A group of Belgian archaeologists, together with colleagues from Yale University, discovered the oldest rock carvings in the region in Egypt. The age of the drawings found in the area of the eastern bank of the Nile was about 15 thousand years.
The objects were found near the village of Kurta, 40 km south of the city of Edfu. On the slabs, archaeologists discovered images of aurochs and other wild animals. According to scientists, the found rock paintings are the oldest not only in Egypt, but throughout North Africa.
Found in Egypt cave drawings 15 thousand years old, similar to ancient petroglyphs discovered in Europe. Coincidences confirm that cultural exchange existed between the continents at that time.
Rocks with petroglyphs painted on them are located in the area modern village Kurta - about 40 km south of the Upper Egyptian city of Edfu. In ancient times it was called Behdet and was the cult center of the sky god Horus (later identified with the Greek Apollo). Rock art– petroglyphs – were discovered there by Canadian archaeologists back in the early 60s of the 20th century, but then the place was forgotten. These petroglyphs were rediscovered by a Yale University expedition in 2005: a corresponding publication was made in 2007 in the Project Gallery of Antiquity.
The images were knocked out or carved into the rock; they are very naturalistic: you can see bison and other wild animals.
Based on the nature of the design (substrate, technique and style), the technique of blackening and the degree of weathering, as well as the archaeological and geomorphological context, the petroglyphs were dated to the late Pleistocene, and more precisely to the late Paleolithic (23,000–11,000 years ago). This dating has been criticized by the archaeological community.
In 2008, an expedition led by Dirk Huij, organized by the Royal Museum of Art and History of Brussels (Belgium), discovered new rock paintings near Kurta. The sediments covering the petroglyphs were partly wind-blown dust, which was analyzed by the Laboratory of Mineralogy and Petrology (Luminescence Research Group) at the University of Ghent (Belgium). The luminescent dating method can determine how much time has passed since the deposited dust particles were hidden from view. sunlight new layers. In other words, it shows how long the dust “did not see” light.
These petroglyphs turned out to be the oldest in at least all of North Africa: luminescent analysis showed that their age is at least 15,000 years.
Petroglyphs of Kurta are more or less modern European art last ice age, for example in the famous caves of Lascaux (France) and Altamira (Spain). European monuments, is believed to be several thousand years older.
Opening ancient art This level of skill is important, but not unexpected news, experts say. Much more ancient examples of art are known in the more southern parts of the continent. Thus, in 1969, images of animals 26,000 years old were found in Namibia. In 1999 and 2000, engraved geometric motifs dating back 75,000 to 100,000 years were discovered along the South African coast.
The images on the rocks in Kurta are stylistically very close to European Ice Age petroglyphs, although they are separated by significant distances.
However, there is a “bridge” between them: similar images from a slightly later period were found already in Northern Italy, Sicily, as well as in the north of Libya, off the coast. Considering that the level of the Mediterranean Sea was 100 m lower in Paleolithic times (and African illegal migrants successfully travel by boat to Sicily even in modern times) high level sea), it is very likely that in the Paleolithic era there was a cultural exchange between the continents, which determined the similarity of the images.
Petroglyphs are known on the territory of Russia (for example, the Onega demon in Karelia), whose age reaches 4,000 years.
There is something magically attractive and at the same time sad about petroglyphs. Names talented artists we will never know antiquity and their history. All that remains for us are rock paintings, from which we can try to imagine the life of our distant ancestors. Let's take a look at 9 famous caves with rock paintings.
Altamira Cave
Discovered in 1879 by Marcelino de Sautola in Spain, it is not without reason called Sistine Chapel primitive art. The impressionists began to use techniques that were in service with ancient artists in their work only in the 19th century.
The painting, discovered by the daughter of an amateur archaeologist, caused a lot of noise in the scientific community. The researcher was even accused of falsification - no one could believe that such talented drawings were created thousands of years ago.
The paintings are made realistically, some of them are three-dimensional - a special effect was achieved using the natural relief of the walls.
After the opening, everyone could visit the cave. Due to the constant visits of tourists, the temperature inside has changed, and mold has appeared on the drawings. Today the cave is closed to visitors, but there is a Museum nearby ancient history and archaeology. Just 30 km from the Altamira cave you can see copies of rock paintings and interesting finds of archaeologists.
Lascaux Cave
In 1940, a group of teenagers accidentally discovered a cave near Montillac in France, the entrance to which was opened by a tree that fell during a thunderstorm. It is small, but under the arches there are thousands of drawings. Ancient artists began painting some of them on walls back in the 18th century BC.
