Advanced 1,50,000-year-old pipework found under Chinese Pyramid
Who could have built such a complex structure 150,000 years ago, at a time when the man had barely started using fire?
The Baigong pipes are one of the greatest mysteries of the ancient world. They can be found inside a badly-eroded pyramid standing on top of Mount Baigong in the Qinghai Province of northwestern China.
The collapsing pyramid once had triangular entrances on all three sides but over time, two of them caved in and are currently out of reach.
The one that remains goes deep inside the mountain. Iron scraps and strange-looking stones litter the floor, suggesting that a long time ago, this place saw activity.
The only surviving cave houses an intricate network of metal pipes, with diameters as large as 1.5 feet and as small as a toothpick. Dozens of pipes run straight into the mountain, leading who knows where.
Some of the archaeologists who inspected the site consider the pipework could have once supplied water inside the pyramid.
Their theory seems to be backed up by a multitude of iron pipes found on the shores of nearby Lake Toson. Those are also available in a range of lengths and diameters, some reaching above the water surface, others buried below.
Intrigued by these out of place artifacts, the Beijing Institute of Geology analyzed the pipes using a technique called thermoluminescence. This method allowed them to determine when the pipes were last subjected to high temperatures. The analysis revealed the pipes must have been crafted over 150,000 years ago.
And the mystery deepens even further. Analysis performed at a government-operated smeltery couldn’t determine all the exact compounds forming the pipes. Although the pipes were made up of ferric oxide, silicon dioxide, and calcium oxide, they also contained 8% of an unknown material.
There is no easy way to explain this mind-boggling discovery. Human presence in the region can be traced back to 30,000 years ago but was mainly composed of nomadic tribes. It would have been impossible for a primitive society to leave behind such an advanced structure.
A number of theories tried to explain who could have built these pipes and what purpose they might have served. An advanced but long-forgotten human civilization could have built a facility that required coolant, and the pipes leading to the nearby lake are all that’s left.
Another intriguing aspect is that the water in the lake is salty. And although there is a freshwater lake in the vicinity, there are no pipes leading into it. Why were they doing with all the saltwater?
A potential answer is an electrolysis. When an electric current is run through salt water, it breaks down the water into hydrogen and oxygen. Such products are a must-have for any civilization operating aircraft. That particular civilization doesn’t even have to be human.
At the other end of the theory spectrum, we have several geologists who believe the pipes are simply some type of unusual but natural formation.
The fact of the matter is that these are all just theories attempting to explain something that simply doesn’t fit with our currently accepted system of beliefs.
One thing is certain – until history is rewritten, anomalous artifacts such as the Baigong Pipes have no place in conventional textbooks.
Researchers Discover a 2 billion-year-old nuclear reactor in Africa
In June 1972, nuclear scientists at the Pierrelatte uranium enrichment plant in south-east France noticed a strange deficit in the amount of uranium-235 they were processing. That’s a serious problem in a uranium enrichment plant where every gram of fissionable material has to be carefully accounted for.
The problem lay in the ratio of uranium isotopes in their samples. Natural uranium contains three isotopes, always in the same ratios: uranium-238 (99.2744 percent), uranium-235 (0.7202 percent), and uranium-234 (0.0054 percent).
The problem was with the uranium-235 of which there was only 0.600 percent. Physicists soon traced the anomaly to the supply of uranium ore from Gabon in West Africa, which contained far less uranium-235 than the ore from anywhere else on the planet, a problem that caused some consternation among nuclear scientists.
So France’s top nuclear scientists began an investigation and, in the process, made one of the more remarkable discoveries in recent history. This kind of depleted uranium is only found inside nuclear reactors, which burn uranium-235. That set off a hunt for a reactor that could have produced this stuff.
