In search of the lost Sahara

eitb24

A team of Basque archaeologists led by Andoni Sáenz de Buruaga, a professor at the Basque public university UPV, is visiting the Western Sahara for a fifth time.

"We presented our research project to the Sahrawi Government in 2004. It was very well received and we have been given every chance. The results are very good, we have really made progress and that encourages us to travel for the fifth time to the region of Tiris", Andoni Sáenz de Buruaga says.

The research of the Basque archaeologists covers an area of 30,000 km2, three times the surface of Navarre. These lands are part of the Western Sahara that escapes the control of Morocco, which controls 75 percent of the former Spanish colony.

In five years' work, the Basque archeologists have catalogues more that 300 archaeological sites, including former human settlements, carvings and cave paintings. Most of them are between 3,000 and 10,000 years old. The research work helps to make the prehistoric heritage of the southern region of the Western Sahara better known. The gathered material will be part of the first archaeological catalogue of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.

"We are sweating blood but it is worthy. We will keep on trying to research the past of the Sahrawis. It is vet important for them to know their cultural heritage, which is very rich opposite to what it was generally thought. It is a way to show and claim and their ancestors lived here", Sáenz de Buruaga said.

One of the most remarkable conclusions is the verification that today's arid desert was a subtropical savanna with plenty of flora and fauna six thousand years ago. Rains decreased as a consequence of a process of climate change and animals moved to other places to face the lack of water.

The continent's true history

The Economist

Africa may have 200,000 rock-art sites, more than any other continent. The oldest known site, in Namibia, is between 18,000 and 28,000 years old. Several African universities now have programmes to decipher the paintings and carvings. They are being helped by the Kenya-based Trust for African Rock Art (TARA), which seeks to discover and digitally archive as much of the art as it can for future scholars.

The best is in the Sahara desert, particularly in Niger's Air mountains, in the Tibesti mountains of northern Chad and southern Libya, and in south-east Algeria's Tassili n'Ajjer range. Such desert sites are too remote to be damaged by graffiti, though wars involving the local Tuareg have resulted in some being shot up or smashed apart for sale to foreign collectors. David Coulson, one of TARA's founders, raves about a recent find in the Tassili n'Ajjer range: an anatomically perfect four-metre-long carving of a hippo hunted by an Egyptian-looking figure with a superbly sinuous bow. This in a region that dried up several thousand years ago.

Elsewhere in Africa, rock art often chronicles the hunting magic of Bushmen and Pygmies. Not much rock art survives in western Africa, and in eastern and central parts of the continent more recent but still invaluable paintings have been poorly preserved.

But there is progress. Locals are being encouraged to see the value of showing off their sites to tourists.

UN vandals spray graffiti on Sahara’s prehistoric art

Times Online (Dalya Alberge)

OK, so this is all the way over the other side of the Sahara, but it makes me so cross. And it is exactly the type of problem that rock art all over the Sahara, including Egyptian rock art, is being subjected to. Just look at the photographs.

Spectacular prehistoric depictions of animal and human figures created up to 6,000 years ago on Western Saharan rocks have been vandalised by United Nations peacekeepers, The Times has learnt.

Archaeological sites boasting ancient paintings and engravings of giraffes, buffalo and elephants have been defaced within the past two years by personnel attached to the UN mission, known by its French acronym, Minurso.

Graffiti, some of it more than a metre high and sprayed with paint meant for use for marking routes, now blights the rock art at Lajuad, an isolated site known as Devil Mountain, which is regarded by the local Sahrawi population as a mystical place of great cultural significance.

Many of the UN “graffiti artists” signed and dated their work, revealing their identities and where they are from. Minurso personnel stationed in Western Sahara come from almost 30 countries. They are monitoring a ceasefire between the occupying Moroccan forces and the Polisario Front, which is seeking independence.

One Croatian peacekeeper scrawled “Petar CroArmy” across a rock face. Extensive traces of pigment from rock painting are visible underneath. Another left behind Cyrillic graffiti, and “Evgeny” from Russia scribbled AUI, the code for the Minurso base at Aguanit. “Mahmoud” from Egypt left his mark at Rekeiz Lemgasem, and “Ibrahim” wrote his name and number over a prehistoric painting of a giraffe. “Issa”, a Kenyan major who signed his name and wrote the date, had just completed a UN course, Ethics in Peacekeeping, documents show.

See the above page for the full story.

For a recent story about damage inflicted on rock art in Egypt and Libya, see:

Desert art in danger at Egypt's new tourism frontier (Charles Onians)

For a truly disturbing scene of a tourist tracing rock art in Egypt's Gilf Kebir, see:

Gilf Kebir Expedition on You Tube

More re desert art in danger

The Daily Star Middle East

This is the same article that has been posted elsewhere, but it has an image on the page of several paintings on rock which have been covered in oil to make the colours stand out.