It depicts people, symbols and in motion. The researchers divided the cave into thematic zones for convenience. Far beyond the borders of France, drawings of the Hall of the Bulls are known; its other name is the Rotunda. Here is the largest rock painting ever discovered - a 5-meter bull.
Under the vaults there are more than 300 drawings, including animals from the Ice Age. It is believed that the age of some paintings is about 30 thousand years.
Nio Cave
In the southeast of France is located, about the painting inside of which local residents knew back in the 17th century. However, they did not attach due importance to the drawings, leaving numerous inscriptions nearby.
In 1906, Captain Molyar discovered a hall with images of animals inside, which later became known as the Black Salon.
Inside you can see bison, deer and goats. Scientists believe that in ancient times rituals were performed here to attract good luck in hunting. The Pyrenees Park of Prehistoric Art is open to tourists near Nio, where you can learn more about archaeology.
Koske Cave
It is located not far from Marseille, and can only be accessed by those who can swim well. To see the ancient images, you need to swim through a 137-meter tunnel located deep underwater. Opened unusual place in 1985 by diver Henri Cosquet. Scientists believe that some of the images of animals and birds found inside were made 29 thousand years ago.
Kapova Cave (Shulgan-Tash)
Cueva de las Manos cave
In the south of Argentina in 1941 they also discovered ancient painting. There is not just one cave, but a whole series, the total length of which is 160 km. The most famous of them is Cueva de las Manos. Its name is translated into Russian as "".
Inside there are many images of human palms - our ancestors made prints on the walls with their left hands. In addition, here you can see hunting scenes and ancient inscriptions. The images were taken between 9 and 13 thousand years ago.
Caves of Nerja
The Nerja Caves are located 5 km from the city of the same name in Spain. The cave paintings were discovered by accident by teenagers, as happened earlier in the Lascaux cave. Five guys went to catch bats, but accidentally saw a hole in the rock, looked inside and discovered a corridor with stalagmites and stalactites. The find interested scientists.
The cave turned out to be of impressive size - 35,484 square meters, which is equivalent to five football fields. The fact that people lived in it is evidenced by many finds: tools, traces of a hearth, ceramics. There are three halls downstairs. The hall of ghosts scares guests with unusual sounds and strange shapes. The waterfall hall was equipped for concert hall, it can accommodate 100 spectators at the same time.
Montserrat Caballe, Maya Plisetskaya and others performed here famous artists. The Bethlehem Hall amazes with its bizarre columns with stalactites and stalagmites. Rock paintings can be seen in the Hall of Spears and the Hall of Mountains.
Before the discovery of this cave, scientists assumed that the most ancient drawings were in the Chauvet Cave. According to recent research, our distant ancestors began to engage in creativity even earlier than we thought modern science. The results of radiocarbon dating showed that six images of seals and fur seals were made presumably 43 thousand years ago - accordingly, they are even older than the cave paintings discovered at Chauvet. However, it is too early to draw conclusions.
Magura Cave
The images in all these caves and the methods of drawing are completely different. However, there is also common features. Artists of ancient times conveyed their perception of the world through creativity and shared their outlook on life, but they did it not with words, but with drawings.
Today, examples of rock art can be seen in various parts of our planet. And they always - whether they are illustrations of the ancients about their life or ritual drawings - arouse special interest among scientists. After all, in each such drawing the secrets of the history of our civilization are hidden.
1. Neolithic birth picture
In 2005, geologists made a discovery that dates back to the Neolithic or Paleolithic era, but it is still very relevant today. Once upon a time, a child was born in a small cave in the Sahara Desert in Egypt and someone painted this scene on the ceiling of the cave.
Often this image is compared to much more famous painting"nativity scene", then it is 3000 years older than the famous birth of Jesus. A newborn baby is raised between parents as the greatest value. Also, a star in the east is visible. But such a picture was painted long before the emergence of Christianity.
2. Sudanese excavations
There are 15 places in Sudan where ancient rock painting. In 2011, similar images were also found in about 30 different places in the desert valley of Wadi Abu Dom. The collection of these images has been expanded over time. by different artists. Drawings made 1,500 years ago perfectly depict the period when Christianity appeared in Sudan: crosses, churches and even St. George on his horse. Livestock can be seen in 3,000-year-old images. But 5,000-year-old cave paintings puzzle even experts.
This art is simply inexplicable. It looks like spirals, "wound" so precisely that some consider them to be the earliest mathematical representation. Another type of image is more geometric and looks similar to a fishing net. Archaeologists also found “stone gongs.” When you hit such a stone, it makes a clear ringing sound. Their age has not even been determined, but some believe that such stones could be signaling devices.