On 25 September 1972, they announced that the depleted uranium had come from Gabon where nuclear scientists had discovered a 2 billion-year-old nuclear reactor at the site of the Oklo uranium mines near a town called Franceville. This was a naturally occurring deposit of uranium where the concentration of uranium-235 had been high enough to trigger a self-sustaining nuclear reaction.
Today, say Edward Davis at Kuwait University and a couple of pals who review the scientific history of the discovery at Oklo, one of the most extraordinary natural phenomena on the planet.
Since its discovery, the Oklo reactor has been a significant driver of important research in nuclear physics. In particular, physicists have used it to study how buried nuclear waste might spread through the environment. And since the reactor began operating some 2 billion years ago, they’ve also used it to study how the universe’s fundamental constants may have changed during that time.
But the first puzzle that physicists had to deal with in 1972 was how a naturally-occurring reactor could work at all. Nuclear scientists well know that reactors do not work with natural uranium because the level of uranium-235 is too low at only 0.7202 percent. Instead, the uranium-235 has to be enriched so that it is about 3.5 percent of the total. So how did so much end up at Oklo?
The Oklo Uranium mine in Gabon. Credit: European Nuclear Organisation
The answer to this puzzle is that uranium-235 has a shorter half-life than other uranium isotopes and so would have been present in much higher quantities in the Earth’s distant past. When the Solar System was created, for example, about 17 percent of uranium would have been the 235 isotopes. That percentage has fallen steadily since then.
When the ore in Gabon was laid down some 2 billion years ago, the concentration of uranium-235 would have been about 4 percent, more than enough for a self-sustaining nuclear reaction. The idea is that when a neutron hits an atom of uranium-235, the atom splits producing two smaller nuclei and several neutrons. These neutrons go on to split other atoms in an ongoing chain reaction.
However, the liberated neutrons are high-energy particles that tend to fly away rapidly. So nuclear reactors usually contain a moderating material that slows down the neutrons so that they can interact with other uranium atoms. It turns out that water is a reasonable neutron moderator. So an important component of this natural reactor was the presence of water seeping through the uranium ore. And this had an interesting impact on the way the reactors operated.
Nuclear scientists believe that the Oklo reactors operated in pulses. As water flowed into the rock, it moderated the neutrons, allowing a chain reaction to occur. But this increased the temperature of the rock, boiling the water into steam which escaped. When this happened, the neutrons were no longer able to interact with and split uranium nuclei, and the chain reaction stopped. The rock then cooled allowing water to flow back in.
So the Oklo reactors operated in pulses. Today, nuclear scientists have calculated that the chain reaction probably lasted for 30 minutes and then switched off for about 2.5 hours, a pulsing process that continued for about 300,000 years. While they were on, the reactors were powerful devices. “The reactors likely operated under conditions similar to present-day pressurized water reactor systems, with pressures about 150 atmospheres and temperatures of about 300 degrees C,” said Davis and co.
French nuclear scientists carried out a detailed survey of the Oklo site, discovering not just one reactor zone but up to 17 of them over an area of several tens of square kilometers. Some of these were close to the surface and so had been influenced by weathering processes, while others were at depths of up to 400 meters and were more or less pristine.
In addition to the depleted uranium-235, these zones contained numerous fission fragments such as isotopes of zirconium, yttrium, neodymium, and cerium. The unusual ratios of these isotopes were an important indicator of what had gone on there almost 2 billion years earlier.
The presence of these fission by-products immediately piqued the interest of nuclear scientists, particularly in the US. Perhaps the biggest challenge facing the nuclear industry is to find a way to deal with the highly radioactive waste that reactors produce. One idea is to bury it but that raises the question of what would happen to this waste over the millions of years during which it remains toxic.
The Oklo reactors were a natural test of this question. So US scientists, in particular, began a program to measure the way in which different fission products migrated away from the reactor zones. “One of the most important, and surprising, early findings was that uranium and most of the rare earth elements did not experience significant mobilization in the past two billion years,” said Davis and co. “Because the wastes were contained successfully in Oklo, it appears not unrealistic to hope that long term disposal in specially selected and engineered geological repositories can be successful.”
