Neolithic Art - Blog Posts

The Cave of Beasts

The Cave of Beasts aka Mestikawi-Foggini Cave aka Foggini Cave aka Cave Wada Sura II is a natural rock shelter in the Egyptian part of the Libyan Desert. It is over 7000 years old and home to approximately 5000 Neolithic cave paintings.

Location and Discovery

The cave in question is located in an abandoned range of territory at the foot of the Gilf Kebir mountains, near Egypt’s border between Libya and Sudan, in one of the most arid regions of the Sahara desert.

Despite the age of the paintings, the cave’s discovery is relatively new, having only been found in 2002 by Archaeologists Massimo Foggini, Jacopo Foggine, and Ahmed Mestikawi. Though being in such a remote location, the relative newness of the discovery simultaneously comes as no surprise.

Despite its present-day aridity, 7000 years ago the cave was at the foot of a large lake, and the Sahara was humid and rich with plant and animal life. This would likely explain why our ancestors took up residence in the cave. But 6000 years ago, the climate changed, and became arid, depopulating the entire area and forming the desert we know today.

Depictions and Description

As with many cave paintings, this one prominently features abstract representation of animals and humans across a variety of different rituals; some day-to-day, such as hunting, some more mythic, such as slaying decidedly unreal creatures. But as the name implies, the cave predominantly depicts a variety of animals and creatures and human interaction with those creatures.

Several of the beats are seen eating humans whole, for example. While others are more naturalistic depictions of creatures we know to have existed and still exist, such as elephants, ostriches, gazelles, and giraffes.

The depictions of humans are not without noting, however. Many are dancing or floating, some are so abstract that they can only be considered “human like.” And the giant golden human shape looming over a series of smaller human shapes as they run away is more than a little curious. Without context it’s hard to say what this latter painting is truly about, but where some would assert it’s the preservation of an ancestral creation myth, others might claim it was a mythic beast that haunted our progenitors days.

The cave features many hand prints as well, made in relief by painting over a hand laid flat against the cave wall. But recently, February of this year, in fact, National Geographic made a claim that some of the hand prints were done by using lizard feet, such as those from monitor lizards, not exclusively human hands.