Sahara cave may hold clues to dawn of Egypt

[n2doc]

By Patrick Werr
CAIRO (Reuters) - Archaeologists are studying prehistoric rock drawings discovered in a remote cave in 2002, including dancing figures and strange headless beasts, as they seek new clues about the rise of Egyptian civilisation.

Amateur explorers stumbled across the cave, which includes 5,000 images painted or engraved into stone, in the vast, empty desert near Egypt's southwest border with Libya and Sudan.

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.

The cave is 10 km (6 miles) from the "Cave of the Swimmers" romanticised in the film the "English Patient", but with far more, and better preserved, images.

more
http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE64N09L20100524

[FirstLight]

1. very interesting

how humans migrated due to climate changes...etc.

But do you think that these are really the early egyptians? what has always baffled me is that egypt seemed to pop out of the sand with a full civilization, society, art, etc...there was no version of the language that we see in it's early stumbling stages.

I love archaeology though... thanks for sharing!