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A victorious man walks forward with raised arms next to a bound kneeling figure who has been pierced by an arrow. The boat on the right may signify dominance. (The black lines highlight the carvings for visibility.)
(Image credit: Photo: M. Nour El-Din/redrawing: E. Kiesel)
Archaeologists have discovered 5,000-year-old rock art in the Sinai Desert that depicts ancient Egypt's brutal conquest of the region.
The artwork "shows in a terrifying manner how the Egyptians colonized the Sinai and subjugated the inhabitants," the archaeologists said in astatement.
The scene shows a man raising his arms in triumph while another man is on his knees with an arrow in his chest and his hands tied behind his back. There is also a boat nearby and an inscription that says Min, an Egyptian deity associated with fertility, is "ruler of the copper area," archaeologists wrote in a new study, which was published in the 2025 edition of the journal Blätter Abrahams.
"[Looking] at the entire composition, we can assume the boat to have been associated with the Egyptian ruler, the triumphant man with god Min … and the subdued and killed man with the local inhabitants," the archaeologists wrote in the journal. They noted that in ancient Egypt, boats were often used as a metaphor for the pharaoh.
The 5,000-year-old rock art reads "God Min, ruler of copper region."
(Image credit: M. Nour El-Din)
Other examples of rock art, dating back around 5,000 years, have previously been found in the Sinai that suggest the Egyptians conquered the region around that time.
"The motivation for the Egyptian expeditions to the south-western Sinai was not simply an abstract expansion of territory, but more specifically the availability of mineral resources, especially copper and turquoise," the team wrote.
At this time the Sinai was mostly inhabited by nomadic groups, said study co-author Ludwig Morenz, an Egyptology professor at the University of Bonn. The "rock panel certainly represents one of the earliest depictions of dominance in another territory," Morenz told Live Science in an email.
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One interesting detail is that there used to be an inscription by the boat image that may have named Egypt's ruler, but it was deliberately erased, the archaeologists noted in the journal. It's unclear who erased it, when and why. There have been a number of instances in Egypt's history in which the name of a pharaoh was erased after a new pharaoh came to power, but it's unclear whether that's the case here.
The rock art was discovered by Mustafa Nour El-Din, an archaeologist with the Aswan Inspectorate at the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities, during a survey conducted in 2025. The archaeologists believe that more rock art remains to be discovered nearby.
"Research has just begun and we are planning for a first bigger campaign," the team wrote.
Owen Jarus is a regular contributor to Live Science who writes about archaeology and humans' past. He has also written for The Independent (UK), The Canadian Press (CP) and The Associated Press (AP), among others. Owen has a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Toronto and a journalism degree from Ryerson University.
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