Atlantis Online
March 18, 2024, 09:27:55 pm
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
News: Scientists Confirm Historic Massive Flood in Climate Change
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20060228/
 
  Home Help Arcade Gallery Links Staff List Calendar Login Register  

AFRICAN ROCK ART

Pages: 1 [2]   Go Down
  Print  
Author Topic: AFRICAN ROCK ART  (Read 6782 times)
0 Members and 9 Guests are viewing this topic.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #15 on: August 10, 2008, 01:28:14 pm »

                                   


                                                       

Elands Bay Cave,
Western Cape,
South Africa.

Image courtesy of Rock Art Research Institute,
University of the Witwatersrand,

South Africa.
RSA ELA 6



Decorated handprints are one of the enigmatic images of the southern zone.

It is now thought that Khoi herders made them and not San hunter-gathers.

Although they are images in a sense, it is now believed that such decorated handprints may be more concerned with touching the rock surface than with intentional efforts to create an image.

It is thought that they are the residual markings of rituals that involved contacting the spirit-world behind the rock surface.
« Last Edit: August 10, 2008, 01:33:40 pm by Bianca » Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #16 on: August 10, 2008, 01:35:21 pm »



                       

Driekops Eiland,
Northern Cape,
South Africa.

Image courtesy of Rock Art Research Institute,
University of the Witwatersrand,
South Africa.
RSA DRE 160

Both San and Khoi made engravings.




There are three principal engraving techniques—


pecking (in which the rock surface is hammered numerous times), and

incision (in which the rock surface is cut), and

scratching (in which the patina of the rock surface is scratched, thereby exposing a new, unoxidized surface).
« Last Edit: August 10, 2008, 01:38:55 pm by Bianca » Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #17 on: August 10, 2008, 01:43:43 pm »









                                 INTRODUCTION TO PREHISTORIC ART (20,000 - 8,000 B.C.E.)






To describe the global origins of humans' artistic achievement, upon which the succeeding history of art may be laid, is an encyclopedic enterprise.

The Metropolitan Museum's Timeline of Art History, covering the period roughly from 20,000 to 8000 B.C., provides a series of introductory essays about particular archaeological sites and artworks that illustrate some of the earliest endeavors in human creativity. The account of the origins of art is a
very long one marked less by change than consistency.

The first human artistic representations, markings with ground red ocher, seem to have occurred
about 100,000 B.C. in African rock art.

This chronology may be more an artifact of the limitations of archaeological evidence than a true picture of when humans first created art. However, with new technologies, research methods, and archaeological discoveries, we are able to view the history of human artistic achievement in a greater focus than ever before.

Art, as the product of human creativity and imagination, includes poetry, music, dance, and the material arts such as painting, sculpture, drawing, pottery, and bodily adornment.

The objects and archaeological sites presented in the Museum's Timeline of Art History for the time period 20,000–8000 B.C. illustrate diverse examples of prehistoric art from across the globe. All were created in the period before the invention of formal writing, and when human populations were migrating and expanding across the world.

By 20,000 B.C., humans had settled on every continent except Antarctica.

The earliest human occupation occurs in Africa, and it is there that we assume art to have originated. African rock art from Apollo 11 and Wonderwerk Caves contain examples of geometric and animal representations engraved and painted on stone.

In Europe, the record of Paleolithic art is beautifully illustrated with the magnificent painted caves of Lascaux and Chauvet, both in France. Scores of painted caves exist in western Europe, mostly in France and Spain, and hundreds of sculptures and engravings depicting humans, animals, and fantastic creatures have been found across Europe and Asia alike.

