Riders on the storm: Rock art in the Atacama Desert (Northern Chile)

Rider and mount iconography is common in the rock art of northern Chile but it is little investigated and poorly understood. This paper takes a new ap proach which focuses on the meaning and context of these equestrian images. It surveys the contexts in which equestrian imagery, particularly that ass ociated with Apostle Santiago, is used and the meanings it invokes in colon ial period illustrations and contemporary indigenous Andean cultures. These insights form the basis of a new interpretation of the equestrian rock art imagery of the Aiquina area of northern Chile. It is argued that the incor poration of equestrian iconography into rock art was not a simple process o f importing exotic items and ideas, but a complex process involving the app ropriation of imagery and ideas and the renegotiation of their meanings in new cultural contexts.