This evidence has since become one of the main arguments in favor of nuclear waste repositories such as the one planned at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Oklo has also become the focus of physicists studying the possibility that the universe’s fundamental constants may have changed over time. The reason that Oklo may be able to help is that it stopped operating over 1.5 billion years ago. So the nuclear processes that occurred at that time must’ve been governed by the fundamental constants as they were then.
In particular, physicists are interested in the fine structure constant which determines the strength of the electromagnetic interaction. This in turn determines the way neutrons are absorbed in chain reactions and consequently the yields of different fission products.
The focus of most research has been on the amount of samarium-149 produced by these natural reactors. The data places bounds on how much the constant may have changed in the past. The consensus is that the data is consistent with the fine structure constant being actually constant although it doesn’t rule out tiny changes. Davis and co point out that the Oklo data can also constrain changes in other constants, such as the ratio of light quark masses to the proton mass. To date, this work is consistent with these constants being constant.
The Oklo story ends with a damp squib. After a period of intense interest in the early 1970s, mining continued at Oklo, and eventually, all the natural reactors were mined out. The one exception was a shallow reactor zone at a place called Bangombé, some 30 kilometers from Oklo, although this has largely been washed out by groundwater.
So these zones have been largely lost to science. That’s a shame. It also means that nuclear scientists are unlikely to get better data on natural nuclear reactors using advanced techniques than those available in the 1970s. No other natural reactors have been discovered anywhere on Earth, making Oklo unique. At least for the moment.
Forget everything you know about the most famous painting in the world: Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (1503–17). According to French scientist Pascal Cotte, who has analyzed the painting by reflecting light technology for over 10 years, the Mona Lisa hides another portrait underneath.
According to the BBC, the most surprising of Cotte’s findings is that the sitter in the original painting found underneath has no trace of the enigmatic smile that elevated da Vinci’s portrait to the category of myth.
The sitter is also looking off to the side, rather than towards the viewer like the Mona Lisa we know and love today.
Light technology was used on the famous painting
Cotte’s pioneering technology is called Layer Amplification Method (LAM) and has allowed him to make a slew of groundbreaking discoveries. It works by projecting a series of intense lights onto an artwork while a camera measures the reflections.
Last year, he already made waves among the art historical community when he revealed that another da Vinci masterpiece, Lady With an Ermine (1489–90) was painted not in one, but in three clearly differentiated stages.
Pascal Cotte. On the left is a digital reconstruction of what he claims to have found underneath the Mona Lisa.
“The LAM technique gives us the capability to peel the painting like an onion, removing the surface to see what’s happening inside and behind the different layers of paint,” he told the BBC back then.
Crucially, this “new” Mona Lisa has ramifications also in terms of the identity of the sitter. For years and years, it’s been debated whether the woman in the painting might have been Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine silk merchant, da Vinci’s mother, or even a Chinese slave.
Cotte, complicating things even further, told the BBC: “When I finished the reconstruction of Lisa Gherardini, I was in front of the portrait and she is totally different from Mona Lisa today. This is not the same woman.”
Not everyone agrees with Cotte, however. Da Vinci expert Martin Kemp, Emeritus Professor of the History of Art at the University of Oxford, told the BBC: [Cotte’s images] are ingenious in showing what Leonardo may have been thinking about.
But the idea that there is that picture as it was hiding underneath the surface is untenable. I do not think there are these discreet stages that represent different portraits. I see it as more or less a continuous process of evolution. I am absolutely convinced that the Mona Lisa is Lisa.”
Cotte’s findings will be presented in a documentary called The Secrets of the Mona Lisa that will be broadcast on BBC Two.
The famous art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon, who’s behind the documentary, said of the discovery: “I have no doubt that this is definitely one of the stories of the century.”
