Egypt
- Palaeolithic Rock Art On The Verge Of Destruction.
Archaeology and Conservation Services Per Stormyr of the excellent Quarryscapes project sent me this article, and it is yet another vile piece of news from Egypt about the destruction of heritage. Please share, forward and otherwise publicize this...
- Lascaux Along The Nile Revisited
Yale News (Dorie Baker) Using a new technology known as optically stimulated luminescence (OSL), a team of Belgian scientists and Professor John Coleman Darnell of Yale have determined that Egyptian petroglyphs found at the east bank of the Nile are about...
- Rock Art At Qurta - Inora 51 2008
International Newsletter on Rock Art (in PDF Format) Thanks very much to Dr Dirk Huyge for letting me know that an article about his work at Qurta is available on the above website, free of charge. The article is accompanied by a map of the site's...
- Weekly Websites
Antiquity Open Access I'm cheating witht his week's edition - the Antiquity Open Access page offers the following short items about Egyptian and related archaeology. Here are the articles directly connected with Egypt (thanks again to Francis):...
- More Re Lascaux Type Images On The Nile
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/849/he1.htm Nevine El-Aref takes up the story of the Qurta images recently publicized in a press release, and now described in the June 2007 issue of Antiquity. There is nothing very new in this article, but as usual Nevine...
Egypt
Lascaux along the Nile’: Late Pleistocene rock art in Egypt
http://antiquity.ac.uk/ProjGall/huyge/index.html
The details of the Qurta rock art site released in a press release copied earlier in this blog have been published in the archaeological journal Antiquity, with a discussion of the factors which might offer a date for the rock art - with photos.
The authors conclude: "In our opinion, because of the various particularities outlined above, the rock art of Qurta reflects a true Palaeolithic mentality, quite closely comparable to what governs European Palaeolithic art. We accordingly propose an attribution of this Qurta rock art to the Late Pleistocene Ballanan-Silsilian culture or a Late Palaeolithic culture of similar nature and age. In this respect, it can hardly be coincidental that the comparable site of Abu Tanqura Bahari 11 at el-Hosh is also situated at close distance (only at about 500m) from a Late Palaeolithic site that, mainly on the basis of its stratigraphical position immediately below the ‘Wild Nile’ silts, must be of roughly similar age as the Ballanan-Silsilian industry of the Kom Ombo Plain. There remains, in our opinion, therefore little doubt that the rock art of Qurta must be about 15 000 years old. Direct ages for this rock art are not yet available, but analyses are under way to explore its potential for AMS 14C dating of organics in the varnish rind and/or U-series dating."
See the above page for the full article.
The details of the Qurta rock art site released in a press release copied earlier in this blog have been published in the archaeological journal Antiquity, with a discussion of the factors which might offer a date for the rock art - with photos.
The authors conclude: "In our opinion, because of the various particularities outlined above, the rock art of Qurta reflects a true Palaeolithic mentality, quite closely comparable to what governs European Palaeolithic art. We accordingly propose an attribution of this Qurta rock art to the Late Pleistocene Ballanan-Silsilian culture or a Late Palaeolithic culture of similar nature and age. In this respect, it can hardly be coincidental that the comparable site of Abu Tanqura Bahari 11 at el-Hosh is also situated at close distance (only at about 500m) from a Late Palaeolithic site that, mainly on the basis of its stratigraphical position immediately below the ‘Wild Nile’ silts, must be of roughly similar age as the Ballanan-Silsilian industry of the Kom Ombo Plain. There remains, in our opinion, therefore little doubt that the rock art of Qurta must be about 15 000 years old. Direct ages for this rock art are not yet available, but analyses are under way to explore its potential for AMS 14C dating of organics in the varnish rind and/or U-series dating."
See the above page for the full article.
- Palaeolithic Rock Art On The Verge Of Destruction.
Archaeology and Conservation Services Per Stormyr of the excellent Quarryscapes project sent me this article, and it is yet another vile piece of news from Egypt about the destruction of heritage. Please share, forward and otherwise publicize this...
- Lascaux Along The Nile Revisited
Yale News (Dorie Baker) Using a new technology known as optically stimulated luminescence (OSL), a team of Belgian scientists and Professor John Coleman Darnell of Yale have determined that Egyptian petroglyphs found at the east bank of the Nile are about...
- Rock Art At Qurta - Inora 51 2008
International Newsletter on Rock Art (in PDF Format) Thanks very much to Dr Dirk Huyge for letting me know that an article about his work at Qurta is available on the above website, free of charge. The article is accompanied by a map of the site's...
- Weekly Websites
Antiquity Open Access I'm cheating witht his week's edition - the Antiquity Open Access page offers the following short items about Egyptian and related archaeology. Here are the articles directly connected with Egypt (thanks again to Francis):...
- More Re Lascaux Type Images On The Nile
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/849/he1.htm Nevine El-Aref takes up the story of the Qurta images recently publicized in a press release, and now described in the June 2007 issue of Antiquity. There is nothing very new in this article, but as usual Nevine...