Generate QR code
Open Access
Subscription Access
Qurta Rock Art: Cultural Exchange in the Mediterranean
https://doi.org/10.17746/1563-0110.2025.53.3.053-063
Abstract
The discovery in the early 2000s of animal rock engravings near the village of Qurta in the Nile Valley (Upper Egypt) remains little discussed. This article focuses on the numerous stylistic links between these engravings and European Pleistocene figurations. These analogies allow us to date Qurta approximately to the end of the Last Glacial Maximum (between the end of Gravettian-Solutrean art and the beginning of Magdalenian art). This estimate is confirmed by OSL-dating obtained from a buried engraved panel from Qurta. The hypothesis as to European origin of the images is also reinforced by the presence of schematic female engravings identical to those scattered throughout Eurasia. The possibility of Mediterranean cultural exchange is considered. Several communication routes were possible. Taking into account the published documentation, we infer that the engravings at Qurta are less isolated than they appear and that rock engravings located on the Cyrenaican coast and in the Sinai could be the result of repeated contacts (including migrations) of people inhabiting the two shores of the Mediterranean.
Supporting agencies: I’d like to thank András Zboray for sharing his photo of the Sinaï shelter and Lydia Zlotkina for her proofreading of the text and her wise advice.
References
1. Anati E. 2015 The rock art of Azerbaijan. Capo di Ponte: Atelier Monographs.
2. Bosinski G. 2011 Femmes sans tête. Une icône culturelle dans l’Europe de la fin de l’époque glaciaire. Paris: Errance.
3. Collina-Girard J. 2005 Le détroit de Gibraltar à la fin du paléolithique supérieur: une passerelle naturelle entre Afrique et Europe? In La Cuenca mediterranea durante el paleolitico superior 38 000-10 000 años. IV Simposio de prehistoria cueva de Nerja, U.I.S.P.P. Nerja (Malaga): Fundacion Cueva De Nerja, pp. 166–175.
4. Cretin C., Geneste J.-M., Plisson H., Zotkina L.V., Cheremisin D.V., Molodin V.I., Delannoy J.-J., Deline Ph., Ravanel L. 2018 Un art rupestre paléolithique au-delà de l’Oural? Les nouvelles de l’archéologie, No. 154: 45–50.
5. Deline Ph., Ravanel L., Delannoy J.-J., Le Roy M., Team A., Léanni L., Cheremisin D.V., Zotkina L.V., Cretin C., Geneste J.-M., Plisson H., Molodin V.I. 2023 Timing and extent of glaciation since the Last Glacial Maximum in the upper Kalguty basin, Russian Altai Mountains. Journal of Quaternary Science, vol. 38 (7): 1–21 [1082–1102].
6. Graziosi P. 1968 L’art paléo-épipaléolithique de la Province Méditerra-néenne et ses nouveaux documents d’Afrique du Nord et du Proche-Orient. In Simposio Internacional de Arte Rupestre, Barcelona, 1966. Barcelona: Diputación Provincial de Barcelona, pp. 71–265.
7. Guy E. 2011 Préhistoire du sentiment artistique. L’invention du style il y a 20 000 ans. Dijon: Les presses du réel.
8. Guy E. 2021 Réflexion sur la fonction sociale des «écoles artistiques». Une aristocratie préhistorique? l’égalitarisme des sociétés du Paléolithique récent en question. Paléo (Hors-Série), Déc: 190–198.
9. Huyge D. 2008 Cô a en Afrique: art rupestre du Plé istocè ne ré cent le long du Nil é gyptien. INORA, No. 51: 1–7.
10. Huyge D., Aubert M., Barnard H., Claes W., Darnell J.C., De Dapper M., Figari E., Ikram S., Lebrun-Nélis A., Therasse I. 2007 Lascaux along the Nile: Late Pleistocene rock art in Egypt. Antiquity, vol. 81 (313): 1–4.
11. Huyge D., Claes W. 2013–2015 Art rupestre gravé paléolithique de Haute Egypte: El-Hosh et Qurta. Bulletin de l’Association Scientifique Liégeoise pour la Recherche Archéologique (ASLiRA), No. 28: 21–39.
