| Cave of Beasts | |
|---|---|
 Cave of Beasts – cut out | |
  Location in Egypt | |
| Location | Wadi Sura, Egypt |
The Cave of the Beasts (also named Foggini-Mestikawi Cave or Foggini Cave or Cave Wadi Sura II) is a huge natural rock shelter in the Western Desert of Egypt featuring Neolithic rock paintings, more than 7,000 years old, with about 5,000 figures.
The shelter is located in the Wadi Sura at the south-western foot of the Gilf Kebir Mountains in the remote south-western corner of Egypt’s New Valley Governorate near the border of Libya and Sudan. The area, abandoned in the present day, is one of the most arid locations of the Sahara.
The shelter was discovered in 2002 by archaeologists Massimo and Jacopo Foggini and Ahmed Mestikawi. In 2010, scientists of the University of Cologne carried out an in-depth study of the shelter, calling it Wadi Sura II to distinguish it from the Cave of Swimmers (Wadi Sura I) located some 10 km (6.2 mi) further east.
The rock paintings were created more than 7000 years ago [1] at the beginning of the Chalcolithic age. At that time the Sahara’s climate was humid. In the Holocene period there was a lake at the foot of the shelter. At the end of the Holocene climatic optimum 6000 years ago, the climate pattern changed to arid [2] and the area was depopulated.
The shelter is 17 m (56 ft) wide and almost 7 m (23 ft) high and contains over 5,000 well-preserved figures painted with red, yellow, white and black pigments. Hundreds of hand and foot stencil are over-painted with groups of human creatures and therianthropic and acephalic (headless) mythological creatures. Whereas the symbolism of the hand stencils can be found in many cave paintings all over the world, the beasts are unique. The shelter is upwardly topped off by rock engravings.
In February 2016 a report in the Journal of Archaeological Science concluded that the 13 small stencil hands (out of about 900 hand stencils) that had been considered to be human hand stencils "differ significantly in size, proportions and morphology from human hands" and were more likely made by humans using the hand of a monitor lizard as a stencil. [3]
Many of the beasts were intentionally disfigured in prehistoric times. Always surrounded by human creatures, the beasts catch the eye due to their body size and shape: Long tailed, bull-like body, frequently three footed with human-like legs. Even headless they appear either to spit or to swallow human creatures.
Some of the beasts seem to be wrapped in a kind of golden net. [4]
Furthermore, the shelter is covered with groups of dancing, floating or swimming human creatures. [5] On the lower left edge of the shelter appear two groups of human creatures separated from each other by a rock crack. The ones above the rock crack are holding a sling over his head, while the ones below the crack have a hand above their heads and are all looking all to the left.
Scattered throughout the shelter appear wild animals: an elephant, ostriches, gazelles, and giraffes. Along with the beasts the figures of the shelter represent a mythological world whose symbolism has not been deciphered yet.
In archaeology, cave paintings are a type of parietal art, found on the wall or ceilings of caves. The term usually implies prehistoric origin. These paintings were often created by Homo sapiens, but also Denisovans and Neanderthals; other species in the same Homo genus. Discussion around prehistoric art is important in understanding the history of the Homo sapiens species and how Homo sapiens have come to have unique abstract thoughts. Some point to these prehistoric paintings as possible examples of creativity, spirituality, and sentimental thinking in prehistoric humans.
The Sahara is a desert spanning across North Africa. With an area of 9,200,000 square kilometres (3,600,000 sq mi), it is the largest hot desert in the world and the third-largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Arctic.
László Adolf Ede György Mária Almásy de Zsadány et Törökszentmiklós was a Hungarian aristocrat, motorist, desert explorer, aviator, Scout-leader, and sportsman who served as the basis for the protagonist in both Michael Ondaatje's novel The English Patient (1992) and the movie adaptation of the same name (1996).
In archaeology, rock art is human-made markings placed on natural surfaces, typically vertical stone surfaces. A high proportion of surviving historic and prehistoric rock art is found in caves or partly enclosed rock shelters; this type also may be called cave art or parietal art. A global phenomenon, rock art is found in many culturally diverse regions of the world. It has been produced in many contexts throughout human history. In terms of technique, the four main groups are:
Tassili n'Ajjer is a national park in the Sahara desert, located on a vast plateau in southeastern Algeria. Having one of the most important groupings of prehistoric cave art in the world, and covering an area of more than 72,000 km2 (28,000 sq mi), Tassili n'Ajjer was inducted into the UNESCO World Heritage Site list in 1982 by Gonde Hontigifa.
Gilf Kebir is a plateau in the New Valley Governorate of the remote southwest corner of Egypt, and southeast Libya. Its name translates as "the Great Barrier". This 7,770 km2 (3,000 sq mi) sandstone plateau, roughly the size of Puerto Rico, rises 300 m (980 ft) from the Libyan Desert floor. It is the true heart of the Gilf Kebir National Park.
