Ancient rock art depicting hunters and geometric shapes discovered in Egypt's Sinai Desert — and it spans a period of 10,000 years

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A rock shelter with rock art and inscriptions spanning millennia has been discovered in Egypt.

A sheer rock face of dark and light brown rock is covered with drawings and inscriptions
Some of the inscriptions discovered in the rock shelter were written in Nabataean, the language of the people who built the city of Petra. The inscriptions are in the process of being deciphered. (Image credit: Photo courtesy of the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities)

A rock shelter discovered in the southern Sinai Desert contains designs and inscriptions spanning a period of 10,000 years, the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities has announced in two statements.

Located on the Umm Arak Plateau, the rock shelter was discovered during an archaeological survey carried out by a team of Egyptologists. They were assisted by a local resident named Sheikh Rabie Barakat, who helped guide them to the site, the statements said.

The shelter is about 330 feet (100 meters) long and 10 feet (3 m) deep, with a ceiling up to 5 feet (1.5 m) high. The oldest rock art, which was dated based on its style, was found near the entrance and dates to between roughly 10000 and 5500 B.C., the statements said. It depicts a variety of scenes, including a hunter who's holding a bow and is accompanied by at least two hunting dogs.

Scenes from later time periods include people riding horses and carrying weapons, and there are inscriptions that date to ancient and medieval times. The rock art also includes geometric images made of X's, squares, ovals, crescents and more complex shapes. The archaeological team is in the midst of analyzing the designs.

The shelter is near ancient copper and turquoise mines and was likely "used across the ages as a lookout point and a place for gathering and rest," one of the statements said.

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A man wearing a headscarf leans underneath a sheer reddish rock face with large dark inscriptions on it.
(Image credit: Photo courtesy of the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities )

The newly found rock shelter is located in the south Sinai Desert.

Ancient people in Egypt may have left their mark on the rock shelter while mining the Sinai for resources, noted John Darnell, an Egyptology professor at Yale University who has conducted extensive research in the Sinai but was not involved with the new discovery.

The "Sinai was an important region for ancient Egypt, a source of mineral wealth and a symbolically important region, the home of the goddess Hathor, 'Mistress of Turquoise,'" Darnell said. This discovery "will certainly help us better understand the interactions of the ancient [Egyptians] with the desert environment, and with those people living in and moving through the region."

The images released so far "appear to show material of late antique through perhaps medieval date," or roughly A.D 500 to 1500, Darnell said, noting that the rock art includes camels, humans and Nabataean inscriptions.

The Nabataeans were a people who flourished in the region between roughly 400 B.C. and A.D. 200, and are most famous for building the city of Petra in Jordan. Darnell noted that he looks forward to seeing images of the earlier rock art discovered at the site.

Live Science contacted the archaeological team but did not hear back by the time of publication.

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Owen Jarus
Owen Jarus
Live Science Contributor

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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