NAWARLA GABARNMANG

Early on the morning of 7 July 2006, at the height of the northern Australian dry season, helicopter pilot Chris Morgan and former cultural and environment manager of the Jawoyn Association Ray Whear were on a routine aerial survey of the western Arnhem Land plateau for the Jawoyn people in the Northern Territory’s Top End when they flew across a dark shadow along a long quartzite outcrop just east of the border with Kakadu National Park. They turned the helicopter around and landed nearby to investigate, walking into an incredible art gallery under a horizontal rock roof perched two metres above the surrounding plains. Unlike the more familiar rock-shelters that litter Arnhem Land’s “stone country,” this cathedral-like edifice had its roof held aloft by