(full PDF: link) Kuper, R., in collaboration with F. Bartz, E. Büttner, F. Darius, F. Förster, L. Hermsdorf-Knauth, S. Krause, H. Leisen, H. Riemer, J. Seidel & A. Zboray (2013), Wadi Sura – The Cave of Beasts. A rock art site in the Gilf Kebir (SW-Egypt) (original) (raw)
2013, Africa Praehistorica 26
Full PDF available at https://hbi.uni-koeln.de/buecher/africa-praehistorica/details/wadi-sura-the-cave-of-beasts 70 years after the discovery of the famous “Cave of Swimmers” in the heart of the Libyan Desert by the “English Patient” László Almásy, only 10 km further west along the edge of the Gilf Kebir plateau, Massimo and Jacopo Foggini detected another painted shelter which – with its exceedingly rich and complex imagery – clearly surpasses all comparable rock art sites in Egypt, if not in the entire Sahara. About 8000 single figures, among them numerous hybrid creatures that inspired its name, “The Cave of Beasts”, offer unique insights into daily life and spirituality of a so far unknown past cultural world of about 8000 years ago and certainly range this shelter among the most important prehistoric sites of the continent. In order to make this extraordinary cultural heritage broadly accessible for scientific studies as well as for the larger public, an interdisciplinary research project was launched in 2009, financed by the German Research Council (DFG), which aims at a comprehensive documentation of the rock art as well as at its placement in the archaeological context of the surrounding landscape. In summer 2013, the first of three planned volumes will be published, presenting on 220 double pages the complete picture trove of Wadi Sura II in scale 1:2, based on high resolution digital photography and straightened by 3D laser scanning. The volume will be supplemented by 13 articles dealing with the context of the pictures and their archaeological setting. Order from our bookshop at www.hbi-ev.uni-koeln.de More infos at www.wadisura.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de
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In: D. Huyge, F. Van Noten & D. Swinne (eds.), The Signs of Which Times? Chronological and Palaeoenvironmental Issues in the Rock Art of Northern Africa. International Colloquium, Brussels, 3–5 June, 2010, Brussels: Royal Academy for Overseas Sciences, 2012, pp. 197–216
The so-called Wadi Sura II shelter in the western Gilf Kebir (SW Egypt), widely known as the ‘Cave of Beasts’, ranges among the most important prehistoric rock art sites in the Sahara. Accidentally discovered in 2002 by M. Foggini, the shelter’s rear rock wall bears thousands of well-preserved painted figures — humans, various animals including strange headless beasts, and others — as well as some engravings and a large number of hand stencils. Due to their exceptional richness and variety in terms of motifs and styles, the representations, often showing superimpositions, offer unique insights into a past cultural world when living in this remote area of the Libyan Desert was still possible. Since 2009, a joint project of the University of Cologne, the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Cairo Department, and the Cologne University of Applied Sciences has been devoted to the meticulous documentation and analysis of this site and its drawings, but also aims to investigate the palaeoenvironmental and settlement history of the whole Wadi Sura region, including the famous ‘Cave of Swimmers’ (Wadi Sura I) already discovered in 1933. This paper reports on some preliminary results of the project, focusing on the role of contextual landscape archaeology as a means to determine the general chronological and cultural setting of rock art in arid regions. The evidence gathered so far allows us to attribute the drawings displayed in the ‘Cave of Beasts’ (as well as at most other rock art sites in the region) to a hunter-gatherers’ society roaming the area within a time span of between c. 6500 and 4400 calBC (‘Gilf B phase’). Keywords. — Egyptian Sahara; Gilf Kebir; Wadi Sura; Rock Art and Contextual Landscape Archaeology; Mid-Holocene; Prehistory; Gilf B Phase.
Wadi Sura in the context of regional rock art
Rudolph Kuper, Wadi Sura - The Cave of Beasts, Africa Praehistorica 26, Heinrich Barth Institut, Köln, 2013
At the time of their discovery, the paintings of Wadi Sura were an oddity, not fitting in with the naturalistic style of cattle pastoralist paintings found throughout the region. In the last ten years systematic surveys revealed hundreds of new sites, including some that may be attributed to a number of pre-pastoralist cultures, demonstrating a clear cultural succession across the entire central Libyan Desert. The Wadi Sura style paintings, now much better understood from ‘the cave of beasts’, are clearly a part of this succession, with possible relationships and contemporarity with other rock art producing cultures of the region.
Sahara, 2012
L'arte rupestre di Wadi Silwa Bahari rappresenta un caso esemplare per l'applicazione delle tecniche di datazione relativa all'arte rupestre dell'antico Egitto. Alcuni dettagli delle incisioni, in particolare le raffigurazioni di imbarcazioni e di bovini, costituiscono degli importanti segnali diacronici ascrivibili a uno specifico scenario cronologico sulla base di comparazioni con la cultura materiale (per esempio pitture su ceramiche, decorazioni dipinte o scolpite nei templi, palette, modelli egizi e rinvenimenti archeologici). Grazie alle osservazioni preliminari e alle rilevazioni effettuate a Wadi Silwa Bahari, e ai confronti con oggetti di cultura materiale datati in precedenza, la variazione di tipologia e di stile indica fortemente un terminus post quem riferibile alla fase iniziale del Nuovo Regno per l'arte rupestre di Silwa Bahari.
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