Rock art in Australia represents the longest continuously practiced artistic tradition in the world. The site of Ubirr in northern Australia contains exceptional examples of Aboriginal rock art repainted for millennia beginning perhaps as early as 40,000 B.C. The earliest known rock art in Australia predates European painted caves by as much as 10,000 years.
« Last Edit: August 10, 2008, 01:46:48 pm by Bianca » Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #18 on: August 10, 2008, 01:50:26 pm »










In Egypt, millennia before the advent of powerful dynasties and wealth-laden tombs, early settlements are known from modest scatters of stone tools and animal bones at such sites as Wadi Kubbaniya.

In western Asia after 8,000 B.C., the earliest known writing, monumental art, cities, and complex social systems emerged. Prior to these far-reaching developments of civilization, this area was inhabited by early hunters and farmers. Eynan/Ain Mallaha, a settlement in the Levant along the Mediterranean, was occupied around 10,000–8000 B.C. by a culture named Natufian. This group of settled hunters and gatherers created a rich artistic record of sculpture made from stone and bodily adornment made from shell and bone.

The earliest art of the continent of South Asia is less well documented than that of Europe and western Asia, and some of the extant examples come from painted and engraved cave sites such as Pachmari Hills in India. The caves depict the region's fauna and hunting practices of the Mesolithic period.

In Central and East Asia, a territory almost twice the size of North America, there are outstanding examples of early artistic achievements, such as the expertly and delicately carved female figurine sculpture from Mal'ta.

The superbly preserved bone flutes from the site of Jiahu in China, while dated to slightly later than 8000 B.C., are still playable.

The tradition of music making may be among the earliest forms of human artistic endeavor. Because many musical instruments were crafted from easily degradable materials like leather, wood, and sinew, they are often lost to archaeologists, but flutes made of bone dating to the Paleolithic period in Europe (ca. 35,000–10,000 B.C.) are richly documented.

North and South America are the most recent continents to be explored and occupied by humans, who likely arrived from Asia. Blackwater Draw in North America and Fell's Cave in Patagonia, the southernmost area of South America, are two contemporaneous sites where elegant stone tools that helped sustain the hunters who occupied these regions have been found.

Whether the prehistoric artworks illustrated here constitute demonstrations of a unified artistic idiom shared by humankind or, alternatively, are unique to the environments, cultures, and individuals who created them, is a question open for consideration.

Nonetheless, each work or site superbly characterizes some of the earliest examples of humans' creative and artistic capacity.



Laura A. Tedesco

Independent Scholar
Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #19 on: August 10, 2008, 01:53:09 pm »









Citation for this page



Tedesco, Laura A.

"Introduction to Prehistoric Art, 20,000–8000 B.C.".
In Timeline of Art History.
New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/preh/hd_preh.htm (August 2007)





Suggested Further Reading(s) Find these books in a library



Price, T. Douglas. and Gary M. Feinman. Images of the Past. 5th ed. .
Boston:
McGraw-Hill, 2006.

Scarre, Chris, ed. The Human Past: World Prehistory & the Development of Human Societies.
London:
Thames & Hudson, 2005.



More Information on www.metmuseum.org

    Special Exhibitions (including upcoming, current, and past exhibitions)

    Genesis: Ideas of Origin in African Sculpture

    Other Online Features

    Africa: Continent of Origins



http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/tass/hd_tass.htm
« Last Edit: August 10, 2008, 01:55:53 pm by Bianca » Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Qoais
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 3423



« Reply #20 on: December 17, 2009, 12:16:47 pm »

Since this thread is already available for African Rock Art, I shall use it to add the following:

The Tassili n’Ajjer [Algeria] : birthplace of ancient Egypt ?
[/b]

The Tassili n’Ajjer of Southern Algiers is described as the “largest storehouse of rock paintings in the world”. But could it also be the origins of the ancient Egypt culture ?



In January 2003, I made enquiries to visit the Hoggar Mountains and the Tassili n’Ajjer, one of the most enchanting mountain ranges on this planet. The two geographically close but nevertheless quite separate landscapes are located in the Sahara desert in southeast Algeria. I was told that if I could pack my bags immediately (literally), I could join the three weeks’ trip. Unfortunately, I could not, but planned to go on the January 2004 trek.

