Leang-Leang

The Maros-Pangkep karst holds hundreds of caves with rock art, known since Dutch surveys in the 1950s and long assumed to be a few thousand years old until uranium-series dating from 2014 onwards produced results that upended the chronology: hand stencils and a painted babirusa at Leang Timpuseng returned minimum ages around thirty-five to forty thousand years, and later work at Leang Bulu' Sipong and Leang Karampuang pushed a hunting scene and a narrative panel past forty-four and then fifty thousand - among the oldest known figurative art anywhere. The Leang-Leang park near Bantimurung opens two caves, Petta Kere and Pettae, with stencils and a pig figure, in a landscape of karst towers. The most significant caves are restricted and not part of the ordinary visit.

What you actually see

• Hand stencils and a pig figure - the accessible panels at Petta Kere and Pettae.
• A rewritten chronology - dating that made this some of the oldest known art.
• Karst tower landscape - the limestone pinnacles of the Maros-Pangkep field.
• Restricted caves nearby - the most significant panels are closed to visitors.

When to go

May to September. Half a day.

Honest expectations

The famous dated panels are largely in closed caves - what is open is more modest. Paintings are faded and exfoliating, a documented and worsening problem. It is hot with little shade.

Nearby

Bantimurung is next door; Rammang-Rammang is north; Makassar is south.