This could be the second claim in less than two weeks that changes common perspectives on celebrated artworks by da Vinci.
In late November, the notorious British art forger Shaun Greenhalgh publicly claimed to be the author of La Bella Principessa, a $150 million painting attributed to Leonardo da Vinci.
A $26M Cimabue masterpiece was found in an elderly woman’s kitchen
A missing masterpiece of the 13th century was sold for nearly 24.2 million Euros (26.8 million dollars), just months after it was found hanging in a French kitchen. “Christ Mocked,” by the Florentine painter Cimabue, sold for more than four times the pre-sale estimate at an auction in Senlis, north of Paris, on Sunday.
“The Mocking of Christ,” believed to be by the late 13th-century Florentine artist Cenni di Pepo, also known as Cimabue.
An elderly French woman from the town of Compiegne had kept the rare artwork — which she thought was a Greek religious icon — in her kitchen.
The unsuspecting owner did not know where the 10-inch by 8-inch painting had come from, according to Jerome Montcouquil of art specialists Cabinet Turquin, which was asked to carry out tests on the painting following its discovery in the summer.
“It didn’t take long for us to see that it was an artwork by Italian painter Cimabue,” he told CNN prior to the sale. “He’s a father of painting so we know his work very well.”
Cimabue is the pseudonym of artist Cenni di Pepo, born in Florence around the year 1240. He is known to have been the discoverer and master of Giotto, widely regarded as one of the greatest artists of the pre-Renaissance era.
“There are only 11 of his paintings in the world — they are rare,” Montcouquil said.
Montcouquil said the work is part of a diptych made in 1280 when the artist painted eight scenes centered on the passion and crucifixion of Christ.
The style of painting, its gold background, and traces of its old frame helped experts identify the artwork as part of the triptych, according to a press release published by auctioneers Acteon ahead of the sale.
‘Lost’ Caravaggio valued at $170M bought just before the auction The pictorial layer remains in “excellent condition” despite accumulating dust, continued the release.
The National Gallery in London is home to another scene from the work, “The Virgin and Child with Two Angels,” which the gallery acquired in 2000. It had been lost for centuries, before a British aristocrat found it in his ancestral home in Suffolk, according to AFP.
The “Apollo and Venus” painting by 16th-century Dutch master Otto van Veen (1556-1629) was discovered in the closet of an art gallery in Iowa and is likely worth over $4 million.
The “Apollo and Venus” painting by 16th-century Dutch master Otto van Veen (1556-1629) was discovered in the closet of an art gallery in Iowa and is likely worth over $4 million.
“They are all made with the same technique on the same wood panel so you can follow the grain of the wood through the different scenes,” said Montcouquil.
“We also used infrared light to be sure the painting was done by the same hand. You can even see the corrections he made.”
The painting had been hanging above a hot plate used for cooking food, according to AFP. Montcouquil said it was the first-ever Cimabue painting to be auctioned.
Prehistoric teeth fossils dating back 9.7 million years ‘could rewrite human history’
In Southwestern Germany, a team of researchers discovered teeth that were millions of years old and presumably belonged to an ancient Euro-Asian primate last September. Yet after the discovery was made public, controversy opened up about the interpretation of our earliest existence.
News of the sensational discovery was only made public recently since the team who dug up the ancient teeth in the town of Eppelsheim wanted to be sure the find was as significant as they had initially believed.
“It’s completely new to science, and it is a big surprise because nobody had expected such a tremendous, extremely rare discovery,” Herbert Lutz, head of the excavation team at the Natural History Museum in Mainz, told Deutsche Welle.
Lutz had been digging at the site in Eppelsheim for 17 years where the Rhine River used to flow, excavating riverbed sediments approximately 10 million years old. the area is “well known in science” and famous for its primate fossils.
At the end of 2016, as his team decided to finally wrap up the excavation, “just in the last second, these two teeth came to light. We really weren’t expecting such a tremendous discovery,” Lutz said.