A few weeks later, Dutch and German tourists were kidnapped in the area (though the English group I would have joined had no such problems). Some of the tourists were held for several months, before German and Dutch troops were sent in to free the hostages from their rebel captors. The kidnappings have since stopped most if not all tourists from travelling towards the magical rock paintings of the Tassili, as insurance brokers are unwilling to provide cover. At a time when the world was beginning to wake up to the magical reality of the Tassili paintings, international political tension has placed the prehistoric rock paintings off-limits.



http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1997350/posts


.......continued
« Last Edit: December 17, 2009, 12:17:54 pm by Qoais » Report Spam   Logged

An open-minded view of the past allows for an unprejudiced glimpse into the future.

Logic rules.

"Intellectual brilliance is no guarantee against being dead wrong."
Qoais
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 3423



« Reply #21 on: December 17, 2009, 12:20:23 pm »

Despite the fact that the rock paintings of the Tassili can be visited, the few people who have written about these rock paintings in popular accounts have largely relied on the pioneering work of Henri Lhote and his team.

Lhote stated that the Tassilli was the richest storehouse of prehistoric art in the whole world. He wrote a series of books, the best known of which is “The Search for the Tassili Frescoes. The Rock paintings of the Sahara.” It is a popular account of the hardships he encountered in trying to discover and make drawings of the rock paintings that were scattered on the rock faces in the various corners of the Tassili. Lhote himself built on the work of Lieutenant Brenans, who was one of the first to venture deep into the canyons of the Tassili during a police operation in the 1930s. As the first European to enter that area, he noticed strange figures that were drawn on the cliffs. He saw elephants walking along with their trunks raised, rhinoceros with ugly looking horns on their snouts, giraffes with necks stretched out as if they were eating at the tops of the bushes. Today, the area is a desolate desert. What these paintings depicted was an era long gone, when the Sahara was a fertile savannah, teeming with wildlife… and humans.



Lhote spoke to Brenans after the war ; in co-operation with Lhote’s mentor Abbé Breuil, who had researched several of the Paleolithic cave paintings in Southern France, a mission to map and study the rock paintings of the Tassili was organised.

The conditions of the Tassili are very otherworldly. One could argue it is an otherworldy landscape. Some have actually described it as a “lunar landscape”.

Otherworldly is also a fitting description of the paintings. Lhote himself described some of them as “Martian faces”. Lhote used the term as they resembled the alien faces that he had seen on television sci-fi documentaries. And the term would later be used by the likes of Erich von Däniken to speculate whether some of the figures were indeed depictions of extraterrestrial visitors.

The “Martians” were what Lhote more scientifically had labelled “round-headed people”, though they do indeed look otherwordly. And that is what Terence McKenna believed that they were : otherworldly, not in the sense of extraterrestrial, but in the sense of another dimension. In his opinion, some of the rock art showed evidence of a lost religion that was based on the hallucinogenic mushroom. He saw figures that were sprouting mushrooms all over their bodies, like at Matalen-Amazar and Ti-n-Tazarift. Others were holding them in their hands, and still other figures were hybrids of mushrooms and humans. He noted that there was one depiction of a shaman in antler headgear with a bee’s face, clutching mushrooms and noted that these were the earliest known depictions of shamans with large numbers of grazing cattle. The fact that these were shamans was supported by the presence of masks, an instrument often worn by shamans during religious ceremonies. If anyone still was not convinced that these people went “out of their minds” to paint these scenes, McKenna noted the geometric structures that surrounded the shamans, which for McKenna and other specialists was evidence of the trance state that the painters had entered for painting.



http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1997350/posts
Report Spam   Logged

An open-minded view of the past allows for an unprejudiced glimpse into the future.

Logic rules.

