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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Sarah Aitken

‘Back where they belong’: sacred Tasmanian rock carvings to finally return home

Shannon and Jesse Williams lift the lid on the crate housing the luwamakuna (rock carvings) being returned to Aboriginal ownership at Queen Victoria Museum in Launceston
The rock carvings were taken from storage in Launceston and Hobart on Wednesday, to be returned to country this weekend. Photograph: Sarah Rhodes/EPA

On a remote stretch of private beach on the far north-west coast of lutruwita (Tasmania), a sacred object is about to finally come home.

For decades the Tasmanian Aboriginal community has been requesting the return of luwamakuna, or petroglyphs – mostly circular markings their ancestors carved into stone 14,000 years ago – that were taken by anthropologists in 1962.

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