Desert art in danger at Egypt's new tourism frontier

Middle East Online (Charles Onians)

I have been nagging recently about the impact of irresponsible tourists on the Egyptian deserts. I am delighted to say that this has been excellently highlighted by the article on the above page, which points explicitly to the problems being experienced in Egypt, Libya and the Sudan. I have quoted from it more than I would usually, but there is a lot more to read on the above page.

A rising tide of travellers seeking out the new frontier of Egyptian tourism is threatening priceless rock art preserved for millennia in one of the most-isolated reaches of the Sahara.

In Egypt's southwest corner, straddling the borders of Sudan and Libya, the elegant paintings of prehistoric man and beast in the mountains of Gilf Kabir and Jebel Ouenat are as stunning in their simplicity as anything by Picasso.

But lying 500 kilometres (330 miles) from the nearest habitation, the desert offers little sanctuary for these masterpieces and any effective protected designation first requires a deal between the three sometimes quarrelsome nations.

Not only the rock art is at stake, but the region's entire cultural and natural heritage.

"You can't estimate the amount of damage done," says Dr Rudolph Kuper, a German archaeologist involved in trying to protect the art, mostly dating from when the desert was a receding prairie 5,000-7,000 years ago.

"People put water or oil on the paintings to make the faded colours look brighter, causing irreparable damage," he says.

The story is even more tragic just across the border in Libya, where the delicate brush strokes of human figures at Ain Dua appear to have been shot at by bored soldiers. . . .

With untold damage already wrought, getting Egypt, Libya and Sudan to agree on policing the militarily sensitive area is a conservation conundrum.

The hope is to have the area designated as a trans-boundary cultural landscape UNESCO World Heritage site, but that requires the three nations to all first declare individual national parks.

So far, only Egypt has designated a park, but officials from all three countries are due to meet in Cairo in December in the hope of hammering out a deal, despite their occasionally fraught diplomatic relations.

With the support of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Kuper and Prof Mustafa Fouda from the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency want to build a museum-cum-educational centre in the oasis of Dakhla, the jumping off point for most trips to Gilf Kabir.

"Hopefully we can make our dreams come true, with a museum to explain the relationship between man and the desert, to explain how man can make use of the resources in a sustainable way," says Fouda.

Pending the politicians' decision, Kuper says that recently some tourists have returned to the Cave of the Swimmers to try to erase their names. For the desert's desecraters, it seems the writing is on the wall.

See the above page for more details, including two photographs, one recent and one fifty years old, juxtopositioned to show how the art has changed.

I was at a conference about Saharan prehistory in Poland earlier this year, where I was privileged to be present when two experts on the Gilf Kebir area of Egypt (where the Cave of Swimmers is located) had a discussion about how to manage this type of tourism in these remote areas. Although the difficulties are considerable there were some very good ideas emerging. Dr Rudolph Kuper was one of those experts, and it is very good to see that he is having an active role in attempting to resolve some of these issues in the Western Desert of Egypt at least. Problems are by no means restricted to the Western Desert - vandalism has also been recorded in the Eastern Desert of Egypt, where quarrying also poses a potential threat to the archaeology.

For those interested in the Gilf Kebir area, there is an article on the Al Ahram Weekly website by Mohamed El-Hebeishy, who toured with Colonel el-Mestekawi (one of those who discovered the Mestekawi-Foggini Cave). He also highlights some of the problems:

I lost track of time as I stood in complete amazement in El-Mestekawi Cave, seeing priceless pieces of art as old as rock art. Indeed, this constituted an unmatched experience that left my soul indulged in mystical harmony.

Most unfortunately, some irresponsible tourists spray water on rock art in order to secure a more vibrant photograph. Although it works, there is also a hefty price to pay in the form an accelerated deterioration of the art itself. Having been dry for thousands of years, the sandstone on which most of the rock art is painted reacts negatively with water. Soon enough, the colours start to fade and the paint starts to peel. Water spraying and camera flashes are lethal when it comes to rock art, so please be very careful whenever present in such a crucially important site.

Video: Western Gilf Kebir

You Tube

Regular visitors to the blog will know of my ongoing love affair with the Gilf Kebir area, so finding a video of the place was a briefly happy moment - but I nearly had heart failure at the shots of somewhat tracing over an image from the Mestekawi-Foggini Cave (the image on the right is a screen grab from the video). Tracing over an image is an intensively invasive procedure which can very easily harm the underlying original. In fact, watching this video it is difficult to see how the small figure beneath was not harmed, and it should be a wake up call to anyone lucky enough to visit these remote and and unsecured rock art sites - don't do it!

It also turns out that the beautiful vistas of the area don't lend themselves particularly well to amateur video - the only things that really move much in the desert are the cars, so there's lots of footage of vehicles crossing the desert and driving up wadis. However, it is still nice to see the desert going by, and the video does give a sense of the sheer complexity of the images in the Mestekawi cave. Here's the accompanying blurb:

Discovered by Zarzora Expedition in 2002, the rock-art site of Mestekawi Cave, in northwest Gilf Kebir, is yet to be studied. Due to its remoteness, the site, like several other prehistoric remains, has been visited by only few hundreds of people. Most of those were tourists with general interest in rock-art. however, systematic examination requires sincere efforts, well-fitted logistics and precious time.

It also requires that the art is still there to be examined.

Mestekawi-Foggini

The rock art of remote areas has no-one to protect it - its protection lies exclusively in two facts - it is too remote for many people to visit and those that do visit tend to care about what they are visiting so they treat it with respect. Obviously there are exceptions, and the recent post about the sheer tonnage of tourist waste left in the Dakhleh Oasis illustrate that very vividly.

General guidelines about rock art - don't touch it (even the lightest touch with the driest finger can harm it, but damp hands are lethal), don't bleach the paint by using flash, don't accidentally brush against it with your ruck sack. Don't trace it. Don't damp it down. Don't try to scrape away the sand from it. Bascially, the best strategy is just to look at it and enjoy it.

Sermon over - here are the pictures. As usual, click on the small image to see the bigger picture.

Studies of rock art in Dakhleh Oasis

Nauka w Polsce

"The creators of rock drawings in Dakhla were shepherds. They lived about 8 – 5,000 years ago” – said Prof. Michał Kobusiewicz from the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology at the Polish Academy of Sciences, who is studying the relicts of human presence in Dakhla Oasis in Egypt. The oasis is located in the middle of the Western Desert. It is known among others due to numerous rock engravings – depicting women, giraffes and elephants. Full of life in ancient times, today the dry valleys of the river (“wadi” in Arabic) are a witness of the past, and are the subject of interest to researchers.

What do we know about the authors of these ancient engravings? Archaeologists have located numerous settlements from the Stone Age located in the area of water sources, which were numerous at the time. “These are concentrations of stone and flint articles, fragments of pottery, quern stones used to grind plant food, bones from farm or hunted animals. Sometimes there are also traces of primitive dwellings in the shape of stone circles, which are the basis of huts or tents covered with skins” – the professor explains.

Prof. Kobusiewicz, besides research on the settlements is also taking part in recording the rock art. One of the wadi, named by archaeologists “Coloured Wadi” is studied by the professor. “The Wadi is over a dozen kilometres long. Rock engravings, largely in groups, though sometimes alone, are located on its sandy slopes. Last season, the picture and photographic documentation was continued and previously found engravings were copied onto foils” – the archaeologist explained.

See the above page for more details and a photograph of one of the rock art scenes. Click on the thumbnail image to see a slightly larger photograph, which shows the painted details with greater clarity.

Damaged fossil makes Cairo officials

IOL

European diplomats in four-wheel-drive cars have caused extensive damage to a fossilised whale lying for millions of years in the Egyptian desert, a security source said on Sunday. "Whale Valley officials have informed the authorities that people from two diplomatic vehicles destroyed the fossil," the source told reporters after the destruction was discovered 150km south of Cairo. Two cars drove into the protected area on Friday and then refused to stop when asked to do so by wardens who nevertheless obtained the vehicles' registration numbers which the source said were from "a European country". "The damage is more than ten million dollars," the source said.

These are the Wadi Rayan whales in the southern Faiyum - a unique and fabulous record of a time when the Faiyum was overlain by sea water which was home to numerous marine species.

At the symposium about northeast African archaeology in Poland in July, the subject of "adventure tourism" and the damage caused by irresponsible tourists to some of these important and beautiful areas which are not on the usual tourist routes was discussed frequently. Visitors who take souvenirs break up archaeolgical sites, and dampen rock art to improve photographs, removing the raw data from which entire communities and lifestyles can be resurrected on paper.

Everyone welcomes responsible tourism, where visitors with a genuine interest are supervised by qualified personnel, but the question is how to filter out the idiots from the genuine articles.

One of the suggestions was that fixed routes could be established through the desert areas, from which cars would not be permitted to deviate, and that only recognized guides should be allowed to accompany vistitors who would be limited fixed numbers. But it is difficult to see how or when this could or would be implemented. Very sad indeed.

New rock art found in Algeria

A short article from Reuters Africa.

Algeria, a treasure house of prehistoric Saharan art, has discovered more neolithic rock etchings in the desert from around 8,000 years ago showing cattle herds, a government newspaper reported Monday.El Moudjahid daily said local tour guide Hadj Brahim found about 40 images near the town of Bechar, about 800 km (500 miles) southwest of the capital Algiers.Prehistoric paintings are found in many parts of the Sahara, often portraying a garden-like environment of hunting and dancing in bright greens, yellows and reds at a time before desertification, which happened around 4,000 years ago.Algeria's best known drawings are in the southeast in the Tassili N'Ajjer mountains. The site of 15,000 images has been named world's finest prehistoric open-air art museum by UNESCO.

Despite a rich Saharan inheritance, Algeria remains off the beaten track for most tourists because of its politically unstable history and an undeveloped tourist sector.