"Intellectual brilliance is no guarantee against being dead wrong."
Qoais
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 3423



« Reply #22 on: December 17, 2009, 12:33:54 pm »

...continued

Though McKenna popularised the paintings, what he wrote was largely in line with what Lhote had pondered himself. He was convinced that this art was inspired by magic and that it stemmed from religious beliefs. He also made comparison to the artists who painted inside the French caves, whereby studies published decades after Lhote’s death, such as those by David Lewis-Williams, have highlighted their shamanic context.

Other researchers, notably Wim Zitman, have identified an astronomic connotation to the various figures. He specifically focuses his attention on the so-called “swimmer”, depicted at Ti-n-Tazarift, and argues that this is in fact the depiction of a constellation. He also argues for a connection between the rock paintings of the Tassili and the origin of the Egyptian civilisation, wondering whether the shamans of the Tassili might not have been the “Followers of Horus” that have been the subject of so much speculation in the past decade by the likes of Robert Bauval and Graham Hancock. Rather than from the mythical Atlantis, might they have come from a region southeast of the Atlas mountains, i.e. the Tassili ?

Lhote himself identified an Egyptian dimension, though he was at pains to draw a clear outline how Egypt would slot into the Tassili rock paintings.

He published in his book two paintings which had an unmistakable ancient Egyptian character. Furthermore, they were “out of place art” and did not fit in with the other paintings that he had found. His discovery caused commotion in scholarly circles, as it seemed irrefutable proof of contact between the Tassili and Ancient Egypt. The question was how. Eventually, it emerged that the paintings were done by one member of Lhote’s team, who played a successful prank on Lhote. The pictures were reproduced up to the early 1970s in editions of his book, before being removed from successive reprints. Today, the paintings have been discretely erased from Jabbaren and Aurenghet, and the Touareg guides shake their head if the photos are shown, having never seen them. Of course, some will argue that this is part of an archaeological cover-up, whereby one member of his team was forced to lie, whereby the establishment later removed the paintings from the cliffs to remove this “Egyptian connection”.

“If at one stage Egyptian (and maybe also Mycenaean) influence can be observed, the most archaic of the Tassili pictures belong to a school unknown up to now and one that apparently was of local origin”, Lhote concluded. There were largely two forms of rock paintings, distinguishable by the location in which they were found. Some were found in rock shelters, such as at Aouanrhet. These sites were where the shaman performed his divination, as the face of a rock was often seen as a doorway to another dimension (another parallel with the paintings in the French caves). Though one could interpret their location as the work of a nomadic people, Lhote’s team also found several urban settlements. He found small concentrations of human activity around Tan-Zoumiatak in the Tin Abou Teka massif. It was a little rocky citadel that dominated the gorge below. The citadel was cut through with a number of narrow alleys. Lhote described the art he found here as : “There were life-size figures painted in red ochre, archers with muscular arms and legs, enormous ‘cats’, many scenes with cattle, war-chariots and so forth. Up to this time I had never seen figures of this sort in the Tassili and the mass of paintings that I managed to view that day quite put into the shade all those I had seen up to then.”

It was a highlight so far, but more impressive sites were to follow. At Jabbaren, he found a city with alleys, cross-roads and squares. The walls were covered with hundreds of paintings. Jabbaren is a Tuareg word meaning “giants” and the name refers to the paintings found inside the city, some of which depict human figures that are indeed gigantic in size. One of them measured up to eighteen feet high. Several of these paintings depicted “Martians” and for Lhote, it was the first time he discovered paintings of hundreds of oxen. Jabbaren was soon labelled one of the oldest sites of the Tassili. Ti-n-Tazarift was another city.

Its centre was marked by a huge amphitheatre with a diameter of more than five hundred yards. It had an immense public square with houses grouped around it. Given off from it were avenues, streets, passages and even blind alleys. The city stretched for a mile and a quarter. It were once again the hollows at the base of the rocks that revealed a variety and multitude of paintings, including more paintings of “Martians”, or round-headed people.

