Archaeologists Find Ancient Rock Art In Egypt's Edfu

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Archaeologists Find Ancient Rock Art In Egypt's Edfu

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Archaeologists Find Ancient Rock Art In Egypt's Edfu

7/25/2018 09:00:00 PM

A team of archaeologists — led by Yale Egyptologist John Darnell — has uncovered a “lost oasis” of archaeological activity in the eastern Egyptian desert of Elkab.

John Darnell, professor of Egyptology at Yale, along with a team of researchers, uncovered a “lost oasis”
in the eastern Egyptian desert. One image dates back to about 3,300 B.C.E. and includes large depictions
of animals, including an addax, or antelope. “The large addax in particular deserves to be added
to the artistic achievements of early Egypt,” says Darnell [Credit: Yale University]
The researchers from the Elkab Desert Survey Project — a joint mission of Yale and the Royal Museums of Art and History Brussels working in collaboration with the Ministry of Antiquities and the Inspectorate of Edfu — surveyed the area of Bir Umm Tineidba, once thought to be devoid of any major archaeological remains. Instead, the team unearthed “a wealth of archaeological and epigraphic material,” says Darnell, including a number of examples of ancient rock art or “graffiti,” the burial site of an Egyptian woman, and a previously unrecorded, enigmatic Late Roman settlement.

One particularly impressive image identified during the field season, says Darnell, dates back to about 3,300 B.C.E. and includes large depictions of animals, including a bull, a giraffe, an addax (antelope), a barbary sheep, and donkeys. Other tableaux depict long lines of boats, revealing an “interesting mixture of Eastern Desert and closer, Nile Valley-oriented styles,” notes Darnell.

“At a time immediately before the invention of the hieroglyphic script, rock art such as this provides important clues to the religion and symbolic communication of Predynastic Egyptians,” says Darnell. “The large addax in particular deserves to be added to the artistic achievements of early Egypt.

Darnell says that this ancient graffiti was created for other people who would visit the site or who might pass along the road. “The ancient Egyptians just loved to write and draw,” he says. “And this general desire to express and memorialize yourself graphically seems to be one of the real hallmarks of Egyptian culture; it seems to be one of the things that you pick up when you are Egyptianized: that you just can't pass one of these surfaces without memorializing yourself.”

Egyptians chose a meaningful spot to carve these images, explains Darnell, usually at a habitation site or, as in this case, a crossroad of tracks going east to west.

“This is imagery and style that you would expect in the Nile Valley, but it's out here in the Eastern Desert at this site,” says Darnell, explaining that the drawings suggest a cultural mix and demonstrate that desert people were almost certainly interacting with Nile Valley people. “It shows a greater complexity and a little bit more of a mosaic, or hybrid of groups,” says Darnell. “I think this discovery will influence how we see the development of the early state in Egypt.”

“Our newly discovered material at Bir Umm Tineidba is important in revealing a desert population coming under increasing influence from the Nile Valley during the time of Dynasty 0 [the Protodynastic Period in ancient Egypt characterized by an ongoing process of political unification, culminating in the formation of a single state to begin the Early Dynastic Period],” he adds.

The archaeologists also uncovered several burial tumuli — or mounds of earth and stone raised over graves — that appear to belong to desert dwellers with physical ties to both the Nile Valley and the Red Sea. They investigated one of the tumuli, which they determined was the burial place of a woman between 25 to 35 years of age at the time of her death. “She was probably one of the local desert elite, and was buried with at least a strand of Red Sea shells and carnelian beads, alluding to her desert and Red Sea associations, as well as a Protodynastic vessel of Nile Valley manufacture, all indicative of the two worlds of Nile and desert with which she and her people appear to have interacted,” says Darnell.

To the south of the rock inscription and tumuli sites, the archaeologists located a Late Roman settlement with dozens of stone structures. The ceramic evidence and other materials indicate that the site dates to between 400 and 600 C.E., says Darnell. “This Late Roman site complements the evidence for similar archaeological sites in the Eastern Desert, and once again fills a gap in an area once blank on the archaeological map of the Eastern Desert.

“Probably associated with the ancient people whom Egyptian and later Roman documents call the Blemmyes, these sites reveal important information on the late administration of the Eastern Desert, and help us understand the transition between the Late Antique and the Early Islamic Periods,” says Darnell.

To document their findings in the field, the team used a digital technique developed at Yale in 2010, in collaboration with Yale digital archaeologist Alberto Urcia. The technology, employing the photogrammetirc Structure from Motion technology, generates detailed three-dimensional models of the rock surface that are used to produce high-resolution images of each panel. Unfortunately, says Darnell, considerable and active mining in the area is threatening the sites in and near Bir Umm Tineidba.

