
PROJECTS FOR 1996-1998:
