Saturday, July 3, 2010

Cave Etchings May Help Date Rise of Egypt

A section of dancing figures etched into the stone.

Archaeologists say prehistoric rock drawings discovered in a remote Egyptian cave ~ depicting dancing figures and strange headless beasts ~ may provide clues about the rise of Egyptian civilization. According to Reuters:
Rudolph Kuper, a German archaeologist, said the detail depicted in the "Cave of the Beasts" indicate the site is at least 8,000 years old, likely the work of hunter-gatherers whose descendants may have been among the early settlers of the then-swampy and inhospitable Nile Valley.
Some 5,000 images are painted or engraved into the cave’s stone.

“It is the most amazing cave in North Africa and Egypt,” Karin Kindermann, a member of a team that recently made a trip to the site 560 miles southwest of Cairo, told Reuters. “You take a piece of the puzzle and see where it could fit. This is an important piece.”

Click here for the Reuters article.

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