More re Lascaux type images on the Nile

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/849/he1.htm
Nevine El-Aref takes up the story of the Qurta images recently publicized in a press release, and now described in the June 2007 issue of Antiquity. There is nothing very new in this article, but as usual Nevine El-Aref has presented it in a clear and digestible way, which brings all the most important points to the fore:

In his archaeological report, a copy of which Al-Ahram Weekly has received, Huyge described the characteristic of the newly-discovered illustrations. He writes that, from a technical point of view, prehistoric men used a special artistic technique of art to engrave and paint their rock images. They hammered and incised the solid surface to transform it into a fine animal, a bird or a scene from the nature around them. In some cases the figures are executed almost in bas-relief, such as the one showing a large bovid found in Qurta II and a fresco of birds which combined three images. "It is really a superb example among the rock art ever found," Huyge commented.

The dimensions of the Qurta images are exceptional. Often the prehistoric bovid stood taller than 0.8 metres, and the largest example ever found measured over 1.8 metres. In this respect the Qurta rock art is quite different in that the size of each animal figure varies by 0.4 to 0.5 metres.

The prehistoric artist or artists at Qurta made use of natural fissures, cracks, curves, arches and brows of the rocks, and integrated them into the art images. A perfect example of this is a rock panel found at Qurta II, where a natural vertical crack was used to render the back part of a bovid. Huyge points out that bovid drawings were deliberately left incomplete. Some had missing legs, tail or horns, while others had numerous scratches over their heads and necks.

The article goes on to discuss the important problem of protecting the art, which is a problem experienced with most rock art sites both in Egypt and elswhere:

The rock supporting this art, the Nubian sandstone, is extremely fragile and still being intensively quarried in the area. The rock art panels are often very large and show numerous cracks and fissures. Huyge believes that since it would almost be impossible to remove the rock art from its original location without seriously damaging it, and since, of course, the rock art is an integral part of the Upper Egyptian desert landscape that should be studied and understood in situ, the only way properly to safeguard this priceless heritage of Egypt is to provide adequate surveillance, with several permanent guards on site. It could eventually be envisaged that the area of the rock art could be secured by building high protective walls around it. "Taking this rock art away from its original location, however, and putting it in a museum would definitely be a substantial impoverishment of Egypt's cultural heritage."

See the above page for her full article.

To see a short overview of some of the problems facing rock art in Egypt, see the following "Potential Damage to Rock Art Sites" Appendix on my Eastern Desert website: http://www.wadi.cd2.com/html/appendix_a.html

More re Late Pleistocene rock art in Egypt

http://antiquity.ac.uk/ProjGall/huyge/index.html
The details of the Qurta rock art site released in a press release copied earlier in this blog have been published in the archaeological journal Antiquity, with a discussion of the factors which might offer a date for the rock art - with photos.

Rock Art Research journal May 2007

http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/rar1/web/index.html
I've just noticed that the home page for the journal Rock Art Research has been updated with the cover image of the May 2007 issue. If of interest, you can also access a full set of the Australian Rock Art Research Association Newsletters (AURA) of up until November 2006 (in PDF Format) on the above page.

Here are the Contents for May 2007, Volume 24, Number 1:
Volume 24, Number 1, May 2007


The Jawoyn Rock Art and Heritage Project by R. G. Gunn and R. L. Whear (Australia)

Antiquity and authorship of the Chauvet rock art by Robert G. Bednarik (Australia)

Naturalised epistemology, human models of reality, salience and cave iconography by Yann-Pierre Montelle (New Zealand). With RAR Comments by Ahmed Achrati, Robert G. Bednarik and Thomas Heyd; and author’s reply

Body and embodiment: a sensible approach to rock art by Ahmed Achrati (U.S.A.)

Sangestoon: a new rock art site in central Iran by Sirwan Mohamadi Ghasrian (Iran)

Presumed cattle petroglyphs in the Eastern Desert of Egypt. Precursors of classical Egyptian art? by Tony Judd (United Kingdom)

Discontinuous Dreaming networks: analyses of variability in Australian pre-Historic petroglyphs by Natalie R. Franklin (Australia)

Epistemology, modernism and sacred languages: two levels of the human language by Guillermo Muñoz C. (Colombia)

RAR Debate
‘Against deceit’, by Livio Dobrez. Comment on Derek Hodgson and Patricia A. Helvenston’s ‘The
emergence of the representation of animals in palaeoart’
‘The evolution of animal representation: a response to Dobrez’, by Derek Hodgson and Patricia A. Helvenston
Further comments on Christopher Chippindale and Paul S. C. Taçon’s ‘What’s in a word, what’s in a hyphen?’: ‘On “rock art” history and terminology’, by B. K. Swartz, Jr
‘Contesting the incontestable’, by Jack Steinbring
‘Rock-writing, picture-writing, petroglyphs, rock-art; and the importance of the hyphen’, by Paul S. C. Taçon and Christopher Chippindale
‘Rock art history and use of the term: reply to Swartz’, by Mavis Greer and John Greer
‘Reflections on North American archaeology and rock art’, by Alanah Woody and Angus R.
Quinlan
‘More about “More about finger flutings” ‘, by Kevin Sharpe and Leslie Van Gelder, a reply to R.
G. Bednarik
Progress with rock art protection in Tasmania’, by R. G. Bednarik