The new technology, says Darnell, cuts excavation and recording time down to about a quarter of what it used to be. “It means you get through more material in greater detail than you would otherwise. If you’re racing the clock to record these desert sites before mining and land reclamation and thieves get at them, you know you can do four structures in a month rather than one structure in a month, which is fabulous.”

Darnell adds, “If I could go back in time and do all the other sites I’ve done in the past using that technique I would. At least we have it now, and it will greatly increase the speed and accuracy with which we will hopefully record ever more sites.”

Author: Bess Connolly Martell | Source: Yale University [July 25, 2018]

One photo at https://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot ... u23dwhI.99


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Re: Archaeologists Find Ancient Rock Art In Egypt's Edfu

Post by Hafiz »

Thanks. The huge gap, one of many, in work on Egyptian history has been pre-history and going back much further than 3,000BC. There has been no interest by Egyptians and little by westerners. Have started to look at this and might post but the activity in Libya and Tunisia - particularly in Turkey where huge finds of world importance have been found at Çatalhöyük - in these early periods is much greater. The earliest breakthroughs in Egypt were by some Hungarian and Brits in the south-western corner of Egypt in the 30's that became part of the story for the film The English Patient.

There were some intrepid tours to this site and others related to it but I think the increasingly glib nature of tourists, 2/3 nights in tents, Slavic drunk tourism and the security situation dried up the business. Interestingly these tours were run by western specialist companies not by locals most of whom are interested in only the big easy three - whatever than means. Sometimes I think that Disneyland is less fatuous.

I guess the tourist appeal of some cave paintings and discarded tools is small and why in Egypt show an interest in something you can make no easy money from catering for a mass market?

The new, hideously designed a la Hitler bunker style, Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Fustat has nothing on the pre-dynastic period - I think.
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Re: Archaeologists Find Ancient Rock Art In Egypt's Edfu

Post by newcastle »

The " big easy three" ?

At a guess - the pyramids, Luxor (karnak/VoK)and Aswan (Abu Simbel) ?
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Re: Archaeologists Find Ancient Rock Art In Egypt's Edfu

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Maybe a better joke - never my skill - would be the film 'The BIg Easy' which had two benefits - a comedy and Ellen Barkin - Jewish. Maybe a welding into the Big Three Easy - 4 days $US5000 - airfare not included, single supplement extra, as are tips.

Hawass was never much interested in the pre-dynastic period, maybe it has low celebrity/touristic potential although the greatest museums in the world, none in Egypt, want to know the primitive origins of later Egyptian achievement. https://oi.uchicago.edu/museum-exhibits ... vilization and http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/featur ... -15-12.asp and http://www.britishmuseum.org/pdf/Egypt_ ... ts_new.pdf

László Ede Almásy de Zsadány et Törökszentmiklós backed by Prince Kamal el Dine Hussein did work in the Lybian desert in 1932 and later. In 1933 they discovered the cave paintings at Mount Uwaynat or Gabal El Uweinat/Ouenat on the Lybian/Sudanese/Egypt border. Paintings discovered but then ignored included. It represents a community existent from 12,000BP to the 7,000BP climate change that drove people into the Nile. This area is now rated the driest place on earth but I think that ignores hotel bars in Riyadh.

Laslzo’s story was used as the basis of Michael Ondaatje’s not very good novel (but Booker winner – a prize I can’t understand including the Australian 3rd raters who get it) and the film The English Patient, appealing to deep romantics, which led to an overnight inundation of idiots to a site not prepared for them, damage to the site and thefts that probably ended up in Slavic speaking countries. One good thing about the recent troubles is that it has deterred the glamour seeking novelistic fools but the site is still hopelessly studied, guarded and preserved – ever thus. It is probably but an Egyptian State Secret that there are likely Russian troops in this area at the moment so expect lots of discarded vodka bottles if you go there and raw graffiti on the 15.000 year old pictographs.

In WW2 there was an allied airfield and Long Range Desert Group troops in the area to stop the Nazi’s and Italian Fascists and its possible those troops did damage and certain they took arrow heads and axe heads.

Some of the cave paintings:

Image

Most state that the style is Bushman – connected to their remnants in the Kalahari today but dating from a time when the climate was different and the Bushman a wide ranging race prior to their decimation by the Negroid/west African races.