The true highlight, however, was Sefar. Little is written about the city. Lhote does not provide many details, except a map, showing its extent, as well as the presence of several streets and avenues, tumuli, tombs and something that he calls the “esplanade of the Great Fishing God”. Lhote named the character as he seemed to be carrying fish. But a closer inspection of the photograph that successive expeditions have taken, suggests what Zitman had always felt could be the truth : rather than a “fishing god”, was this character not depicted in a pose that the ancient Egyptians knew as “smiting the enemy” ? It was a pose that was used by the Pharaohs to display their mastery over the forces of chaos.

.......continued
Report Spam   Logged

An open-minded view of the past allows for an unprejudiced glimpse into the future.

Logic rules.

"Intellectual brilliance is no guarantee against being dead wrong."
Qoais
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 3423



« Reply #23 on: December 17, 2009, 12:36:35 pm »

...continued

The “Great Fishing God” of Sefar is thus potential evidence that there is indeed a link between Egypt and the Tassili. Some of the rock paintings also show boats, such as at Sefar and Aouanrhet. These depictions are very similar if not identical to what was discovered by the likes of Toby Wilkinson in similar sites and similar rock paintings in the region between the Nile and the Red Sea. He dated these paintings to the 5th millennium BC, which overlaps with the paintings of the Tassili. Like the Tassili, the desert area where Wilkinson uncovered these paintings was then verdant grassland. Like the Tassili, these Egyptian paintings are a complex mixture of motifs, depicting crocodiles, hippos and boats from the Nile alongside ostriches and giraffes from the savannah, and suffused with cattle imagery and the religious symbolism that would characterize classical Egyptian art. This should by now sound familiar…

For Wilkinson, these rock paintings show that pre-Pharaonic Egyptians were not settled flood-plain farmers, but semi-nomadic herders who drove their cattle in between the lush riverbanks and the drier grasslands. He also identified that several of these paintings were located around ancient trade routes. For a “semi-nomadic people”, it is by no means a long stretch of the imagination to argue that they trekked throughout the savannah, from east to west and backwards. And thus, in Pre-dynastic Egypt, Egypt and the Tassili were more than likely “one”. So there is an Egyptian connection, but rather than arguing for a connection around 1200 BC, based on the fake paintings Lhote fell for, the connection can actually be found in predynastic Egypt.

Though the Tassili paintings are by far the best known, they are not the only area where such paintings can be found. Nearby areas such as Acacus and Messak have revealed similar rock paintings. It confirms that the Tassili was not an isolated incident, but part of a larger whole. Both Wilkinson and Zitman argue for a radical reinterpretation of the origins of ancient Egypt. For Wilkinson, the rock paintings in southern Egypt provide proof that it is there that we should look for the “Genesis of the Pharaohs” (the title of his book).

For Zitman, the origin of ancient Egypt can be found in a culture and area that stretches into the Tassili, where there is the pose painted on a cliff face in Sefar that would later adorn the front walls of several Egyptian temples. And that cannot be a coincidence. Furthermore, it also coincides with what Lhote wrote : “The most common profile suggested that of Ethiopians, and it was almost certainly from the east that these great waves of pastoralist immigrants came who invaded not only the Tassili but much of the Sahara.”

The Tassili has thus added a new chapter to African history – but it is a new chapter at the beginning of the book. It is the history of what is known as the “Neolithic wet period”, which lasted from 9000 to 2500 BC, when much of the Sahara was habitable for humans, when the dunes were covered with grassland, supporting hippos, lions, crocodiles, zebras, giraffes, etc. By 7000 BC, there were hunters, dancers, bakers and even sailors. There were shamans, leaving rock paintings on the cliff faces. The earliest examples of Saharan rock art are invariably engravings, sometimes on a very large scale, representing the ancient and partially extinct wildlife. That they were at this time nomadic hunters is inferred from a lack of representations of domestic animals.