Brief Reports
‘The crisis in Lascaux: update March 2007’, by Melody Di Piazza
‘Holocene petroglyphs at Philippi, Greece’, by George Dimitriadis
Orientation
‘Dampier rainwater as acidic as beer: CSIRO’, by Robert G. Bednarik
‘The Burrup Blues’, a poem by M. J. McBain and Noel Nannup
Chilean court ruling
Rock art studies: a bibliographic database
WAC Inter-Congress: Archaeological Invisibility and Forgotten Knowledge

ARARA news

IFRAO Report No. 38
‘International Cupule Conference 2007’, by Roy Querejazu Lewis

15,000 Year Old Palaeolithic Rock Art at Qurta

15/05/06 Press Release

Unfortunately there is no URL for an online home for the following press release, which was sent to me by email:

Belgian Arcaheological Mission Traces Oldest Art in Egypt: 15,000 year old Palaeolithic rock art sites at Qurta are real 'Lascaux along the Nile'

In February-March 2007, a Belgian Archaeological Mission, financed by Yale University (with the co-operation of Vodafone Egypt) and directed by Dr. Dirk Huyge of the Royal Museums of Art and History in Brussels (Belgium), started a rock art research project at the Qurta sites, on the east bank of the Nile, along the northern edge of the Kom Ombo Plain, about 40 km south of Edfu and 15 km north of Kom Ombo. The team also included scientists from Yale University (USA), University of California Los Angeles (USA), Australian National University (Canberra, Australia), American University in Cairo (Egypt), and Ghent University (Belgium).

Rock art research by the same mission in 2004 in the el-Hosh area on the west bank of the Nile, about 30 km south of Edfu, led to the discovery of an intriguing rock art locality at the southernmost tip of a Nubian sandstone hill called Abu Tanqura Bahari, about 4 km south of the modern village of el-Hosh. This locality shows, among other things, several images of bovids executed in a naturalistic, ‘Franco-Cantabrian, Lascaux-like’ style, which are quite different from the stylised cattle representations in the ‘classical’ Predynastic iconography of the 4th millennium BC. On the basis of patination and weathering, these bovid representations are definitely extremely old. As these el-Hosh bovid images are comparable to cattle representations that had been discovered in 1962-1963 by a Canadian archaeological mission (the Canadian Prehistoric Expedition) on the east bank of the Nile, in the Gebel Silsila area, the Belgian mission attempted to relocate the latter images. The attempt was successful and the sites were relocated in March-April 2005 near the modern village of Qurta, along the northern edge of the Kom Ombo Plain.

Intensive surveying of the Nubian sandstone cliffs immediately east of the village of Qurta led to the discovery of three rock art sites, designated Qurta I, II and III. At each of these sites several rock art locations, panels and individual figures were identified. In total there are at least about 160 individual figures. The rock art of Qurta consists mainly of naturalistically drawn animal figures. Both hammering and incision have been practised to create the images. Bovids are largely predominant (at least 111 examples), followed by birds (at least 7 examples), hippopotami (at least 3 examples), gazelle (at least 3 examples) and fish (2 examples). In addition, there are also (at least) 7 highly stylised representations of human figures (shown with pronounced buttocks, but no other bodily features). None of the animals present shows any evidence for domestication. There is no doubt that the bovids represented should be identified as Bos primigenius or aurochs (wild cattle). The Qurta rock art is quite unlike any rock art known elsewhere in Egypt. It is substantially different from the ubiquitous ‘classical’ Predynastic rock art of the 4th millennium BC, known from hundreds of sites throughout the Nile Valley and the adjacent Eastern and Western deserts.

In 1962-1963, the above-mentioned Canadian Prehistoric Expedition working in the area discovered and excavated several Late Palaeolithic settlements in the vicinity of the rock art sites. The most important of these is GS-III, situated at a distance of only 150 to 200 m from the Qurta I rock art site. At this Palaeolithic site fragments of sandstone were found on which linear grooves had been incised; in one case they formed several deep parallel grooves. This at least proves that the Late Palaeolithic inhabitants of the Kom Ombo Plain practised the technique of incising sandstone.

The GS-III site and similar sites found by the Canadian Prehistoric Expedition and other missions in the Kom Ombo Plain in the early 1960s are currently attributed to the Ballanan-Silsilian culture, dated to about 16,000 to 15,000 years ago (BP). Climatologically this corresponds to the end of an hyper-arid period, preceding a return of the rains and the ‘Wild Nile’ stage of about 14,000-13,000 BP.

The fauna of these Ballanan-Silsilian and other Late Palaeolithic sites in the Kom Ombo Plain suggests a culture of hunters and fishermen with a mixed subsistence economy oriented to both stream and desert for food resources. It is essentially characterized by the following elements: aurochs (wild cattle), hartebeest, some species of gazelle, hippopotamus, wading and diving birds (including numerous goose and duck species) and some fish species. With the exception of hartebeest, this faunal inventory perfectly matches the animal repertory of the Qurta rock art sites. Both in the Late Palaeolithic faunal assemblages and in the rock art large ‘Ethiopian’ faunal elements, such as elephant, giraffe, and rhinoceros, are conspicuously absent.

