Yehuda Rotblum
About
After a career in high tech, I began working as a tour guide in the Negev Desert Israel in 1998, without a clue where it will lead me to. By unknown force, the rock art spread all over the desert, attracted me. I had a feeling of rejuvenation and excitement trying to decipher them.
Thousands of hours guiding and traversing the desert gave me a unique understanding of the life played here as manifested by thousands of rock art. 15 years passed until I wrote my first book, Heavenly Art, that unraveled this mystery of Rockart. My second book Rockart in Israel brought much more organized thoughts to this subject that cemented methods for Rock Art decipherment. I found that the ancients had deep knowledge and understanding of the sky and their ideas extend even to the present time. In the process, I found that it is more difficult to understand the past than the future.
Rock Art in Israel - Book
The book explores the connection of Negev Desert Rock Art to Myths and Astronomy. Many Rock Art reveal the ancients spiritual world and how they envisioned major event such as Creation, how they used Calendars, their pilgrimage customs and even their desire to reach Paradise.
Rock Art is a pictorial language, which reconstructs the beliefs and myths perpetuated long ago. It is the twin brother of mythology and magic that combines fantasy and reality represented as hunting scenes, battles, campaigns in heaven, prayer, and God's war. To truly understand this pre-historic art, it should be interpreted as an expression of worship and faith. It may be simply stated that: Decoding Rockart, in essence, decodes the ancients belief.
The book Rock Art in Israel is available online.
I am an artist and was in Mehiya in 2017 with a group of friends and Uri Roll from Ben Gurion U. I was so taken by the imagery close up that I am creating a Glyph Journal to capture my experience. It is an artist book with original monotype drawings which are my interpretations of the images I saw. Because I want to learn more about rock art I’m signing up for your newsletter.
Thanks,
Shellie
Dear Shelly you are now on our mailing list.
I’m curious about your work with the rockart and your project the Glyph Journal.
What I found is that understanding the rockart meaning enhances its artistic interpretation.
I’ll be happy to assist you in this respect.
Currently, I have ongoing two art projects. One is the postcards and the second is painting the original rockart on stone. You can see both examples of my art on my site.
Good luck and welcome!
Thank you, Yehuda
Between 1961 and 1966 I lived full time in Chinalake, California. It was there that I became familiar with the Coso petroglyphs, which today are considered a “world class” rock art site. Since that time I have been hiking, exploring, photographing, drawing and painting the Rupestrian treasures of western America. Presently I live in northern Arizona and continue to explore and find petroglyphs and pictographs. Over the many years of painting the petroglyphs I have accumulated numerous rockart collectors. The antiquity and mystery of the glyphs appeals to people, especially if the rockart is accurately rendered as an artifact, retaining the “pictoral language” Since I first visited some of these sites, some of the rockart has been damaged, vandalized and defaced. My accurate renderings illustrate something that no longer exists. As a Christian, I have always wondered about rockart in Biblical landscapes. Ironic that Moses created petroglyphs on the stone tablets later referred to as “the ten commandments” I long have wondered as to where prehistoric ancient peoples made stone marks about God, Abraham, Jesus and other important figures. Obviosly, the deserts (as in North America) of the Middle East have a plentitude of patina and rocks. Thanks to the internet and people like yourself, there is much rockart to be seen. Thank you for your interests and efforts, to shed new light on these ancient stones and their stories. Sincerely, Charles M. Huckeba, Huckeba Art Gallery, Prescott, Arizona My other artworks can also be seen on Facebook and Instagram. At last count I have at least 50,000 photographs of petroglyphs and pictographs from Australia to most of the USA. This has kept me very busy and motivated (and healthy from hiking.)
Dear friend, its good to know you. I like your devotion to rock art and was impressed with your work. The painting bigger size gives it a new dimension that also enhances its power.
I follow the American rock art groups for some time to learn and enjoy its beauty. But I have a hard time to understand the meaning of it. I also noticed that there is much confusion among all the experts about its message and little effort put into the deciphering. Something I decided to put as my first goal that is to understand the message. And I found many surprises along the way. One of them is the breadth of knowledge the ancients possessed and also that these symbolic rock art are a continuation of later written text. It’s fun! I invite you to join my facebook group “Rock Art in Israel” and will be happy if you share with us some of your paintings. Best Yehuda.