Predynastic & Pharaonic era rock-art in Egypt's Central Eastern Desert : distribution, dating & interpretation
The aim of this thesis is to examine the rock-art of Egyptâs Central Eastern Desert in order to outline the petroglyphsâ distribution and influences on their location, to date them, and to explore the reasons why they were created. The area is notable for the presence of boat petroglyphs, along with images of people and a wide range of fauna, in the middle of the desert many miles from the Nile and Red Sea. Since Hans Winklerâs pioneering work in the 1930âs, the corpus covering the whole of the area has been considerably increased due to work from the 1980âs to the present, thanks mainly to the Eastern Desert Survey (EDS) and the Rock Art Topographical Survey (RATS). The construction of a comprehensive corpus enables an analysis of the distribution of the approximately 4000 images, the dating of a significant majority of the rock-art sites and interpretation of the reasons for their creation. Many of the petroglyphs were probably made in the early predynastic period: Naqada I c to II a/b (which scholars generally date from 3750 to 3650 BCE), and often show hunting scenes associated with boats, or even have vessels integrated within them. As the spatial analysis carried out in this work demonstrates,
Lankester, Francis David
Predynastic & Pharaonic era rock-art in Egypt's Central Eastern Desert : distribution, dating & interpretation. The aim of this thesis is to examine the rock-art of Egyptâs Central Eastern Desert in order to outline the petroglyphsâ distribution and influences on their location, to date them, and to explore the reasons why they were created. The area is notable for the presence of boat petroglyphs, along with images of people and a wide range of fauna, in the middle of the desert many miles from the Nile and Red Sea. Since Hans Winklerâs pioneering work in the 1930âs, the corpus covering the whole of the area has been considerably increased due to work from the 1980âs to the present, thanks mainly to the Eastern Desert Survey (EDS) and the Rock Art Topographical Survey (RATS). The construction of a comprehensive corpus enables an analysis of the distribution of the approximately 4000 images, the dating of a significant majority of the rock-art sites and interpretation of the reasons for their creation. Many of the petroglyphs were probably made in the early predynastic period: Naqada I c to II a/b (which scholars generally date from 3750 to 3650 BCE), and often show hunting scenes associated with boats, or even have vessels integrated within them. As the spatial analysis carried out in this work demonstrates,
era rock_art egypt central_eastern desert distribution date interpretation aim_examine rock_art egypt central_eastern desert order outline distribution influence location date explore reason create area notable presence boat along image people wide_range fauna middle desert many mile nile red_sea since hans pioneer work corpus cover whole area considerably increase due work_present thanks mainly eastern desert survey rock art topographical survey construction comprehensive corpus enables analysis distribution image date significant majority rock_art site interpretation reason creation many probably make early period scholars generally date bce often show hunt scene associate boat even vessel integrate within them spatial_analysis carry work demonstrates