Australia - Rock art - First contact with Europeans through Indigenous eyes A series of rediscovered images reveals how Indigenous people viewed early European settlers. As Belinda Tromp writes photographer David Hancock, along with Indigenous elders, travelled to remote parts of the Arnhem Land plateau to unearth these rock paintings.

The painting inside a rock overhang shows a man with unusual headwear riding a horse.

The man is thought to be Ludwig Leichhardt, portrayed by an Aboriginal artist who observed the explorer passing through this remote Arnhem Land plateau in 1845. Having lost his hat early in his expedition, Leichhardt wore a canvas bag as a head covering.

Cleary the artist was fascinated by the horse, depicting the mare's wide stiff legged stance as it urinated.

In another rock painting, six men in wide-brimmed hats stand on a boat under a sunshade slung between sails. Along the deck are cargo boxes. Again the artist recalled in great detail what he'd seen - the vessel has an anchor chain and one of the men smokes a pipe.

These two paintings are among hundreds dotted across the vast Arnhem Land plateau east of Darwin that record the arrival of Europeans through indigenous eyes. (read on)