Den of the Beasts
The cave of the beasts (also Mestikawi Foggini cave or Foggini cave , or Wadi Sura II cave ) at the foot of the Gilf el-Kebir mountains in the Sahara (in Egypt ) contains rock art (over 5000 individual figures ) that are more than 7,000 years old ). The cave became famous for - known as beasts - headless figures with long tails, often only three feet and bodies that resemble a bull. They seem to either spit out or devour the people shown next to them.
Geographical location
Coordinates: 23 ° 39 ' N , 25 ° 10' E
The cave is located in Wadi Sura at the southwestern foot of the Gilf el Kebir Mountains in southwest Egypt near the border with Libya . The area - today uninhabited - belongs to the driest part of the Sahara.
Research history
The cave was discovered in 2002 by archaeologists Massimo and Jacopo Foggini and Ahmed Mestikawi, which is why it is also called the Mestikawi Foggini Cave or Foggini Cave. In 2010, scientists from the University of Cologne carried out a detailed study of the cave and named it Cave Wadi Sura II in order to distinguish it from the cave of swimmers Wadi Sura I located 10 km to the east .
Age and paleoclimate
The paintings were created more than 7000 years ago at the beginning of the Neolithic . At that time the Sahara was still damp. At the foot of the cave was a Holocene lake that has now disappeared . At the end of the Holocene climatic optimum 6000 years ago, the precipitation stopped and people left the area.
description
The cave is 17 m wide and almost 7 m high and contains more than 5000 figures, mainly painted in red, but also in yellow, white and black. Hundreds of hand and foot negatives are painted over with groups of people and therianthropic and acephalic mythological beasts after which the cave is named. While the symbolism of the hand negatives can be found in many caves around the globe, the beasts are unique in the world. The partially overlapping paintings are in very good condition and represent different themes. Engravings in bas close the cavity upwards. While the hand negatives represent the oldest layer, the small white figures and the relatively large figures in yellow are more recent.
The cave is made famous by the beasts , many of which were damaged in prehistoric times. Always surrounded by human figures, they are characterized by their body shape and size: long tail, body that resembles that of a bull and feet (often only 3) that sometimes have human shapes. Though headless, the beasts appear to either spit out or devour people. Some beasts carry some sort of golden net.
Detail view of a beast
Groups of people on hand negatives
Dancing people painted over with yellow figures
Engraved gazelles in the upper part of the cave
Furthermore, the cave is littered with groups of people who appear to be dancing, floating, or swimming. In the left part of the wall, separated by a crack in the rock, two groups of people appear: The people in the group above the crack each hold a sling above their head, while the people below the crack all hold a hand over their head and into the same Look direction.
Wild animals appear scattered across the cave: an elephant, ostriches, antelopes and giraffes. Together with the beasts, the figures of the cave represent a mythological world, the symbolism of which has not yet been deciphered.
See also
literature
- Rudolph Kuper , Franziska Bartz et al .: Wadi Sura - the Cave of Beasts: a rock art site in the Gilf Kebir (SW Egypt) (= Africa praehistorica Vol. 26 ). Heinrich Barth Institute, Cologne 2013, ISBN 978-3-927688-40-7 .
- Jean-Loïc Le Quellec, Pauline et Philippe Flers: You Sahara au Nil. Peintures et gravures d'avant les pharaons du Sahara au Nil. Soleb Fayard, Paris 2005, ISBN 2-213-62488-7 .
- DJ Lewis-Williams, DG Pearce: Inside the Neolithic Mind: Consciousness, Cosmos, and the Realm of the Gods. Thames & Hudson, London 2005, ISBN 978-0500051382 .
- Jörg Linstädter, Stefan Kröpelin: Wadi Bakht revisited: Holocene climate change and prehistoric occupation in the Gilf Kebir region of the Eastern Sahara, SW Egypt. In: Geoarchaeology. December 2004, Vol. 19, No. 8, pp. 753-778, doi : 10.1002 / gea.20023 .
- Luc Watrin, Khaled Saad, Emmanuelle Honoré: The headless Beasts of Wadi Sura II Shelter (WG21) in the Western Gilf El Kebir: New data on Prehistoric Mythologies from the Egyptian Sahara. In: P. Kousoulis: Proceedings of the Tenth International Congress of Egyptologists, University of the Aegean, Rhodes, 22-29 May 2008. Peeters, Louvain 2011, ISBN 978-90-429-2550-2 .
Web links
- On the origins of the Egyptian Pantheon
- Wadi Sura II - The Cave of Beasts
- Grotta Foggini , site of the discoverers
Remarks
- ↑ According to Linstädter / Kröpelin 2004, the precipitation area of the monsoons first retreated to the south and then the precipitation coming from the Mediterranean ceased, which subsequently led to the area drying up .
- ↑ Based on excavations in southwestern Turkey, DJ Lewis-Williams, DG Pearce 2005 come to the conclusion that the reference to a “subaquatic nether world” (in: Inside the Neolithic Mind: Consciousness, Cosmos, and the Realm of the Gods. London 2005, p. 111) and acephalic and therianthropic figures (p. 115–115) are part of the iconography of the early Neolithic.
- ↑ Some scenes seem banal, but this is immediately denied by the proximity of the beasts (J.-L. Le Quellec, P. + P. Flers: Du Sahara au Nil:… Paris 2005, p. 90).
Individual evidence
- ↑ J.-L. Le Quellec, P. + P. Flers: Du Sahara au Nil:… Paris 2005, p. VI.