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A ‘Nubian Touch’? – A Rock Art Perspective on Culture Contacts in the First Cataract Area during the Fourth Millennium BCE

par Brémont, Axelle;Vanhulle, Dorian
Editeur scientifique Förster, Frank;Gatto, Maria;Medici, Paolo;Polkowski, Paweł;Sperveslage, Gunnar
Référence Current Research in the Rock Art of the Eastern Sahara In Memory of Dirk Huyge (1957–2018), GHP London, Londres, Ed. 1, page (267-294)
Publication Publié, 2025

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Résumé :

Rock art from the fourth millennium BCE in Upper Egypt and Nubia is mostly characterised by depictions of animal, human and boat figures. If differences in their morphologies can be attributed to diachronic variation or to specific ‘styles’, some are best explained in terms of regional specificities. Their geographical distribution yields interesting information on diverse populations’ core territory and travelling habits, as well as clues to culture contacts dynamics. Maria Carmela Gatto has pointed out “the presence of a regional variant of the Naqadan culture combining (...) both Egyptian and Nubian traditions” (Gatto 2006). The co-presence of iconographical types that seem specific to the First and Second Cataract areas with others that appear borrowed and/or reinterpreted from the Naqadan tradition corroborates, from a rock art point of view, this archaeological observation. As did already the ceramics traditions, the rock art too seems to point to the First Cataract serving as a regional hub, connecting both populations and triggering innovative dynamics of borrowing, sharing, and reinterpreting.