Prince Kamal Hussein a intelligent and brave mad also explored there at a time when the leaders of Egypt were thoughtful, resolute and not much interested in quick money. When UNESCO looked at it in 2004 to possibly place it on the World Heritage list the Supreme Antiques provided no assistance, the Italians, Germans and Libyans did and the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs provided some small change. Hawwass was not mentioned in the long list of thank you. http://whc.unesco.org/archive/2004-ouenat.pdf

Gilf Kebir a related site in the New Valley close by and just inside the Egypt side of the Lybian border.

It contains wall paintings of, amongst others, giraffes.
Image


A related mysterious ‘lost site’ photographed in 1962 and rarely if ever after:

Image

The two areas combined contain the greatest concentration of rock art in the Sahara/North Africa.

A few years ago the University College of Los Angeles tried to get the Egyptian government interested in very ancient structures and painting that had limited touristic appeal to coastal whales but importance to understanding Egypt’s ancient history. They failed probably because its not Hawass’s forte and nothing in which he cannot be king of will be done. It shows a remarkable lack of curiosity but then curiosity and its sister careful inquiry is an Egyptian trait but usually restricted to the riskier and concealed aspects of Egyptian private life.

The facts are scores of sites, known wall paintings, no preservation or documentation, no local skills in this area and no protection of them – so one assumes they are being pillaged. Areas inclide Wadi Hummamat in the Eastern Desert, Petrie noticed it a century ago and realized its visual connection to later Egyptian art, the so called Cobble Ridge Group (opposite Aswan City) and the Wadi el-Faras Group both in Upper Egypt and both finishing 3,000-5,000BC, areas on the west bank to the north of Aswan City etc. https://escholarship.org/content/qt4qx7 ... x7k7pz.pdf

Again it’s the case of westerners spending their time and money trying to help Egypt whilst Egypt does nothing or kicks them.

Resources.
https://perstoremyr.files.wordpress.com ... sahara.pdf
http://www.fjexpeditions.com/resources/ ... Zboray.pdf

The 1938 standard text book downloadable in full for free, and legal, from the Internet Archive which was/still is stored as a copy by the ever safe and free speech Alexandria Library (now under barely literate military lick spittle management). https://archive.org/details/ASE-EEF27

The University of Michigan is putting big resources into Paleontology in Egypt. https://lsa.umich.edu/paleontology/publ ... LEONTOLOGY

An early 20th century Egyptian explorer of the whole region from the Med to Khartoum was Ahmed Hassanein Pasha a meticulous person more interested in the water resources of the area than the evidence of early human habitation – which was then thought impossible
http://michaelhaag.blogspot.com/2011/08 ... esert.html

A paper on the pre-historic swimmer paintings an title that is now hotly contested and thought to be a vision/view of the afterlife. http://rupestre.on-rev.com/page76/assets/AC_GB.pdf

A highly technical paper, not conclusively argued, on the links between the rock art and the later Egyptian art. https://www.academia.edu/659687/_2009._ ... _published

The Egypt Exploration Society seems to be taking a small interest in pre-history in the Delta – go on them. https://www.ees.ac.uk/imbaba and unspecified work in the ancient natural and plant environment https://www.ees.ac.uk/scientific-programme

A short useful analysis based on academic studies of the various natural/climate phases that surrounded this area. http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/news/ ... chronology

The British Museum has a keen interest in this but the brand new Museum of Egyptian Civilization (paid for by the western taxpayer) couldn’t care less because it displays more cheap Disneyland than anything else. https://africanrockart.britishmuseum.or ... l-uweinat/

To be continued.
Last edited by Hafiz on Thu Aug 09, 2018 4:37 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Archaeologists Find Ancient Rock Art In Egypt's Edfu

Post by Hafiz »

Continued.

Some high risk desert tours go there/used to go there. As always if its not the Pyramids or a felucca Egyptian businessmen can’t be interested – in this case it’s a Hungarian (?) -Indian company that is serious about what it does and provides a pre-reading program for clients. http://www.fjexpeditions.com/frameset/mar07.htm They continue to operate, along with other specialist tours in Africa to ancient art sites. In March next year they are going there in a small group 4 wheel drive long distance leap from Khartoum. Its probably not cheap but is likely rough/tents. Good luck to their enterprise, curiosity and adventure – a stark contrast to modern tourism. http://www.fjexpeditions.com/frameset/Wuwe.htm

Over more than a century there have been many western scientists looking for fossils in Egypt but not a single Egyptian. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossils_of_Egypt. In the last few years Mansoura University seems to be doing something in the field and apparently with female paleontologists – surely a reason for the state to give them no money or jail them. Professor Hesham Sallam seems to be leading it with his Phd from Oxford which makes others who can’t read or write feel inadequate – which they probably are. He has established the first Paleontology School in Egypt something Hawass would have opposed. There are few possible heroes in Egypt but he appears one. https://dailynewsegypt.com/2018/01/10/h ... l-remains/ Unlike the angry cretin Sallam allows his young students/co-workers to take the media credit for all field finds rather than muscle in at the last moment. One hopes that western universities and foundations give to him generously although at the moment he appears to struggle well entirely on his own.

