£4.

90
Volume 13 No.5
Issue 77
April/May 2013

www.ancientegyptmagazine.com

Rameses II,
King of Spin?
Ice Age Art at Qurta

Victim of
Tutankhamun’s Curse?

Women at
Deir el-Medina
AEQurta.qxd 19/03/2013 09:38 Page 32

‘Ice Age’ Art

at QURTA

The Belgian archaeological mission based at Elkab under the direction of

Dirk Huyge has succeeded in dating the oldest rock engravings in North Africa
at Qurta.
The Qurta Petroglyphs

I
f the Royal Museums of Art and History (RMAH) in
Brussels enjoy an international reputation for their
archaeological research activities, this is in no small part
due to their series of investigations into rock art, which
have been ongoing since 1998, as part of the work of the
Belgian archaeological mission to Elkab. The RMAH team is
an international one, involving also researchers from other
Belgian federal scientific institutions such as the Royal
Museum for Central Africa (RMCA) and the Royal Institute
for Cultural Heritage (KIK/IRPA). It has twice succeeded in
discovering the most ancient petroglyphs in Egypt and
indeed in the whole of North Africa.
In 2005, the RMAH mission made what is undoubtedly its
most important discovery, the rock art of Qurta. An initial
scientific expedition to the site was organised in 2007.
Since then, the research has been funded by Yale University
in the USA, thanks to the William K. And Marilyn M.
Simpson Endowment for Egyptology, of the Department of
Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations.
The Qurta rock art sites are situated on the east bank of
the Nile, about forty kilometres south of the town of Edfu
in Upper Egypt (see above and opposite). They belong to
the Late Palaeolithic (around 11,000 to 23,000 years ago)

ABOVE
Wooden scaffolding constructed in February 2007 to allow access to the rock art at the Qurta I site. The northern edge of the Kom
Ombo Plain with the village of Qurta is in the background. The Nile runs right behind the large hill in the far distance.
Photo: © RMAH, Brussels.

OPPOSITE TOP
A general view of the Qurta I site from the south. The scaffolding just visible in the centre indicates the location of the main
rock art panel.
Photo: © RMAH, Brussels.

OPPOSITE BOTTOM
An inclined satellite image showing the locations of Qurta I, II and III. The modern village of Qurta is in the foreground.
The distance between QI and QIII is about 1.5 km.
Image: modified after Google Earth 2005.

32 ANCIENT EGYPT April/May 2013

AEQurta.qxd 11/03/2013 14:21 Page 33

ANCIENT EGYPT April/May 2013 33

AEQurta.qxd 11/03/2013 14:22 Page 34

A detail of the main rock art panel at the

Qurta I site, showing a wild bovid (Bos
primigenius or aurochs) with forward-
pointing horns, detailed hooves and
curiously bent hind legs. Even the dewlap of
the animal is clearly indicated.
Photo: © RMAH, Brussels.

34 ANCIENT EGYPT April/May 2013

AEQurta.qxd 19/03/2013 09:43 Page 35

A detail of the main rock

art panel at the Qurta I
site, showing a stylised
human figure with
outstretched arms.
Photo: © RMAH, Brussels.

and consist mostly of artistically engraved
images of wild animals. The most numer-
ous are those of aurochs (see the tracings
on these pages and pp. 38 and 39), the
ancestors of domestic cattle, but also to
be found are waterfowl, hippopotami,
gazelles, fish and perhaps even a harte-
beest. The resolutely naturalistic style of
these images is in total contrast to the
heavily stylised one of some human fig-
ures. Their silhouettes, probably femi-
nine, are reduced to side views with
prominent, well-rounded buttocks; the
other parts of the body, such as the
heads, breasts, arms and feet are absent
(see overleaf, bottom). The combination
of naturalistic depictions of animals with
rather stylised human figures makes
Qurta unique, not only in Egypt but in the
whole of North Africa. Based upon the
style of the drawings, the techniques
used, the degree of weathering of the
engravings and their probable archaeo-
logical context, their age was estimated,
at the time of their discovery, at about
15,000 years. The Qurta engravings
would therefore be more or less contem-
porary with the artistic works produced
THIS PAGE AND OPPOSITE
A tracing of the main rock art
panel at Qurta I, mainly show-
ing bovids (Bos primigenius or
aurochs). In the centre below is
a stylised human figure with
outstretched arms. The total
length of the panel is about
four metres.
Image: © RMAH, Brussels.

ANCIENT EGYPT April/May 2013 35

AEQurta.qxd 19/03/2013 09:53 Page 36

TOP
American archaeologist Elyssa
Figari recording rock art at the
Qurta I site. The panel contains
33 images, including 25 wild
bovids and a stylised human
figure

CENTRE
Wooden scaffolding
constructed in March 2008
to reach the rock art at the
Qurta I site. The Nubian sand-
stone scarp to the left of this
location has been completely
quarried away, using explo-
sives, for about 200 m.

