Study and publication of the heritage of the Nubian archaeological expedition of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Petroglyphs of Umm-el-Agaib (Khukab-Karar). Part 2. Historical and cultural context of the site

Abstract

Introduction. This article is a publication of the first results of the work under the grant of the Russian Sciences Foundation "Scientific research of the Nubian Archaeological Expedition of the USSR Academy of Sciences 1961–1963…" related to the study of petroglyphs found during the work of the Nubian Expedition of the USSR Academy of Sciences, organized in 1961.

Materials and methods. After construction of the Aswan dam, the territories where the Soviet expedition worked as well as many other foreign scientific organizations, were flooded. Thus, the negatives of black-and-white photographs of petroglyphs preserved in the archives, along with some previously published data, are the only source of our information. Individual petroglyphs and groups of petroglyphs have never been outlined properly. This became our task at the first stage, when the drawings of individual signs were made in the Photoshop program (Adobe Photoshop CC version 10.1.2 ×64).

Results and discussion. In recent decades the study of petroglyphs of the Eastern and Nubian deserts has become one of the main areas of archaeologists’ work. It seems relevant to us to re-study the petroglyphs discovered by the Nubian Soviet expedition, analysis of some subjects and images, development of the main approaches to study.

The study of the approaches existing in the scientific literature to the dating and classification of petroglyphs of the Eastern and Nubian deserts gives an idea of the disputable nature of the most chronologies. The study of petroglyphs of Hukab-Karar is complicated by the limitations of the source – the quality of the photo does not always allow us to draw conclusions about the technique of execution of a particular sign. Nevertheless, a number of these petroglyphs can be dated by analogy with the petroglyphs from the well-known sites, as well as using published and handwritten descriptions of the participants of the Nubian expedition.

Conclusion. About 200 petroglyphs discovered by the Nubian Expedition of the USSR Academy of Sciences in a place called Umm-Aghaib (Huqab-Karar) have been published. Among them are numerous images of African fauna are presented. There are also images of hunting scenes, animals and birds, boats, tribal signs, anthropomorphic images dating to the widest historical period. © 2023. This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 license.

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