One of the good things about Paleontology is that it focuses on humans, not temples, pyramids, corpses or lots of gold. Their job is to use small evidence to try and construct the world these humans lived in – something few archaeologists and no Egyptologists have been much interested in. I guess for some Paleontology has none of the flashy circus about it to match their personalities and the financial needs of the tourist industry. More than a hundred years ago the western diggers in Egypt had a broader approach – including anthropology – which gave them a focus on human beings before it ended up as the fake Egyptology which is just stone. temples and dust. At least this chap won’t be publishing in ‘Ancient Egypt’ as others have on their find of Hatsheput mummy - it’s a low rent travel magazine edited by a nobody. Hawass’s claim that he had discovered the world’s oldest human foot print was a falsity known even when it was said and he had neither the staff nor the scientific equipment to prove it. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-egyp ... 0020070820

The expert for the human footprint was the Supreme Antiques expert on pre-history who said “I think what we are learning is that civilization is a product of the human mind.”. I can find no record of his education or any publications. Given that Egypt until recently taught no Paleontology he must have been educated, if he was, in the west and there is no record of him there. Maybe Hawass liked him personally.

The bones and stones might be gaps but the fact that most money and work has been done by stone dusters for 150 years has left a lot out. For example the Turks have spend two generations on their 50,000 old Catelhoyuk site south east of Konya and others related to this which give a clear view of the selective development of wheat and other foods allowing for surplus food leading to the the development of towns. There is also nearly unique information on the early development of religion and class. To understand it required a multi-skilled team including a lot more than archaeologists - biologists, DNA specialists, climate specialists, soil specialists, anthropoligists etc. Its a wide focus for a wide understanding - something Egyptology gave up on more than half a century ago.

Unlike Egypt it has a superb and informative internet site which aims at a lot more than just entertaining the tourist/the Turkish nationals. As with other sites in Turkey the best experts from around the world have been welcomed and used to train the locals to world standards. http://www.catalhoyuk.com/

Here is the 2015 multicultural, multi sexual team working on Turkey's biggest and most complex dig.
Image

Interestingly they have Turkish female digging leaders – Egypt has had none except on western teams. They probably have perverts and Jews as well.

Boeing and Shell are sponsors, I’m aware of no Egyptian or western corporations that have sponsored anything in Egypt, and some of the greatest universities in the world provide assistance in this Turkish project - including Oxford and Stanford – universities which provide nothing to Egypt. My god, shock horror, they employ women in senior jobs – hell and damnation. Turkey even produces internationally regarded academic journals on its history – Egypt has none.

If you are bright and ambitious you beg to go there. The Internet site contains a full and detailed description of all work done there over 2 generations and all published reports/articles/videos/photographs/youtube connections and a full bibliography which shows, in this and other Turkish sites, just how chaotic and what low academic standards Egypt has observed for generations. It also shows the Turks better managed the international teams, hold them to account and consolidated their work into single easy to access sites. I guess the Turks are better managers.

In Egypt no museum contains an Internet site that even fulfills basic touristic needs.

Another related site which predates Egypt by eons Gobekli Tepe https://globalheritagefund.org/what-we- ... pe-turkey/

Earlier this year the Supreme Antiques, with no experience or skills in this area, said they were going to …wait for it… document rock art sites using digital photography. Any idiot would say photography of such things in the open is highly skilled and has nothing to do with whether you have a $US2,000 camera. They are starting in an area that has little important sites but is close to the comforts of Cairo and requires no nice young men to sleep in a tent in the middle of no where. Whether these idiots know what they are photographing is doubted. Whether they have asked for help from the world’s best is very unlikely. Whether they will use these camera idiots to grade the risk/need for protection/conservation I leave to you. Its standard Egypt – no clear objectives, no priorities, no relevant skills, no satellite location linkages, no basis for risk assessment or what should follow indeed there is no use to which the photos can be put without clear and expert accompanying documentation/description which the Supreme Antiques entirely lack the skills for. http://en.wataninet.com/culture/heritag ... ons/22734/
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