Because of its particularities, the rock art of Qurta reflects a true Palaeolithic mentality, quite closely comparable to what governs European Palaeolithic art. An attribution of this Qurta rock art is proposed to the Late Pleistocene Ballanan-Silsilian culture or a Late Palaeolithic culture of similar nature and age. In this respect, it can hardly be coincidental that the comparable site of Abu Tanqura Bahari at El-Hosh is also situated at close distance (only at about 500 m) from a Late Palaeolithic site that, mainly on the basis of its stratigraphical position, must be of roughly similar age as the Ballanan-Silsilian industry of the Kom Ombo Plain. There remains therefore little doubt that the rock art of Qurta must be about 15,000 years old. It constitutes the oldest graphic activity recorded in Egypt until now. It provides clear evidence that Africa in general and Egypt in particular possesses prehistoric art that is both chronologically and aesthetically closely comparable to the great Palaeolithic art traditions known for a long time from the European continent. The rock art of Qurta, which is truly a ‘Lascaux along the Nile’, should therefore be preserved at any price.

Because of the amount of rock art present at Qurta and the extremely difficult recording conditions - scaffolding had to be constructed at several locations - the recording work has not yet been completed and will be the subject of a next campaign by the Belgian mission in early 2008.Address of the mission:

Dr. Dirk Huyge

Royal Museums of Art and History

Jubelpark 10 Parc du Cinquantenaire

B-1000 Brussels

Phone: +32 2 741.73.51Fax: +32 2 733.77.35

E-mail: d.huyge@kmkg.be

Royal Museums of Art and History
Musees Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire
Koninklijke Musea voor Kunst en Geschiedenis

African rock art "under severe threat"

http://www.afrol.com/articles/15579
"African rock art, principally found in the Sahara and in Southern Africa, is generally 'under severe threat, above all from neglect and thieves.' The UN has now taken an initiative to make the continent's leaders 'to play a more active role' in saving this 'priceless cultural heritage of all humankind.'
In Algeria's remote Tassili Mountains, in the middle of the Sahara desert, 7000 years old images testify of prehistoric man's hunting of buffalos, elephants and hippos. They are proof of human settlements in what was once a moist Sahara and they are proof of mankind's artistic instincts, which already were well developed in prehistoric times. In what is now the Sahara desert - in particular in Algeria, Niger and Libya - different generations of rock painters let us study 5000 years of human and natural history, up to the last centuries BC. The slow drying of the Sahara is documented. We see how cattle were domesticated about 5500 years ago, with populations moving down from the mountains to the plains. We see how the horse was introduced some 3200 years ago, and finally, the camel, some 2700 years ago.This illustrated history book has been preserved by nature for several millenniums, but it is increasingly threatened. Although on UNESCO's World Heritage List since 1982, the rediscovered rock paintings of Tassili are deteriorating at an increasing rate. Art collectors, thieves and vandals are adding to the damages from the sun and the wind. "
See the above page for the full story

Rock Art Research journal - November 2006

http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/rar1/web/index.html

The latest volume of Rock Art Research is now available (Volume 23, Number 2, November 2006). The above site is the RAR home page. Contents of the latest issue are listed in th eposting below, and for a full contents listing of all RAR editions dating back to May 1984, see the following Word document:
http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/rar1/shared_files/RAR_Cont.doc

CONTENTS - November 2006

148 Editorial

153 The story of the Arabian rock art: a Thamudic ‘informant’
Ahmed Achrati (U.S.A.)

165 The sense in question: some Saharan examples
Jean-Loïc Le Quellec (France)

171 Classifying a set of rock art: how to choose the criteria
Alfred Muzzolini (France)

179 Finger flutings in Chamber A1 of Rouffignac Cave, France
Kevin Sharpe and Leslie Van Gelder (United Kingdom)
With RAR Comment by Robert G. Bednarik.

199 Cup-and-ring petroglyph on the Neolithic chambered burial monument
of Garn Turne, Pembrokeshire, SW Wales
George Nash (United Kingdom)

207 The cave art of Mladeč Cave, Czech Republic
Robert G. Bednarik (Australia)

217 Opposition and unity: shamanistic dualism in Tibetan and Chinese pre-Historic art
Tang Huisheng (China)

227 Wollemi petroglyphs, N.S.W., Australia: an unusual assemblage with rare motifs
Paul S. C. Taçon, Matthew Kelleher, Wayne Brennan, Shaun Hooper and Dave Pross (Australia)