The excavation site in Eppelsheim.
Both teeth are completely preserved, too. The teeth look “excellent” and are “shining like amber,” though no longer white, Lutz said.
The 9.7 million-year-old canine tooth and upper molar – found only 60 centimeters apart and thus believed to belong together – resemble those of great apes who lived in Africa 2.9 to 4.4 million years ago. According to Lutz and his colleagues, the teeth closely resemble some extinct African relatives of humans.
Molar (left) and canine (right) fossils found in Germany raise questions about human history. Credit: Naturhistorisches Museum Mainz
Since the official unveiling of the teeth, global media outlets have been questioning whether the find is capable of rewriting human history since it seems to go against theories of human beings originating from Africa.
The teeth are unlike anything found in Europe and Asia, Lutz cautiously claims.
“It’s a complete mystery where this individual came from, and why nobody’s ever found a tooth like this somewhere before,” he said in an interview with Research Gate.
But some experts say that the teeth hardly “force us to reexamine the theory that humans originated from Africa,” arguing that the fossils “more likely belonged to a very distant branch on the primate family tree,” reported National Geographic.
Other experts state that whether the teeth really belong to the hominoid classification (apes, chimpanzees, etc.) is questionable.
Expert on the teeth of humans’ extinct relatives and paleoanthropologist at the University of Toronto, Bence Viola, says the molar found contradicts any case for a human connection.
“I think this is much ado about nothing,” he told National Geographic. “The molar, which they say clearly comes from the same individual, is absolutely not a hominin, and I would say also not a hominoid.”
The majority of the experts National Geographic spoke to said the molar found likely belongs to a species of an extinct, primitive branch of primates that lived in Asia and Europe between seven and 17 million years ago.
Oldest North American Rock Art May Be 14,800 Years Old
A rock engraved with ancient marks discovered on a dried-up lakebed in Nevada carries dated as of the oldest known petroglyphs in North America, at least 10,000 years old.
The petroglyphs found on limestone boulders near Pyramid Lake in northern Nevada’s high desert are similar in design to etchings found at a lake in Oregon that is believed to be at least 7,600 years old.
Unlike later drawings that sometimes depict a spear or antelope, the carvings are abstract with tightly clustered geometric designs – some are diamond patterns, others have short parallel lines on top of a long line.
This May 2012 photo provided by the U.S. Geological Survey shows ancient carvings on limestone boulders in northern Nevada’s high desert near Pyramid Lake. The carvings have been confirmed to be the oldest recorded petroglyphs in North America – at least 10,500 years old.
Scientists can’t tell for sure who carved them, but they were found on the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe’s reservation land.
“We initially thought people 12,000 or 10,000 years ago were primitive, but their artistic expressions and technological expertise associated with these paints a much different picture,” said Eugene Hattori, the curator of anthropology at the Nevada State Museum in Carson City who co-authored a paper on the findings earlier this month in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
The petroglyphs could be as much as 14,800 years old, said Larry Benson, a geochemist who used radiocarbon testing to date the etchings and co-wrote the paper.
Radiocarbon testing dated the carbonate layer underlying the petroglyphs to roughly 14,800 years ago. Geochemical data and sediment and rock samples from adjacent Pyramid Lake show they were exposed to air from 13,200 to 14,800 years ago, and again from 10,500 to 11,300 years ago.
“Whether they turn out to be as old as 14,800 years ago or as recent as 10,500 years ago, they are still the oldest petroglyphs that have been dated in North America,” said Benson, a national research scientist emeritus for the U.S. Geological Survey and curator of anthropology at the University of Colorado Natural History Museum in Boulder.
Dennis Jenkins, an archaeologist with the University of Oregon’s Museum of Natural and Cultural History, called it a significant discovery. He led recent excavations of obsidian spear points near Paisley, Ore., that he dated back 13,200 years, and noted that the bigger challenge is identifying who created the petroglyphs.
