digital photograph(colour)
- Museum number
- 2013,2034.123
- Description
-
Digital photograph (colour); view of painted rock art on a limestone cave wall, showing two negative left hand prints, blown, one in brown and one in black paint. The brown print is to the left of the black one and both have fingers splayed and pointing right. The right handprint has a thick black halo and splash marks at the upper left, some superimposing the similarly administered negative print of an unidentified shape, long, narrow and horizontal, which lies between the handprints and tapers towards the right (side-print of a hand?). The print on the right is surrounded by six infilled white circles superimposing the black halo but spattered with black splash marks. To the right and lower right of the hand are rounded, honeycomb-grid-style motifs appearing in darker colour at the top left, lighter colour superimposing the hand and in white raised relief to the right. These are the remains of wasp’s nests. Wadi el-Obeiyd, Egypt.
Scanned
- Production date
-
10 May 2006 (date digitized)
-
December 2000 (original photograph)
- Dimensions
-
File size: 120 megabytes
-
Resolution: 300 dots per inch
- Curator's comments
- Detail of 2013.2034.126.
This limestone cave site is a series of connected caves above the Wadi el-Obeiyd (also spelled el-Obeiyid), north of the Farafra Oasis, in Egypt. The caves together are around 30m long and 6m high. The cave mouth is about 50m up a very steep white sand and rock slope below a cliff. The cave has an entrance about 2.5m wide and 2m high with a flat natural lintel which makes it look from a distance as if it is man-made. The cave opens inside with a curved back wall and domed roof. On the left, a wide step about 2m high carries the first cave into a further domed chamber with circular rear wall. Both domed ceilings are smooth except for remains of old wasp nests forming small rough protuberances. These hand prints are on the left wall of the chamber, rising into the dome. The walls are scored by numerous parallel vertical striations and there are stalagmites near the cave entrance. These engravings are on the back wall of the first chamber. The cave contains engravings of animals and big cat pugmarks as well as pigmented handprints and was discovered in 1995 and excavated by Barbara Barich. The site was further explored and discussed by Alec Campbell in 2005.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 2013
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- 2013,2034.123
- Additional IDs
-
Previous owner/ex-collection number: EGYWEO0010031 (TARA number)