239 Copying the Dreamtime: anthropic marks in early Aboriginal Australia
Josephine Flood (United Kingdom)

247 RAR Debate
247 Comment on Derek Hodgson and Patricia A. Helvenston’s ‘The emergence of the representation of animals in palaeoart’, by Paul S. C. Taçon
249 Further thoughts on comments by Chippindale and a reply to Taçon, by Patricia A. Helvenston and Derek Hodgson
253 Do giraffes sit everywhere?, by Jan B. Deregowski
254 Giraffes never, or rarely, sit in the Eastern Desert, by Tony Judd
254 What’s in a word, what’s in a hyphen? A modest proposal that we abandon the words ‘petroglyph’ and ‘pictograph’, and hyphenate ‘rock-painting’, ‘rock-engraving’, ‘rock-art’ among the words we use, by Christopher Chippindale and Paul S. C. Taçon, with RAR Comments by Yann-Pierre Montelle and Robert G. Bednarik, and authors’ Reply

261 Brief Reports
261 Rock art destruction at El Mauro, Chile: one of the world’s largest mining waste dams, by Patricio Bustamente Díaz
264 Minimum standards for recording rock art, revised, by B. K. Swartz, Jr.
265 Micoquian engravings from Oldisleben, Germany, by Robert G. Bednarik
268 Update on the crisis in Lascaux, by Melody Di Piazza

270 RAR Review
270 Book review by Derek Hodgson, of Patricia A. Helvenston and Paul G. Bahn, Waking the trancefixed
271 Book review by Yann-Pierre Montelle, of Thomas Heyd and John Clegg, Aesthetics and rock art
273 Book review by John Clegg, of John Coles, Shadows of a northern past: rock carvings of Bohuslän and Østfold
274 Book review by Ahmed Achrati, of Robert G. Bednarik, Australian Apocalypse. The story of Australia’s greatest cultural monument
275 Book review by Claire Smith, of Ian Wilson, Lost world of the Kimberley: extraordinary glimpses of Australia’s Ice Age ancestors
277 Recent rock art journals
278 Recent books of interest
278 Recent papers of interest

280 Orientation
280 Some thoughts on the 15th Congress of the UISPP, by Robert G. Bednarik
282 Rock art protection in Tasmania, by Robert G. Bednarik
282 AURA Honour List
282 New Editorial Board member
283 Back issues
283 Forthcoming events
283 New members
283 Erratum

284 IFRAO Report No. 37
284 New member of IFRAO
284 IFRAO affiliated with UISPP
284 International Cupule Conference 2007, by Roy Querejazu Lewis
285 New activities by SIARB (Bolivia), by Matthias Strecker
285 CeSMAP report for 2004 – 2006, by Dario Seglie
286 Minutes of the 2006 IFRAO Business Meeting, Lisbon, Portugal

A multivariate approach to rock art characterization

http://rupestreweb.tripod.com/urbani.html

Originally published in Rock Art Research 1998, Volume 15 . Number 1., this article now appears on the Rupestreweb website at the above address: "Abstract - A method based in the measurement of five variables of the grooves from Linear parts of petroglyph images allows the quantitative characterization of cross-sectional shape. With the data matrix several univariate and multivariate statistical techniques can be used to evaluate and classify such shapes and depending on the results, the rock art specialist will be to derive interpretations."

Award-winning rock art archive

http://www.ncl.ac.uk/press.office/newslink/?ref=1163496578

This has been included in spite of being ridiculously far away from Egypt because it is a useful example of how rock art can be showcased and "virtually" preserved using computer technologies. As rock art is continually under threat from building projects (e.g. dam-building and quarrying), vandalism, pollution, art theft and other risks, creating archives of this unique data is an important activity:

"A major Internet archive showcasing England’s finest collection of prehistoric rock art has won a prestigious national award. The archive, believed to be the most comprehensive of its kind in the world, features more than 6,000 images of rock art panels in Northumberland and has been developed by Newcastle University with rock art specialist Dr Stan Beckensall. Already widely acclaimed among experts and public alike, the website has now snapped up a Channel Four Television Award (ICT Category) at the 2006 British Archaeological Awards."

Rock Art of the Sahara

http://historyhuntersinternational.org/index.php?topic=432.msg3805
Photos and comments about Saharan rock art.

Theories of rock art in Egypt's Eastern Desert

http://www.las.uiuc.edu/news/2006fall/06oct_rockart.html

"When Douglas Brewer ventured deep into the Egyptian desert this year, he expected to find possibly 100 examples of 'rock art'—evidence of ancient civilization. What he actually found were well over 1,000 examples—a treasure trove of rock art.
The desert art, which was pecked or sometimes incised into large rock faces, depicted elephants, ostriches, giraffes, and many hunting scenes. But perhaps strangest of all was the abundance of boats depicted in the art. After all, this area was far from any body of water, says Brewer, a professor of archaeology in LAS and director of the Spurlock Museum in Urbana.
According to Brewer, this find may have raised more questions than it answered. 'I went out to demonstrate the existence of the desert culture in ancient Egypt,' he says. But after preliminary evaluation of the rock art, it is hard to tell whether it is the work of an independent desert culture."

See the above page for the full story.