3. Tiny hands
In the Sahara, the “Cave of Beasts” got its name from the strange headless creatures depicted on its walls. In 2002, the cave also found 13 children's handprints on the walls, some of which were inside adult handprints. This scene was perceived as touching until one anthropologist noticed that the children's handprints were not proportional to the correct size. The 8,000-year-old prints were smaller than even those of premature newborns.
Also, the fingers were abnormally long and clearly did not belong to humans. Tests showed that they belonged to animals, probably desert monitor lizards. Since the monitor lizard prints were made at approximately the same time as human handprints, and they also used the same pigment, the reason for this phenomenon remains a mystery.
4. Venus of Hole Fels
Next example different from "regular" cave art - it is an ivory figurine. Venus Hohle Fels was found in the cave of the same name in Germany. She is a 40,000-year-old figurine of a naked female without arms or head. She is called the most ancient sculpture person. "Venus" may symbolize prehistoric beauty and health, but perhaps the carver simply wanted to depict a doll of a naked woman. Most scientists agree that today it is no longer possible to prove what the figurine was intended for.
5. Scottish curls
The mysterious Kochno stone was found in Scotland. Someone a long time ago tried to artistically decorate this stone with geometric swirls. Although such art is not unique, stone is one of the best examples similar spiral images in Europe. The Glasgow artifact was dug up in 1887, but by 1965 it had been badly damaged by vandals and weather. For further preservation, the stone was reburied. In 2016, a 5,000-year-old slab was excavated, scanned, photographed for... better study and reburied again.
6. Footprints
When it comes to limb prints, they are not always hand prints. A thousand years ago, the Pueblo culture of New Mexico's Chaco Canyon clearly revered feet. They left similar marks on everything. Interestingly, the Pueblos had a common physical trait: polydactyly, that is, an extra finger or toe. Naturally, not everyone had an extra toe, but among the Pueblos the percentage of such people was phenomenally high. Most traces of bare feet were left at the entrances to “important” rooms.
7. Acoustic art
One study has discovered a remarkable connection between prehistoric scribblings and sound. This kind of art is mainly found in places where there is a loud echo. In addition, many of the paintings in such places depict scenes associated with the sounds of thunderstorms. It's possible that prehistoric people did not fully understand the nature of echoes, but considered them a manifestation of something sacred.
8. "Higgs Bison"
The Higgs bison represents one of the few cases where science has been directly "connected" to ancient rock art. After testing the DNA of an ancient bison, the results were unexpected. Their DNA was found not to be closely similar to modern European aurochs. Rather, they were related to some mysterious bison ancestor, which researchers dubbed the “Higgs bison.” Here the name “Higgs boson” was played on - a mysterious particle whose existence could not be proven in any way.
9. Aliens from Charam
Indian archaeologists suddenly remembered words like "UFO" and "aliens" when they looked inside a cave in 2014. In the village of Charama in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh, this is not the first time that residents have encountered 10,000-year-old paintings. Their ancestors told them about legends when the so-called “Rohela” people came to the village. These little people allegedly landed in a circular object and interacted with several villagers before flying off.
In the past, the Charama tribe even worshiped paintings dedicated to this event. Prehistoric images show humanoids dressed as astronauts and weapons-like objects. The creatures depicted were flexible, orange in color and had no mouths or noses. Also found on the wall of the cave was an image of an object in the form of a disk with three legs and “antennas.”
10. The mystery of the Neanderthals
In Spain, an underground cave caused a lot of noise in the scientific community. Walls El Castillo caves were painted with red dots and handprints. These creations are over 40,800 years old, making them the most famous examples cave art. What's most interesting is that people couldn't make them. At that time, this area was inhabited by Neanderthals, so most likely it was they who left behind these signs. Neanderthals have always been viewed as a separate type hominids, but such art can “reclassify” them as a race of people.
Rock paintings are not the only ancient secret, which worries scientists. There is also, at a minimum, .
It was in constant dependence on religious demands, which was reflected in its special development, which had a cultic character. Traditionally, it is characterized by strict formalization, adherence to certain canonical schemes or artistic norms that developed back in the era Ancient kingdom, during the first and second dynasties. Thus, the human figure was depicted in profile (or rather, the head and lower part of the body - in profile, and the eyes and shoulders - in front). On the other hand, it should be said about high degree realism, which prevails in pictorial descriptions of natural objects, agricultural and other practical activities person. which were used by ancient Egyptian artists - white, red, blue, black, yellow, silver and green.
At first glance, it may seem that the painting of Ancient Egypt remained unchanged for thousands of years, but this is not so. It developed and changed depending on how society itself developed and changed. And even within the strict framework of canonical art, some art schools and individual masters showed their creative ideas.
