Egypt's Oldest Known Art Identified, Is 15,000 Years Old

National Geographic News ^ | July 11, 2007 | Dan Morrison in Cairo, Egypt

[SunkenCiv]

"The style is riveting," added Salima Ikram of the American University in Cairo, who was part of Huyge's team. The art is "unlike anything seen elsewhere in Egypt," he said. The engravings -- estimated to be about 15,000 years old -- were chiseled into several sandstone cliff faces at the village of Qurta, about 400 miles (640 kilometers) south of Cairo... Of the more than 160 figures found so far, most depict wild bulls. The biggest is nearly six feet (two meters) wide... The Qurta art has now twice been uncovered by modern researchers. Some of the engravings were first found in 1962 by a group from the University of Toronto, Canada. The leader of that expedition, Philip Smith, made the then novel suggestion that the figures were from the Paleolithic age -- the Stone Age period from about 2.5 million years ago to about 10,000 years ago -- in a 1964 article in Archaeology magazine... Discoveries of Paleolithic art in southern Africa and Australia since then have paved the way for the scientific community to accept what Smith first diffidently suggested, Huyge said... There is "little doubt" the engravings are 15,000-years-old, Huyge said. They depict a now extinct species of wild cow whose horns have been recovered from Paleolithic settlements nearby. The drawings would be examined for lichens and organic grime called "varnish rind" that could be carbon dated or subjected to another process known as uranium series dating, Huyge added. Because the rocks are inorganic, they cannot be dated directly using these methods.

[SunkenCiv]

[note: Salima Ikram is a woman, not a man as said in the article.]

Etchings at Qurta, located about 400 miles (640 kilometers) south of Cairo, Egypt, depict a now extinct species of wild cow. The rediscovered artwork -- similar in look and age to iconic paintings in Spain and France -- pushes "Egyptian art, religion, and culture back to a much earlier time," archaeologists say. [Photographs courtesy Dirk Huyge]

[SunkenCiv]

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