“When you get back into this time period, if you speak with Native Americans they will tell you they were made (created) there and that is obviously their people and their artwork,” Jenkins said. “But approaching it from a scientific point of view – what we can prove – at this point, it is impossible to connect these to any tribal group.”
William Cannon, a longtime archaeologist for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management who discovered the petroglyphs at Long Lake in Oregon, brought the Nevada site to Hattori’s attention years ago. He said they bore similarities to petroglyphs at nearby Winnemucca Lake, and Hattori began connecting the dots.
Winnemucca Lake
The etchings in Nevada and Oregon have relatively deep, carved lines dominated by linear, curved and circular geometrical designs. Some feature “tree-form designs” with a series of evenly spaced, vertically oriented V shapes bisected by a vertical line.
Researchers have suggested the etchings represent various meteorological symbols, such as clouds and lightning, perhaps the Milky Way.
“But we really have nothing to go on for these particular petroglyphs that go back 10,000 or more years,” Hattori said.
Benson has no idea what they mean.
“When I looked at it, I said, ‘These things are incredibly beautiful.’ We have so much beautiful, old Native American stuff in the United States, but this shows it didn’t necessarily get more interesting or more pretty with time,” he said.
Ben Aleck, a co-author of the study who is the collection manager at the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe’s Museum and Visitor Center in Nixon, said he could not comment without permission from tribal leaders.
Hilltop Buddhist Monastery Uncovered in Eastern India
The first hilltop Buddhist monastery of the Gangetic Valley has been found at Lal Pahari in Lakhisarai district of the state, said its excavation team director Anil Kumar. Excavated during a joint collaboration of the Bihar Heritage Development Society, a part of the department of art, culture and youth affairs and the Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, West Bengal, this finding is believed to be a great centre of Mahayana Buddhism.
The 11th-12th century common era (CE) monastery has some unique features rarely found elsewhere in the country and certainly not in Bihar. Besides wooden votive tablets found, it is the first Buddhist monastery which had a woman monk named Vijayashree Bhadra as its chief. She used to receive donations from Pala queen Mallika Devi.
A large number of metal bangles have been found and all its cells had doors, something unusual for the Buddhist monasteries excavated so far, suggesting that either it was exclusively for woman monks or a mixed one.
Excavated during a joint collaboration of the Bihar Heritage Development Society, a part of the department of art, culture and youth affairs and the Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, West Bengal, this finding is believed to be a great centre of Mahayana Buddhism.
The two burnt clay seals recovered from the site record the name Srīmaddharmahāvihārik āryabhikṣusaṅghasya (the council of monks of Śrīmaddhama vihāra). The language used is Sanskrit and the script is Siddhamātṛkā of about 8th-9th century CE.
The name is equally significant as it indicates how much prestige the Mahāyāna Buddhism enjoyed in early medieval Magadha.
The wooden votive tablets of 5.3×2.3cm each have the figure of a person, probably Buddha, sitting in Padmasana in Bhumisparsha mudra. The lintel at the entrance of the main sanctum sanctorum represents the two Bodhisattvas — Manjushri and Avalokiteshvara.
Anil, who is the head of the ancient history and archaeology department at Visva-Bharati in Santiniketan, said it’s the first ‘vihara’ in the state, which probably gave Bihar its name, like those found at Nalanda, Vikramshila and Telhara were ‘mahaviharas’.
Also, after Nalanda and Telhara in Bihar, any monastic sealing has mentioned the monastery name. While a number of mahāvihāras and in one instance a vihārikā is known from epigraphic and archaeological records of eastern India, no evidence of a ‘vihara’-level monastic architecture has been so far discovered from any part of Bihar.
The only parallel evidence is found in a monastery excavated at Jagjivanpur in northern Bengal, he said.