In general, the depiction of a person from a point of view is one of the main features Egyptian art. The painting of Ancient Egypt is characterized by complex depictions of most of the identifying marks and parts of a person, which were more detailed than the depiction of any realistic pose, since they helped the Ka (or ku), the second shell of a person, representing his energetic double or soul-double and residing in the tomb, unmistakably recognize the deceased and move into him. Therefore, the portrait resemblance of a painting or sculpture was very important. In theory, the mummy was supposed to become a refuge for Ka, but if it was damaged, it would move into the image. When depicting people, their social status. It was described by such elements as costume, headdresses, and ceremonial accessories, which were in the hands of the person depicted. In other words, the painting of Ancient Egypt, which is an extremely interesting and striking example of art, focused exclusively on the representation of images.
Majority paintings(using tempera technique) were painted on stone or plaster consisting of layers of gypsum, straw and clay. As a rule, artists worked in groups under the guidance of masters. The craftsmen drew the contours and details of future images, and the artists painted them. They painted with pigments that were obtained as a result of various chemical processes, all of which were very symbolic. As in medieval Europe, Egyptian painting did not belong to a specific type human activity- craft or art. In other words, if we perceive the Egyptian artist in modern concept, he did not imagine Therefore it is impossible to name the names of any specific artists who became famous for their outstanding achievements.
Given the extreme religiosity of the Egyptian civilization, most of the themes in painting are associated with images of gods and goddesses, the pharaohs were one of them. Such artistic rule, as did not exist in the imagination of Egyptian artists. The main emphasis was on the size of the figure; the larger it is, the taller the person depicted.
A kind of cultural revolution took place in the country during the reign of Pharaoh Amenhotep IV (Akhenaton). The incredible religious reform, which consisted of adherence to monotheism (monotheism), carried out by Akhenaten, made radical changes in art. It became naturalistic and dynamic. Portraits of Egyptian nobility were no longer idealized, and some were even caricatured. But after the death of Akhenaten, everything returned to the old traditions that characterized Ancient Egypt as a whole. Art continued to be defined by conservative values and strict order until the Hellenistic era.
Rocks with petroglyphs inscribed on them are located in the area of the modern village of Kurta - about 40 km south of the Upper Egyptian city of Edfu. In ancient times it was called Behdet and was the cult center of the sky god Horus (later identified with the Greek Apollo). Rock art - petroglyphs - were discovered there by Canadian archaeologists back in the early 60s of the 20th century, but then the place was forgotten. These petroglyphs were rediscovered by a Yale University expedition in 2005: the corresponding publication was made in 2007 in Project Gallery of Antiquity.
The images were knocked out or carved into the rock; they are very naturalistic: you can see bison and other wild animals.
Based on the nature of the design (substrate, technique and style), the technique of blackening and the degree of weathering, as well as the archaeological and geomorphological context, the petroglyphs were dated to the late Pleistocene, and more precisely to the late Paleolithic (23,000-11,000 years ago). This dating has been criticized by the archaeological community.
In 2008, an expedition led by Dirk Huij, organized by the Royal Museum of Art and History of Brussels (Belgium), discovered new rock paintings near Kurta. The sediments covering the petroglyphs were partly wind-blown dust, which was analyzed by the Laboratory of Mineralogy and Petrology (Luminescence Research Group) at the University of Ghent (Belgium). The luminescence dating method can determine how much time has passed since the deposited dust particles were hidden from sunlight by new layers. In other words, it shows how long the dust “did not see” light.
These petroglyphs turned out to be the oldest in at least all of North Africa: luminescent analysis showed that their age is at least 15,000 years.
Curta's petroglyphs are more or less contemporary with European art of the last Ice Age, for example in the famous caves of Lascaux (France) and Altamira (Spain). European sites are believed to be several thousand years older.
The discovery of ancient art of this level of skill is important, but not unexpected news, experts say. Much more ancient examples of art are known in the more southern parts of the continent. Thus, in 1969, images of animals 26,000 years old were found in Namibia. In 1999 and 2000, engraved geometric motifs were discovered on the coast of South Africa, which are 75-100 thousand years old.
The images on the rocks in Kurta are stylistically very close to European Ice Age petroglyphs, although they are separated by significant distances.
However, there is a “bridge” between them: similar images from a slightly later period were found already in Northern Italy, Sicily, as well as in the north of Libya, off the coast. Considering that the level of the Mediterranean Sea was 100 m lower in Paleolithic times (and African illegal migrants successfully travel by boat to Sicily even at today's high sea levels), it is very likely that there was cultural exchange between continents during the Paleolithic era, which determined the similarity of the images.
Petroglyphs are known on the territory of Russia (for example, the Onega demon in Karelia), whose age reaches 4,000 years.
