“Animal style” before the pharaohs: Egyptian predynastic rock-art and handicraft representationism as a palaeogeographical source (return to the problem)
Abstract
The prehistoric petroglyphs of large moisture-loving and semi-aquatic animals (such as elephants, giraffes, hippos, and crocodiles) in the wadis of the Egyptian Eastern Desert have been considered by some scholars of the past as one of the most important evidence, which supported the theory that the North African climates in the Antiquity were humid in comparison to that of the present day. Modern scholars, however, generally deny the actual existence of this fauna and interpret symbolically the rock-drawings found far away from the Nile. The author who has previously suggested that in the period between the 7th and the 4th millennium BC there was a huge lake situated between the present Asyut and Fayum, uses the petroglyphs found in the Eastern Desert as a source, which helps him to reconstruct the climate of the Egyptian Nile basin as well as some hydrological issues at the period of the mid-Holocene.
Keywords
About the Author
D. B. Proussakov
Institute of Oriental Studies
Russian Federation
Competing Interests:
Russian Federation
Dmitry B. Proussakov - D. Sc. (History), Principal Research Fellow, Department of History and Culture of the Ancient East.
Moscow
Competing Interests:
not
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For citation:
Proussakov D.B. “Animal style” before the pharaohs: Egyptian predynastic rock-art and handicraft representationism as a palaeogeographical source (return to the problem). Orientalistica. 2019;2(3):493-538. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.31696/2618-7043-2019-2-3-493-538
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