 Rock art of swimmers | |
  Shown within Egypt | |
| Location | Gilf Kebir plateau |
|---|---|
| Region | New Valley Governorate, Egypt |
| Coordinates | 23°35′40.99″N25°14′0.60″E / 23.5947194°N 25.2335000°E |
| History | |
| Periods | Neolithic |
| Site notes | |
| Excavation dates | 1933 |
| Archaeologists | László Almásy |
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 cave and rock art was discovered in October 1933 by the Hungarian explorer László Almásy. It contains Neolithic pictographs (rock painting images) and is named due to the depictions of people with their limbs bent as if they were swimming. The drawings include those of giraffe and hippopotamus. [1] They are estimated to have been created as early as 10,000 years ago with the beginning of the African Humid Period, when the Sahara was significantly greener and wetter than it is today. The climate change 10,000 years ago was due to changes in summer solar insolation and vegetation and dust feedbacks. [2]
Almásy devoted a chapter to the cave in his 1934 book, The Unknown Sahara. In it he postulates that the swimming scenes are real depictions of life at the time of painting and that the artists had realistically drawn their surroundings and that there had been a climatic change from temperate to xeric desert since that time making it drier.[ citation needed ] This theory was so new at that time that his first editor added several footnotes, to make it clear that he did not share this opinion. In 2007, Eman Ghoneim discovered an ancient mega-lake (30,750 km²) buried beneath the sand of the Great Sahara in the Northern Darfur region, Sudan. [3]
Physical scientists who have been conducting research in the area drew a provisional link between the proposed swimming humans and two lakes that are 124 miles (or 200 km) south of the cave. However, modern researchers such as Andras Zboray question whether the figures are swimming or not. He believes that the drawings are "clearly symbolic...with an unknown meaning". [4]
Other researchers such as German ethnologist Hans Rhotert, who was involved in rock art research in North Africa and the Middle East, was the first to interpret these drawings as being that of deceased people. [5] Jean-Loïc Le Quellec, a doctor of anthropology, ethnology and prehistory, agrees with Rhotert. He has pointed out parallels to the Coffin Texts indicating that the figures are deceased souls floating in the waters of Nun.
Due to similar artwork being found in nearby caves, such as the Cave of Beasts, and the continuous line that the figures create extending across a majority of the cave's interior has led researchers to believe that the cave art may display developing concepts that were later adapted to the configuration of the Nile valley. [5]
The cave is mentioned in Michael Ondaatje's novel The English Patient . The film adaptation has a scene in it that has a guide describing in his native language to Almásy, who is portrayed as a character in both the novel and the film, the location that Almásy renders a drawing and includes some text that is then placed in the book that he keeps for himself. [6] The cave shown in the film is not the original but a film set created by a contemporary artist.[ citation needed ]
Substantial portions of the cave have been irreversibly damaged by visitors over the years, especially since the film was released in 1996. Fragments of the paintings have been removed as souvenirs and some surfaces have cracked after water was applied to "enhance" their contrast for photographs. Modern graffiti have been inscribed upon the wall and tourist littering is a problem.[ citation needed ]
Steps have been taken to reduce future damage by training guides and clearing litter from the vicinity, but this important rock art site remains fragile and risks future disturbances as tourist traffic to the region increases.
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 Libyan Desert is a geographical region filling the northeastern Sahara Desert, from eastern Libya to the Western Desert of Egypt and far northwestern Sudan. On medieval maps, its use predates today's Sahara, and parts of the Libyan Desert include the Sahara's most arid and least populated regions; this is chiefly what sets the Libyan Desert apart from the greater Sahara. The consequent absence of grazing, and near absence of waterholes or wells needed to sustain camel caravans, prevented Trans-Saharan trade between Kharga close to the Nile, and Murzuk in the Libyan Fezzan. This obscurity saw the region overlooked by early European explorers, and it was not until the early 20th century and the advent of the motor car before the Libyan Desert started to be fully explored.