12. Huyge D., Vandenberghe D.A.G., De Dapper M., Mees F., Claes W., Darnell J.C. 2011 First evidence of Pleistocene rock art in North Africa: securing the age of the Qurta petroglyphs(Egypt) through OSL dating. Antiquity, vol. 85 (330): 1184–1193.
13. Jelinek J. 1982 Caf Atjur, the cave of birds in Cyrenaica and its engravings. L’Anthropologie, No. 20: 45–56.
14. Jelinek J. 2003 Sahara. Histoire de l’art rupestre libyen. Grenoble: Jérôme Millon. Marini S., de Faucamberge É., Nasser Katab M. 2010 Découverte d’un site d’art rupestre en Cyrénaïque (Libye): Kaf Tahr. L’Anthropologie, vol. 114 (2): 275–287.
15. Martini F. 2012 Aspects cosmopolites et locaux dans l’art de l’Épigravettien en Italie. In L’Art pléistocène dans le monde, IFRAO 2010. Tarascon-sur-Ariège: [s.n.], pp. 80–81. (Bulletin de la Société Préhistorique Ariège-Pyrénées).
16. Molodin V.I., Batbold N., Zotkina L.V., Cheremisin D.V., Nenakhova Y.N. 2024 Sanctuary with “Kalguty” style images in Northwestern Mongolia (preliminary data). Archaeology, Ethnology and Anthropology of Eurasia, vol. 52 (1): 58–69. (In Russian and English).
17. Molodin V., Cheremesin D. 2002 Les plus anciens pétroglyphes du Plateau d’Ukok (Altaï, Russie) et leurs analogies en Asie centrale et en Europe occidentale. In L’art paléolithique à l’air libre, le paysage modifi é par l’image, Tautavel-Campôme, octobre 1999. Carcassone: Gaep & Geopre, pp. 227–234.
18. Mussi M., De Marco A. 2008 A Gönnersdorf – style engraving in the parietal art of Grotta Romanelli (Apulia, southern Italy). Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für Urgeschichte, No. 17: 97–104.
19. Otte M. 2012 L’extension africaine en europe méridionale: le solutréen. Espacio Tiempo Y Forma, No. 1 (5): 99–117. (Serie I: Prehistoria Y Arqueología).
20. Otte M. 2014 Codes plastiques à Qurta (Haute-Égypte) et analogies transmé diterrané ennes. INORA, No. 68: 22–28.
21. Paradisi U. 1965 Prehistoric Art in the Gebel el-Akhdar (Cyrenaica). Antiquity, vol. 39 (154): 95–101.
22. Smith Cl. 1992 Colonising with style: reviewing the nexus between rock art, territoriality, and the colonization occupation of Sahul. Australian Archaeology, No. 34: 34–42.
23. Tusa S., di Maida G., Pastoors A., Piezonka H., Weniger G.-C., Terberger T. 2013 The Grotta di Cala dei Genovesi. New studies on the Ice Age cave art on Sicily. Praehistorische Zeitschrift, vol. 88 (1/2): 1–22.
24. Welker W. 2016 First Palaeolithic rock art in Germany: engravings on Hunsrück slate. Antiquity, vol. 90 (349): 32–47.
25. Wendorf F., Schild R., Close A.E., Hillman G.C., Gautier A., Van Neer W., Donahue D.J., Jull A.J.T, Linick T.W. 1988 New radiocarbon dates and Late Palaeolithic diet at Wadi Kubbaniya, Egypt. Antiquity, vol. 62 (235): 279–283.
26. Zboray A. 2012 Unpublished shelter with prehistoric engravings of a possible late Pleistocene date in the North-central Sinai (Egypt). Sahara, No. 23: 163–166.
Review
For citations:
Guy E. Qurta Rock Art: Cultural Exchange in the Mediterranean. Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia. 2025;53(3):53-63. https://doi.org/10.17746/1563-0110.2025.53.3.053-063
Views:
4
Email this article 