Surat al Kahf (original) (raw)
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Guards of the caverns in Gilf Kebir. ‘Headless beasts’ or baboons?
Guardian of Ancient Egypt Studies in Honor of Zahi Hawass, 2020
Deep in Egyptian Western Desert, in Gilf Kebir mountain range close to the Egyptian border with Libya and Sudan, are situated famous rock-art sites known as Wadi Sura I – the legendary cave discovered in modern times by a desert explorer Laslo Almássy and Wadi Sura II, the so-called Cave of the Beasts. Both of them are dated to the late Boreal – early Atlantic Holocene phases (9000-7000 BP) and both of them display painted decoration which features scenes and compositions which are unparalleled in the known rock-art of the North-east Africa. This rock-art came into being when the vast expanses of what later became Sahara were still green, savannah-like environments and populated by many herders groups. These groups were only later on, in the wake of the increasing desiccation, forced to migrate towards the Nile valley where they started to settle down and shifted to agriculture as the dominant subsistence strategy while cattle herding still remained one of their major activities. In this contribution I shall address one specific and still rather unclear element in the decoration of the Cave of Beasts. Unlike Cave of the Swimmers, this site was discovered by an expedition led by col. Ahmed Mestekawy and Italian explorers Massimo and Jacopo Foggini in 2002. The cave is in fact a big, largely sanded abri overlooking and dominating local landscape. The decoration of the cave has been preserved almost intact and consists of several thousands of painted micro-compositions with unclear relationships to each other. The scenes in the caves of Gilf Kebir show quite clearly that local communities of herders inhabiting vast expanses of what is nowadays Western Desert were quite complex and able to devise sophisticated intellectual concepts as witnessed by the rock art of Gilf Kebir caves. They were throughout capable of embedding of their local communities life within a broader etiological system that served as a cement of the social law and order. Focusing on the relevance of evidence provided by the Cave of Beasts, several general observations may be drawn. The rock art provided legitimacy to the social order of the communities of the day by representing victory of the chieftain on behalf of his population. The rock art also emphasized the key role of the local headman by paying attention to running figure of the chieftain. Most likely, the rock art also offered an elaborate explanation how to perceive the physical world (above all earth and sky) that surrounded these communities. The figures of the ‘headless’ beasts only complement this approach. The interpretation of these figures offered in the present text favours the explanation that they represent guards protecting the entrance into the netherworld which was located in these caves, and ultimate judges evaluating every soul entering this liminal transcendental zone of transition from one world to another. As a consequence, these particular compositions may be seen as introducing ethic appeal inasmuch they imply that entering the netherworld may be possible only after meeting the ‘qualifying’ ethical criteria. As such, this particular scene composition played a major role in the society as it significantly helped to define and maintain order and social contract among the individual members of the community. Together with some other scenes loaded with socially and religiously important meaning they attest to the complexity and elaborate social order in past societies long ago the emergence of state-like level.
The Cave-Dwellers of Mt. Arbel
Cave-Dwellers of Mt. Arbel, 2021
During the first century BCE, there were hundreds of people living in caves in the cliffs bordering the Plain of Ginnosar, northwest of the Sea of Galilee. This cave-dwelling phenomenon began around 100 BCE and continued until the third century CE. Current theories view these cave-dwellings as cliff-shelters used in times of trouble, but do not explain why the caves were inhabited continuously, even at other times. This article offers a new explanation for this presence and cautiously identifies one large collection of caves as the home of an Essene community.