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.”

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Dancing Figure Dates to Mississippian Period

The drawing on the roof of the concealed rock shelter is about a foot long.

A drawing of a dancing stick figure recently discovered in a rock shelter in Tennessee's remote Cumberland Plateau dates likely from 1000 to 1600 AD.

“I knew that Native American rock art had been found in the area, but I didn't realize this was so significant," said Corey Holliday, a cave specialist who found the drawing. "My first impression was that someone had drawn it with charcoal."



In fact, the artist most likely lived during the Mississippian Period between A.D. 1000 and 1600 and used a paint based on a prehistoric recipe whose main ingredient was pulverized clay, according to Jan Simek, a University of Tennessee anthropology professor who specializes in cave archaeology.

Simek determined that the reason the pictograph looks so fresh is because it has been protected by a veneer of calcium carbonate leaching out of the sandstone.

"It is a remarkable figure," Simek said. "In my mind, there is no chance it is a recent fake."



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