 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 rock shelter 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 rock shelter and rock art were 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 rock shelter 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. [3] 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. [4]
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 rock shelter. 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". [5]
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. [6] 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 rock shelters, such as the Cave of Beasts, and the continuous line that the figures create extending across a majority of the rock shelter's interior has led researchers to believe that the art may display developing concepts that were later adapted to the configuration of the Nile valley. [6]
The rock shelter 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. [7] The rock shelter shown in the film is not the original but a film set created by a contemporary artist.[ citation needed ]
Substantial portions of the rock shelter 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.
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).
The Bhimbetka rock shelters are an archaeological site in central India that spans the Paleolithic and Mesolithic periods, as well as the historic period. It exhibits the earliest traces of human life in India and evidence of the Stone Age starting at the site in Acheulian times. It is located in the Raisen District in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, about 45 kilometres (28 mi) south-east of Bhopal. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that consists of seven hills and over 750 rock shelters distributed over 10 km (6.2 mi). At least some of the shelters were inhabited more than 100,000 years ago.
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 south-eastern Algeria. It holds one of the most important groupings of prehistoric cave art in the world, and covers an area of more than 72,000 km2 (28,000 sq mi),
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 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.
The Ambadevi rock shelters are part of an extensive cave site, where the oldest yet known traces of human life in the central province of the Indian subcontinent were discovered. The site is located in the Satpura Range of the Gawilgarh Hills in Betul District of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, north of Dharul village in Amravati district of Maharashtra. Studies of various rock paintings and petroglyphs present in the caves suggest, that the Ambadevi rock shelters were inhabited by prehistoric human settlers since around 25,000 years ago. First discoveries of clusters of numerous rock shelters and caves were made by Vijay Ingole and his team beginning on 27 January 2007. Named after the nearby ancient Ambadevi Cave Temple, the site has also been referred to as the Satpura-Tapti valley caves and the Gavilgarh-Betul rock shelters. The Ambadevi rock shelters rank among the most important archaeological discoveries of the early 21st Century in India, on par with the 20th Century discovery of the Bhimbetka rock shelters.
Mangar Bani, a paleolithic archaeological site and sacred grove hill forest next to the Mangar village on Delhi-Haryana border; is in the South Delhi Ridge of Aravalli mountain range in Faridabad tehsil of Faridabad district in the Indian state of Haryana. It lies, immediate south of India's national capital Delhi, within NCR.
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.
