Oldest Pharaoh Rock Art Rediscovered in Egypt

This ancient rock picture near Egypt's Nile River was first spotted by an explorer more than a century ago—and then almost completely forgotten.

Photograph courtesy Hendrickx/Darnell/Gatto, Antiquity

Scientists who rediscovered it now think it's the earliest known depiction of a pharaoh.

The royal figure at the center of the panel wears the "White Crown," the bowling pin-shaped headpiece that symbolized kingship of southern Egypt, and carries a long scepter. Two attendants bearing standards march ahead of him; behind him, an attendant waves a large fan to cool the royal head. A hound-like dog with pointed ears walks at the ruler's feet. Surrounding the king are large ships, symbols of dominance, towed by bearded men pulling on ropes.

The picture, which was engraved on a sheer cliff face in the desert northwest of the city of Aswan, was probably created between roughly 3200 and 3100 B.C., according to researchers who published their discovery in December's issue of the journal Antiquity.

At around the same time that the picture was crafted, northern and southern Egypt were united under the reign of a supreme monarch, or pharaoh. The pharaoh in the picture may be Narmer, the king who overcame the last vestiges of northern resistance to southern rule and is considered by many to be Egypt's founding pharaoh.

This rock art picture, known as tableau 7a, is nearly ten feet (three meters) wide. That makes it the largest of the pictures at the site, called Nag el-Hamdulab after the neighboring village.

Earlier Egyptian art tends to show not kings themselves, but emblems of royal or divine power, said Yale University's John Darnell, one of the paper's authors. An image of a bull or falcon, for example, was often used as a stand-in for the king. When human rulers were shown, they were small and peripheral, as if they didn't count for much.

But here, for the first time, the king is dominant. "It's an amazing depiction, artistically and textually, of the birth of dynastic Egypt," Darnell said.

The change in the king's depiction reflects changes in the nature of kingship at the time, said Yale University archaeologist Maria Gatto, another author of the paper.

"He's not just a regular man like everyone else," she said. "He's a god, someone special who can help you be in contact with the supernatural."

—Traci Watson

Published November 29, 2012

Source: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/11/pictures/121129-oldest-pharaoh-rock-art-egypt-science/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+ng/News/News_Main+(National+Geographic+News+-+Main)

Wadi Abu Subeira, Egypt: Palaeolithic rock art on the verge of destruction

In 2007 one of the most important recent archaeological discoveries in Egypt were made in Wadi (Chor) Abu Subeira near Aswan: A team led by Adel Kelany of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) found a stunning assemblage of petroglyphs dating to the Late Palaeolithic era (c. 15-20.000 years ago). Ongoing surveys have shown that the initial find was the tip of the iceberg only, which makes Subeira perhaps the richest place of “Ice-Age” art in North Africa, comparable to the site of Qurta, 50 km to the north. Unfortunately, the Subeira rock art is extremely threatened by modern mining, which lately has proven to be even more widespread than previously thought: A truly unique testimony of mankind’s early art is now on the verge of destruction.

Photo: Per Storemyr

The rock art

15-20.000 years ago the waters of the Nile were much higher than today. The broad Wadi Abu Subeira may have been a small “fjord”, reaching several kilometres into the Eastern Desert: A great habitat for wildlife in the otherwise hyperarid environment and a great place for humans to stay – to fish and hunt – and to access the interior of the desert and perhaps the Red Sea.

The rock art is comparable to the better-known occurrences at Qurta by Kom Ombo, where Dirk Huyge and his Belgian team has recently confirmed the age of this type of rock art: It is definitely belonging to the Late Palaeolithic era, and thus comparable to the great “Ice-Age” art in Europe – especially in the Late Magdalenian period. It is yet entirely unclear whether there is a relationship in terms of long-distance influence and intercultural contact, but, according to Huyge, the Egyptian occurrences clearly “introduce a new set of challenges to archaeological thought”.It seems that it was along this “fjord” that the Late Palaeolithic humans made their art. They pecked many aurochs (wild ox), hartebeest, fish, hippopotami and even a very large, beautifully executed Nubian ibex, which publication is forthcoming. Over the millennia erosion along the slopes of the wadi has probably destroyed many pictures, and most are now found on boulders and slabs. However, some are still in-situ, implying that it is possible to reconstruct site distribution.

This is why it is so important to safeguard the Wadi Abu Subeira rock art and the associated archaeological sites for the future – otherwise we will lose an important place that may help us finding out whether there was in fact contact between North Africa and Europe in the Late Palaeolithic.

Oldest Rock Art in Egypt Discovered

Source: Yale

Using a new technology known as optically stimulated luminescence (OSL), a team of Belgian scientists and Yale Professor of Egyptology John Coleman Darnell have determined that Egyptian petroglyphs found at the east bank of the Nile are about 15,000 years old, making them the oldest rock art in Egypt and possibly the earliest known graphic record in North Africa.

The dating results will be published in the December issue of Antiquity (Vol 85 Issue 330, pp. 1184-1193).

The rock art sites are situated near the modern village of Qurta, on the east bank of the Nile, about 40km south of the Upper-Egyptian town of Edfu. First seen by Canadian archaeologists in the early 1960s, they were subsequently forgotten and relocated by the Belgian mission in 2005. The rediscovery was announced in the Project Gallery of Antiquity in 2007.

The rock art at Qurta is characterized by hammered and incised naturalistic-style images of aurochs and other wild animals. On the basis of their intrinsic characteristics (subject matter, technique, and style), their patina and degree of weathering, as well as the archaeological and geomorphological context, these petroglyphs have been attributed s the late Pleistocene era, specifically to the late Palaeolithic period (roughly 23 000 to 11 000 years ago), making them more or less contemporary with European art from the last Ice Age, such as, most notably, the wall-paintings of Lascaux and Altamira caves.