BOTTOM
Three incised stylised human
figures with pronounced
buttocks (overlaid with the
belly-line of a large bovid)
at Qurta II. The height of the
central figure is 17.5 cm.

Photos: © RMAH, Brussels.

36 ANCIENT EGYPT April/May 2013

AEQurta.qxd 11/03/2013 14:40 Page 37

TOP
Belgian archaeologist Wouter
Claes poses with a panel with
wild bovids (Bos primigenius or
aurochs) at the Qurta II site.
The chalking of the outline of
the figures to make them more
visible was not done by the
Belgian archaeological mission.

BOTTOM
Belgian archaeologist Isabelle
Therasse uses a ladder to reach
the rock art at the Qurta I site.

Photos: © RMAH, Brussels.

ANCIENT EGYPT April/May 2013 37

AEQurta.qxd 19/03/2013 09:54 Page 38
THIS PAGE AND OPPOSITE
A tracing of a rock art panel at
Qurta I. The water bird to the
right, probably a goose, is over
one metre long. Below left are
two representations of gazelle
(probably Dorcas gazelle). Both
hammering and incision have
been used to create the
images. The total length of
the panel is about 3.20 m.
Image: © RMAH, Brussels.
38
during the last Ice Age in Europe,
such as the cave paintings of Lascaux
and Altamira, with which they also
showed some stylistic similarities.
The discovery of the Qurta sites was
officially announced in 2007 at a press
conference in Cairo, by the then Minister
of Culture, Farouk Hosni, and the then
Secretary-General of the Antiquities
Service and Minister of Antiquities, Zahi
Hawass. It was thereafter repeated in the
annual report for 2008 of the prestigious
Encyclopaedia Britannica, as one the
most important archaeological discover-
ies of the year. An initial scientific publi-
cation appeared in the British archaeolog-
ical journal Antiquity – see
ANCIENT EGYPT April/May 2013
http://www.antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/
huyge313/
The news rapidly spread worldwide, and
was taken up by the national and inter-
national press, notably by National
Geographic News (July 2007), and the
other media followed suit. Even recent
editions of popular travel guides such as
the Lonely Planet and Rough Guide now
mention the discovery, but fortunately
add that, because of their fragility and
difficulty of access, the sites are still
closed to the public.
AEQurta.qxd 11/03/2013 14:44 Page 39
Until 2010, the attribution
of the Qurta rock art to the Palaeolithic
period was based solely upon intrinsic
deductions and contextual reasoning.
Our fellow researchers, who are not
reputed to be slow to criticise one
another’s findings, had indeed
raised few objections to this dat-
ing. But archaeology, like all sci-
ence, needs concrete proof and
it was therefore desirable to be
able to date the petroglyphs
by a scientifically reliable
method. In the field of rock
art, this is by no means easy,
considering that the majority of
the figures are exposed to the open air
and no foolproof techniques exist to
determine their age.
Dating by Luminescence
At Qurta, however, the Belgian mission has
been very fortunate. At one of the three sites,
Qurta II, some of the engraved panels were still covered by
a scree slope composed of rock débris and sand.
Microscopic analysis of the latter, by the geologist Florias
Mees from the RMCA, demonstrated in particular that it
had been wind-blown. This phenomenon rendered the sed-
iment particularly suitable for dating by the technique
called optically stimulated luminescence (OSL). This permits
measurement of the time that has passed since the buried
grains of sand were last exposed to sunlight. Ghent
University, whose geographical research includes study of
the geomorphology of the sites of Qurta and their sur-
roundings, has at its disposal one of the best OSL laborato-
ries in the world. After undertaking the long and complex
analysis that this dating method requires, the geochronolo-
gist Dimitri Vandenberghe was able to demonstrate that
the sand covering the Qurta drawings had been deposited
there 10,000 to 15,000 years ago. The buried engravings
had therefore to be older, making them date to the
ANCIENT EGYPT April/May 2013
Palaeolithic. Thus the Qurta rock art dates back to the
Pleistocene, a geochronological period whose last phase
was particularly arid in North Africa and which, in Europe,
corresponds more or less to the high point of the last glacia-
tion. These results were published in 2011 in the British
journal Antiquity.
And yet Qurta had still more to reveal. Hopes were raised
of discovering other buried panels at Qurta II. This hap-
pened during the February/March season of 2011. It could
be that the panels uncovered at that time will move the age
of the rock art even further back in time. The OSL analyses
are always a complicated operation that will demand sever-
al more months of patience before giving a definitive
answer.
Contacts between Continents
The discovery of rock art dating from the Ice Age period in
Northern Africa is a new phenomenon, but one that is not
altogether unexpected. Finds of more ancient art elsewhere
on the African continent have been reported for some time.
In 1969, stone slabs with painted animal motifs were dis-
covered in a cave in Namibia and dated to around 26,000
years ago. More recently, in 1999 and 2000, complex geo-
metric shapes engraved on pieces of ochre were found at a
South African site; they date back 75,000 to 100,000 years!
But how are we to explain the fact that the Qurta rock art,
created in Egypt more than 15,000 years ago, is so compa-
rable and stylistically similar to the parietal art that we
encounter at almost the same moment in Europe? Can we
suggest that there was direct influence or an exchange of
culture, over such a great distance? This is a plausible
hypothesis, however inconceivable it might seem. Finds of
artwork in the south of Italy and in Sicily show similarities
with the Egyptian ones in Qurta. And in Libya, a cave not
far from the coast has revealed similar representations of
wild cattle. If we consider, too, that the sea level of the
Mediterranean during the last Ice Age was more than a
hundred metres lower than at present, it is not impossible
that Palaeolithic man was able to make intercontinental
contact and to exchange artistic ideas and symbolism.
Thus the discoveries at Qurta provoke new scientific
queries and challenge established archaeological thought.
39
AEQurta.qxd 11/03/2013 14:46 Page 40