These findings will be significant in the understanding of the history of monastic Buddhism in early medieval Magadha in general and the history of the historically identified Kṛmilā region in Lakhisarai in particular. This evidence clearly proves that the monastery atop Lal Pahari at Jaynagar was a ‘vihāra’, he explained.
He said the interconnected cells, wooden door frames, three huge bastions on each side of the monastery, the discovery of dozens of wooden inscribed seals/sealings and the evidence of application of red, green, yellow, white and black colours on lime-plastered floors make the architecture of this monastery the first of its kind among the eastern Indian Buddhist establishments.
Anil said this was the first excavation project completed within 3 years in Bihar after getting a licence from the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Bihar government in 2017. CM Nitish Kumar had inaugurated the Lal Pahari excavation site on November 25, 2017.
“We have documented 500 sculptures lying all around the site and brought 200 of them to Lakhisarai. The state government should urgently preserve these sculptures as Lal Pahari is one of the five protected monuments of Bihar government in Lakhisarai.
The other four are Satsanda, Bichhwe, Ghosi Kundi and Lai. The 6th site at Nongarh is also being considered for inclusion in the list,” Anil told TOI.
5,450 years old Egyptian knife known as Gebel el-Arak, made with an Ivory handle
This unique dagger from the late predynastic period consists of a light silex blade, sculpted using a highly sophisticated technique, and an ivory handle featuring carved bas-relief scenes. It is one of the oldest known examples of bas-relief sculpture.
The themes come from Nilotic as well as Mesopotamian traditions: animals, the hunt, lions overwhelmed by a figure, boats, and human combats.
A luxury object
Everything in this weapon illustrates luxury and technical expertise. The blade, made of extremely high-quality, light ocher slate, reflects an accomplished mastery of stone-cutting techniques. Parallel strips were removed on one side to form a regular pattern.
The other side of the blade is simply polished. Small areas were reworked to form a sharp serrated edge. Egyptian craftsmen used this meticulous technique for a short period only, between 3500 and 3200 BC.
This is the most accomplished example of the silex tool-making technique. Analyses of the handle determined that it is made of a hippopotamus tooth.
Only a small number of ivory dagger handles of this type, decorated with relief carving, exist. These were exceptional works, reserved to an elite.
Detail of warfare depicted on the Gebel el-Arak knife.
Men and animals
Detail of the battle and animal scenes on the Gebel el-Arak Knife.
One side of the richly carved ivory handle displays apparent hunting scenes filled with animals.
The blade is set into a carved hippopotamus tooth and has a central knob with a hole for attaching a cord. On one side is a bearded figure wearing a cap, standing between and subduing two lions. Below are two domesticated dogs and wild animals; a hunter seems to be catching an antelope.
Ripple-flaked side and polished side of the Gebel el-Arak Knife.
The other side depicts combats arranged in several registers. At the top are quasi-nude men wearing penis sheaths, in hand-to-hand combat. At the bottom, dead bodies are strewn between two different types of boats, both in use in Egypt during the Naqada period.
A key work
Animal life, hunting, and boating on the Nile are ancient themes that had already appeared on ceramics and paintings during the Naqada Period.
The bas-relief carving that appeared at this time on large contemporaneous palettes depicted more dynamic and less static scenes than images on earlier traditional ceramic pieces.
Furthermore, the battle theme appeared toward the end of this period, which is why researchers have tried to find a narrative link to historical events.
Today they are interpreted more as referential images, a catalogue of themes that were important to the ruling class during a period when the Egyptian state was taking shape.
As is often the case, certain motifs are variations of those from the contemporaneous Mesopotamian culture, such as the bearded figure of the priest-king (AO5718, AO5719) and the “Master of Animals” figure subduing two beasts. Direct or indirect contacts certainly existed between the two civilizations.
The design of superimposed registers and the conventions used to represent the human figure were used throughout the entire pharaonic period. This object illustrates the shift from the late predynastic period to the birth of the pharaonic civilization.