In the history of art, prehistoric art is all art produced in preliterate, prehistorical cultures beginning somewhere in very late geological history, and generally continuing until that culture either develops writing or other methods of record-keeping, or makes significant contact with another culture that has, and that makes some record of major historical events. At this point ancient art begins, for the older literate cultures. The end-date for what is covered by the term thus varies greatly between different parts of the world.
The Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave in the Ardèche department of southeastern France is a cave that contains some of the best-preserved figurative cave paintings in the world, as well as other evidence of Upper Paleolithic life. It is located near the commune of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc on a limestone cliff above the former bed of the river Ardèche, in the Gorges de l'Ardèche.
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 arts are 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.
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.
Operation Salam was a 1942 World War II military operation organised by the Abwehr under the command of the Hungarian desert explorer László Almásy. The mission was conceived in order to assist Panzer Army Africa by delivering two German spies into British-held Egypt.
The art of the Upper Paleolithic represents the oldest form of prehistoric art. Figurative art is present in Europe and Southeast Asia, beginning around 50,000 years ago. Non-figurative cave paintings, consisting of hand stencils and simple geometric shapes, are somewhat older, at least 40,000 years old, and possibly as old as 64,000 years. This latter estimate is due to a controversial 2018 study based on uranium-thorium dating, which would imply Neanderthal authorship and qualify as art of the Middle Paleolithic.
Swimming has been recorded since prehistoric times; the earliest recording of swimming dates back to Stone Age paintings from around 7,000 years ago. In 1578, Nikolaus Wynmann, a German professor of languages, wrote the first swimming book.
The Cave of the Beasts 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.
Shulgan-Tash Cave, also known as Kapova Cave, is a limestone karst cave in the Burzyansky District of Bashkortostan, Russia. It is located in the southern Ural Mountains, approximately 200 km (120 mi) south-east of Ufa. Located on the Belaya River in the natural reserve Shulgan-Tash, the cave is best known for the 16,000 years old Upper Paleolithic rock paintings and drawings. It contains the northernmost known ancient paintings.
Lubang Jeriji Saleh is a limestone cave complex in Indonesia in the Sangkulirang-Mangkalihat Karst, located in the remote jungle of Bengalon district in East Kutai, East Kalimantan province on Borneo island. In a 2018 publication, a team of researchers announced to have found the then-oldest known work of figurative art in the world among the cave paintings, at 40,000 years old. However, the same team has since found and dated an elaborate therianthrope rock art panel in the Leang Bulu' Sipong 4 cave in Sulawesi's Maros-Pangkep karst to around 44,000 years ago.
Round Head rock art is the earliest painted, monumental form of Central Saharan rock art, which was largely created from 9500 BP to 7500 BP and ceased being created by 3000 BP. The Round Head Period is preceded by the Kel Essuf Period and followed by the Pastoral Period. Round Head rock art number up to several thousand depictions in the Central Sahara. Human and undomesticated animal artforms are usually portrayed, with a variety of details, in painted Round Head rock art. Painted Round Head rock art and engraved Kel Essuf rock art usually share the same region and occasionally the same rockshelters. The Round Head rock art of Tassili and the surrounding mountainous areas bear considerable similarity with traditional Sub-Saharan African cultures.
Elisabeth Charlotte Pauli was an artist and ethnographer working at the Frobenius Institute in Frankfurt am Main. She participated in several expeditions of the institute as participant and co-organiser, and produced a large number of copies of prehistoric rock art in Europe and Africa. During the Second World War she and three other women acted as the temporary management of the institute.
The popularly called Tassili mushroom figures are Neolithic petroglyphs and cave paintings discovered in Tassili n'Ajjer, Algeria, which contain features resembling mushrooms. Hypothesized to date back to 7000–5000 BC, they are considered by some researchers to be figures that have shamanic connotations and one of the strongest pieces of evidence for ethnomycological data. It is possibly the oldest example of rock art used to claim the ritual use of fungi in prehistory, with Tassili being the first site that likely may contain representations of the genus Psilocybe. However, interpretations of Tassili's drawings are disputed and it is unknown whether they actually represent mushrooms or specific natural or cultural elements.