We must also consider what we know of Palaeolithic, particularly those in the

this rock art as regards its symbolic mean-
ing to its originators, and the insight it
gives us into their way of organising their
communities. We cannot avoid thinking
that the Qurta artists represented first
and foremost the animals that they hunt-
ed. Analysis of the animal bones found in
the settlement sites of the Late
immediate proximity to Qurta, teach us
that not only aurochs and hartebeest, but
also hippopotamus, gazelle, fowl and fish
figured on the menu. The emplacements
upon which the rock art appears offer
besides a splendid view over the hunting
and fishing grounds of the period (see
opposite, top). Does that allow us also to

ABOVE
A detail of a rock art panel at
the Qurta II site, showing two
superb drawings of wild bovids
(Bos primigenius or aurochs)
with forward pointing horns.
The double belly line of the
right specimen is typical
of the Qurta II bovids.

RIGHT
A detail of a rock art panel at
the Qurta II site, showing a
powerfully built humped bovid
(Bos primigenius or aurochs)
with strongly incurved forward
pointing horns

Photos: © RMAH, Brussels.

40 ANCIENT EGYPT April/May 2013

AEQurta.qxd 21/03/2013 12:34 Page 41
associate the rock art with a kind of prac-
tical magic associated with hunting or to
think that the originators of the art tried
in this way to dominate nature and their
game by supernatural means? A
response to this type of question, if it
proves possible, can only be envisaged in
the long term and after further discover-
ies of a similar kind. As is often the case
in archaeology, one discovery leads to
another. We are convinced that North
Africa will reveal, in years to come, other
similar sites. The scientists specialising in
the study of rock art can look forward to
a rosy future!
Dirk Huyge
Dr. Huyge is the conservator of the pre-
historic part of the Egyptian collection of
the Royal Museums of Art and History in
Brussels and Director of the Belgian
archaeological mission at Elkab.
This article was previously published in
French in the journal Science Connection
under the title “‘Art des Cavernes’ le long du
Nil”. It has been translated and edited by JPP,
the Editor of AE, and is reproduced here
with the express permission of the Author.
ANCIENT EGYPT April/May 2013
Further Reading ABOVE
Huyge D. & Claes W. 2008: ‘Ice Age’ Art Wooden scaffolding
along the Nile, Egyptian Archaeology. constructed in March 2008 to
reach the rock art at the Qurta I
The Bulletin of The Egypt Exploration
site. The Kom Ombo Plain is in
Society 33, 25-28. the background.
Huyge D. 2009: Late Palaeolithic and Photo: © RMAH, Brussels.
Epipalaeolithic Rock Art in Egypt: Qurta .
and El-Hosh, Archéo-Nil 19: 108-120.
Huyge D., Vandenberghe D.A.G., De BELOW
A detail of the main rock art
Dapper M., Mees F., Claes W. & Darnell
panel at Qurta I, showing a
J.C. 2011: First evidence of Pleistocene superb drawing of a powerfully
rock art in North Africa: securing the age built humped bovid (Bos
of the Qurta petroglyphs (Egypt) through primigenius or aurochs) with S-
OSL dating, Antiquity 85: 1184-1193. curved forward pointing horns.
Huyge D. & Vandenberghe D.A.G. 2011: Image: © RMAH, Brussels.
Confirming the Pleistocene Age of the
Qurta Rock Art, Egyptian Archaeology.
The Bulletin of The Egypt Exploration
Society 39, 21-24.
Huyge D. 2012: The Aurochs of
Qurta. Egyptian ‘Ice Age’ Art,
Current World Archaeology 53,
28-29.
Huyge D. & Claes W. 2012: El-
Hosh et Qurta: Sur les
traces du plus ancien art
égyptien, in Bavay L.,
Bruwier M.-C., Claes W.
& De Strooper I. (Eds):
Ceci n’est pas une pyra-
mide… Un siècle de
recherche archéologique
belge en Egypte, Leuven:
Peeters, 32-45.
41