Olive jars, gold chains and coins are among a treasure trove of new artefacts from a legendary shipwreck.'It's very challenging for us as researchers to interpret these paintings since we have a culture that's totally different ,' she said. It is believed hunter gathers held up the creatures to make the prints, many of which were found alongside adult sized human hand stencils.īut according to the National Geographic, Honoré is reluctant to speculate on why such a civilisation would imprint the legs of animals on their cave walls. Rainfall in the desert's centre averages less than 2 millimetres a year, but the region was once much less arid. The 'Cave of Beasts' is 6 miles (10 km) from the 'Cave of the Swimmers', but with far more, and better preserved, images. The mass exodus corresponds with the rise of sedentary life along the Nile that later blossomed into pharaonic civilisation that dominated the region for thousands of years.Īnthropologist Emmanuelle Honoré (right) of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research said she was stunned when she saw the shape of the unusually small prints By 3500 BC, the settlements disappeared entirely. The Eastern Sahara, a region the size of Western Europe that extends from Egypt into Libya, Sudan and Chad, is the world's largest warm, dry desert.Ībout 8500 BC, seasonal rainfall appeared in the region, attracting hunter-gatherers.īy 5300 BC, the rains had stopped and human settlements receded to highland areas. The 'Cave of Beasts' is 6 miles (10 km) from the 'Cave of the Swimmers' romanticised in the film the 'English Patient', but with far more, and better preserved, images.

The cave, which is also known as Wadi Sura II, includes 5,000 images that were painted or engraved into stone around 8,000 years earlier. Amateur explorers stumbled across the cave in 2002, in the vast, empty desert near Egypt's southwest border with Libya and SudanĪmateur explorers stumbled across the cave in 2002, in the vast, empty desert near Egypt's southwest border with Libya and Sudan.

Iphone xs max metro exodus image