Review: The Archaeology of Mobility

http://www.archbase.org/nomads/Review+.pdf

Computer hunt for rock carvings

http://www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/informationstechnologie/bericht-70509.html

"The technology that archaeologists and ICT researchers have recently adopted is called “structured light”. It is a method that quickly and easily reads off the three-dimensional shape of an object with the aid of a camera and a video projector. The images are transferred to a computer, which constructs a detailed three-dimensional model of the object. The method is normally used in reverse engineering, the process of making a 3D computer model of an existing physical object. It has also been used for product quality control, for example in the engineering industry.
Kalle Sognnes, a professor of archaeology at NTNU, is extremely pleased with the help he has received from SINTEF research scientist Øystein Skotheim, and he believes that the new method will arouse the interest of archaeologists elsewhere, not least because the imaging technique helps researchers to see more than the human eye can manage alone. This will make it easier to reveal scratches that otherwise would have been difficult to see . The method also allows more details of such scratchings."

See the above page for the full story.

Conference of Nubian Studies 2006

http://www.nubia2006.uw.edu.pl/nubia/index.php?p=5&

Programme for the 11th International Conference of Nubian Studies (Warsaw University, 27th August - 2nd September 2006), with many of the titles linked to useful abstracts.

Sahara Journal - June 2006, vol.17

http://www.saharajournal.com/current/issue.html#Top_of_Page
The Contents of volume 17 (published June 2006) include a number of articles relevant to Northeast African rock art studies. The abstracts are available on the site, but the full articles are available only in print.

Malika Hachid

Du nouveau sur le monument d’Abalessa (Ahaggar, Algérie). De la date de l’introduction du dromadaire au Sahara central, du personnage d’Abalessa et des inscriptions rupestres dites «libyco-berbères»(abstract)

Michel Raimbault , Hélène Jousse, Alain Person et Kléna Sanogo
Deux nouvelles stations rupestres du «Camélin récent» dans le Faguibine et les Daounas (Sahel malien)(abstract)

Joaquim Soler Subils, Narcís Soler Masferrer and Carles Serra Salamé

The painted rock shelters of the Zemmur (Western Sahara)(abstract)


Documents of rock art:

Alec Campbell, David Coulson, Sam Challis and Jeremy Keenan

Some Mauritanian rock art sites

Bernard Fouilleux et Annie Mouchet

Deux abris inédits du Tassili de Tamrit (Algérie)
Suzanne et Gérard LachaudQuelques remarques sur les femmes parées du Messak (Libye)

Tony Judd
Problem petroglyphs of the Eastern Desert of Egypt: Are they wild asses?

Mustapha Nami
Découverte d’une station rupestre d’un style particulier au Sud marocain

András Zboray
A shelter with paintings of the «Uweinat roundhead» style in upper Karkur Talh (Jebel Uweinat)

Yves et Christine Gauthier
Nouveaux abris peints de l’Ennedi (Tchad)

Bernard Fouilleux
Suite aux «Faux du Tassili» et intérêt des relevés des missions Lhote

Marco Morelli, Alessandra Buzzigoli e Giancarlo NegroSegnalazione di nuovi siti d’arte rupestre nel Great Sand Sea egiziano

Snap Shots - Gilf Kebir

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/784/tr41.htm

"Al-Gilf Al-Kebir (The Black Escarpment) is a gigantic plateau the size of Switzerland. It is located in the south west of Egypt's Western Desert, with Dakhla Oasis being the closest urban centre. Though this part of our planet is characterised today as hyper arid, thousands of years ago it flourished with water.
Humans as a race have a tendency to record; be it events, occasions or perhaps keeping a diary. Our early ancestors were no different and they too recorded their life, habits and surroundings in general, all in the form of rock art. Al-Gilf Al-Kebir might be all barren and deserted but it is rich with rock art.
The history of discovering such a priceless art started with Count Almàsy, the Hungarian aristocrat renowned as one of the early explorers of Al-Gilf Al-Kebir. In 1933, Almàsy was the first modern-day man to set eyes on drawings of cattle, human figures and that of swimmers in Al-Gilf Al-Kebir. No wonder the cave was named The Swimmers Cave.
The latest discovery came in May 2002 when ex-military colonel Ahmed El-Mestekawi discovered the largest rock art site in the area, later known as El-Mestekawi Cave. It is not only the most important for the number of depictions it contains, but also for the assortment of paintings and engravings. They come in a wide array of forms and shapes that range from handprints, hunting scenes and different human figures, to wild game like giraffe, Barbary sheep, Scimitar oryx and gazelle.
Unfortunately, the rock art of The Swimmers Cave has fallen prey to unintentional vandalism as irresponsible tourists flash their cameras, or more destructively spray water on the paintings to get a more vibrant photograph. Taking into consideration the nature of both the paint that had been used as well as the sandstone on which the rock art is painted, spraying water leads to accelerated fading and possible peeling off. Restoration efforts are deemed crucial to save a heritage only a few nations enjoy.
Zarzora Expedition runs trips to Al-Gilf Al-Kebir and the Western Desert. For prices and reservations, please visit www.zarzora.com."