Saharan rock art is a significant area of archaeological study focusing on artwork carved or painted on the natural rocks of the central Sahara desert. The rock art dates from numerous periods starting c. 12,000 years ago, and is significant because it shows the culture of ancient African societies.
Uan Muhuggiag is an archaeological site in Libya that was occupied by pastoralists between the early Holocene and mid-Holocene; the Tashwinat mummy, which was found at Uan Muhuggiag, was dated to 5600 BP and presently resides in the Assaraya Alhamra Museum in Tripoli.
The Acacus Mountains or Tadrart Akakus form a mountain range in the desert of the Ghat District in western Libya, part of the Sahara. They are situated east of the city of Ghat, Libya, and stretch north from the border with Algeria, about 100 kilometres (62 mi). The area has a particularly rich array of prehistoric rock art.
Mount Uwaynat or Gabal El Uweinat is a mountain range in the area of the Egyptian-Libyan-Sudanese tripoint. Because of thousands of prehistoric rock art sites, it is considered an important witness to the development of early pastoralism in the Sahara.
The Sahara pump theory is a hypothesis that explains how flora and fauna migrated between Eurasia and Africa via a land bridge in the Levant region. It posits that extended periods of abundant rainfall lasting many thousands of years in Africa are associated with a "wet-green Sahara" phase, during which larger lakes and more rivers existed. This caused changes in the flora and fauna found in the area. Migration along the river corridor was halted when, during a desert phase 1.8–0.8 million years ago (mya), the Nile ceased to flow completely and possibly flowed only temporarily in other periods due to the geologic uplift of the Nile River region.
The Cave of Swimmers is a cave with ancient rock art in the mountainous Gilf Kebir plateau of the Libyan Desert section of the Sahara. It is located in the New Valley Governorate of southwest Egypt, near the border with Libya.
The Western Desert of Egypt is an area of the Sahara that lies west of the river Nile, up to the Libyan border, and south from the Mediterranean Sea to the border with Sudan. It is named in contrast to the Eastern Desert which extends east from the Nile to the Red Sea. The Western Desert is mostly rocky desert, though an area of sandy desert, known as the Great Sand Sea, lies to the west against the Libyan border. The desert covers an area of 680,650 km2 (262,800 sq mi) which is two-thirds of the land area of the country. Its highest elevation is 1,000 m (3,300 ft) in the Gilf Kebir plateau to the far south-west of the country, on the Egypt-Sudan-Libya border. The Western Desert is barren and uninhabited save for a chain of oases which extend in an arc from Siwa, in the north-west, to Kharga in the south. It has been the scene of conflict in modern times, particularly during the Second World War.
The African humid period is a climate period in Africa during the late Pleistocene and Holocene geologic epochs, when northern Africa was wetter than today. The covering of much of the Sahara desert by grasses, trees and lakes was caused by changes in the Earth's axial tilt; changes in vegetation and dust in the Sahara which strengthened the African monsoon; and increased greenhouse gases. During the preceding Last Glacial Maximum, the Sahara contained extensive dune fields and was mostly uninhabited. It was much larger than today, and its lakes and rivers such as Lake Victoria and the White Nile were either dry or at low levels. The humid period began about 14,600–14,500 years ago at the end of Heinrich event 1, simultaneously to the Bølling–Allerød warming. Rivers and lakes such as Lake Chad formed or expanded, glaciers grew on Mount Kilimanjaro and the Sahara retreated. Two major dry fluctuations occurred; during the Younger Dryas and the short 8.2 kiloyear event. The African humid period ended 6,000–5,000 years ago during the Piora Oscillation cold period. While some evidence points to an end 5,500 years ago, in the Sahel, Arabia and East Africa, the end of the period appears to have taken place in several steps, such as the 4.2-kiloyear event.
Gilf Kebir National Park (GKNP) is a national park located in the remote and hyper-arid New Valley Governorate, Egypt. Established in 2007, it has a surface area of 48533 km2, equal to about 5% of Egypt's territory. GKNP is delimited to the west by Libya and to the south by Sudan. At present there are no human settlements or facilities inside the GKNP.
Magharet el Kantara or Shaw's Cave is a rock art shelter of the Gilf Kebir National Park in the New Valley Governorate, Egypt. Located on the south-western slopes of Gilf Kebir, it was discovered in 1935 by the explorers Bill Kennedy Shaw and Rupert Harding Newman.
Cave of Archers is a rock art shelter of the Gilf Kebir National Park in the New Valley Governorate, Egypt. It is located on the south-eastern slopes of Gilf Kebir, 40 m to the south of the Cave of Swimmers.
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3D model https://skfb.ly/UwUp