Four elephant hunt scenes among the Iheren style paintings of Taġelahin, Ăharhar Tasset and Tamrit (Tasīli-n-Ajjer) (original) (raw)
Related papers
Some further Iheren style big-game hunting scenes from the central and southern Tasīli-n-Ăjjer
Les Cahiers de l’AARS 22, 2021
Subsequent to the publication of four Iheren style elephant hunt scenes in this journal (Zboray 2017), several more similar scenes were recognised at some rarely visited sites in the Tasīli-n-Ăjjer during visits made in 2018 and 2019. These paintings are invariably very faint, in most cases only recognisable in the field with hindsight gained from other similar, better preserved scenes. Processing the taken digital photographs with DStretch®, a plug-in of ImageJ developed by Jon Harman enables the full appreciation of these compositions.
Elephants in Southeast Asian rock art, an overview
This paper presents a survey of elephant depictions in Southeast Asian rock art, which, as a class of archaeological material remains relatively unstudied in the region. Elephants have been depicted in rock art in many parts of Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos. These depictions are varied, in size, form and possibly age. Both wild and domesticated elephants are portrayed. Rock art has a deep antiquity in Southeast Asia, with the oldest known paintings approximately 40,000 years old. The date of the elephant depictions in rock art is less certain. Collectively Southeast Asian elephant rock art pose larger questions about the significance of elephants in Southeast Asia and the date of domestication of elephants in the region.
Boar or bear? Rock art of the Shakhty rock-shelter (Eastern Pamir)
2022
One of the fundamental lines of rock art research is chronological attribution of images. State-of-the-art methodology includes a set of direct and indirect approaches aimed at correlation the imagery with specific archaeological cultures or at least at definition of the chronological boundaries. The highlands of Eastern Pamir (Tadjikistan) is known by a very few rock art sites among which the Shakhty rock-shelter located at the height of 4200 m above sea level representing a very unique hunting scene which is created in an archaic naturalistic style which has no direct parallels. It was preliminary attributed to the Stone Age by its discoverer V. A. Ranov at the beginning of the 1960s. A taxonomic identification of zoomorphic figures from Shakhty was not clear. The main hypothesis proposed two options: brown bear or wild boar. The species definition could be a chronological marker in correlation with data on paleofauna and paleoenvironment in the region. The present study focuses on indirect dating of the Shakhty rock-shelter rock art through the determination of the taxonomic affiliation of zoomorphic figures and correlation with data on the fauna composition and paleoclimate of the Eastern Pamir in the Pleistocene and early Holocene.
Africa Praehistorica 26, 2013
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
(2020) Animal Hill – a Large Prehistoric Rock Art Site CO178 in the Central Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt
Archaeologia Polona, vol. 58: 289–310, 2020
This article introduces one of the largest rock art sites found in the central Dakhleh Oasis. Firstly, an overview of all the panels with petroglyphs is provided and the images briefly described. The panels’ description contains basic information on their location and visibility, motifs and their compositional aspects, and chronology. This is followed by a brief summary of the presented data and a discussion situating the site in the broader context of Dakhleh and the surrounding Western Desert. Particular motifs and their arrangements, like a herd of giraffes, are further briefly discussed, and parallels from the Dakhleh region and the Nile valley cited in order to compare the CO178 rock art. KEY-WORDS: Rock art, Petroglyphs, Giraffe, Oryx, Dakhleh Oasis
Journal of Archaeological Studies, 2021
The mountainous region of Northern Khorasan, northeastern Iran is rich in rock art complexes including several petroglyphic and rock-painting sites. The rock paintings at Takke rock-shelter near Bojnord is one of the four recorded pictographs in the Atrak River Basin depicting a hunting scene. The panel shows a human with a spear accompanied by several dogs pursuing various species of wild animals in a hilly and wooded landscape. Most of the animals are depicted between the trees on steep footpaths. The Takke pictograms are the only identified rock paintings in Iran and the neighboring regions depicting a dog-assisted hunting scene in a forest zone characterized by several species of plants and animals. The plant and animal diversity in the panel as well as certain landmarks such as animal tracks could perhaps be interpreted as an attempt to illustrate features of the natural local landscape which is a rare phenomenon in the corpus of Iranian rock art. On stylistic grounds, the Takke pictograms appear to date between the Late Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age. Located in the foothills and upland zone suitable for nomadic hunting groups, mobile pastoralists, and herding population, the pictograms of Takke, like other rock art complexes of Northern Khorasan, appear to linked to pastoral models of subsistence during prehistoric period.