...continued
Report Spam   Logged

An open-minded view of the past allows for an unprejudiced glimpse into the future.

Logic rules.

"Intellectual brilliance is no guarantee against being dead wrong."
Qoais
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 3423



« Reply #24 on: December 17, 2009, 12:38:23 pm »

One of the most prominent and common representations is the Bubalus Antiqus, the ancestor of modern domesticated cattle, resembling the modern east African buffalo, but with much larger horns. As it became extinct around 5000 BC, it has allowed archaeologists to date the Tassili rock paintings.



Lhote then identified the “round headed people” as the next phase. This peculiar style is officially limited to the Tassili, but there are similarities with the large cave at Wadi Sora in the Gilf Kebir and paintings in the Ennedi, showing that these people got very close to Egypt.

Sir Wallis-Budge was amongst the first to identify that the ancient Egyptians were inheritors of the African shamanic tradition. Wilkinson agrees ; McKenna too. There was a religion in the Tassili, apparently involving hallucinogenic substances that opened up gateways into other dimensions for the shamans. The outcome must have been a religious doctrine, one that began to be written down on the cliff faces, including the “Great fishing god”, which by 3500 BC became incorporated in Dynastic Egypt as the symbol of Pharaonic control and which would throughout Egypt’s history be depicted on its great temple walls.

But when ancient Egypt went Dynastic, the Tassili did not follow the trend. The rock faces continued to be used for paintings, though became different in style. By 2500 BC, the savannah began to transform into the desert it is now. When the horse was introduced to the Sahara about 1200 BC, enabling horse drawn chariots to be used along the Saharan trade routes up until classical times, these animals too became incorporated in the art of the local people. But by 1200 BC, the climate had become vastly different from the savannah of 7000 BC. The difference in climate between today and 7000 BC could indeed be seen as being of a different world.

Today, the Tassili could indeed be on a different planet. Though its artwork is more and more photographed, few if any are willing to incorporate it within a larger framework. Von Däniken was wrong when he stated that these were extra-terrestrial beings, but he was right to suggest that the Tassili had an unknown dimension to the history of ancient Egypt. Making a step into the Tassili will be harder than making a small step on the Moon, it would not be big step for Mankind, but it would be big step for archaeology.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1997350/posts
Report Spam   Logged

An open-minded view of the past allows for an unprejudiced glimpse into the future.

Logic rules.

"Intellectual brilliance is no guarantee against being dead wrong."
Qoais
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 3423



« Reply #25 on: December 17, 2009, 01:02:54 pm »



This particular fresco which, though strictly Saharan, has a Chadic or
maybe central and east African feel about it. Some say she is Auset
(Isis). The provence of this art piece is Inaouanrhat, Tassili N Ajjer in
the middle of the Sahara of southeast Algeria. A larger size repro is in
Henri Lhote
The Search for the Tassili Frescoes
New York: EP Dutton, 1959

For a full possible explanation of this drawing link to http://www.egyptsearch.com/forums/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=005083
Report Spam   Logged

An open-minded view of the past allows for an unprejudiced glimpse into the future.

Logic rules.

"Intellectual brilliance is no guarantee against being dead wrong."
Qoais
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 3423



« Reply #26 on: December 17, 2009, 08:50:39 pm »

A hunter with Negroid features, about 5.5 feet in height, holds an arrow in his right hand and a heavy bow in the left in Tassili n' Agger, Algeria, 6000 B.C.

Report Spam   Logged

An open-minded view of the past allows for an unprejudiced glimpse into the future.

Logic rules.

"Intellectual brilliance is no guarantee against being dead wrong."
Pages: 1 [2]   Go Up
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by EzPortal
Bookmark this site! | Upgrade This Forum
SMF For Free - Create your own Forum
Powered by SMF | SMF © 2016, Simple Machines
Privacy Policy