18 July 2025 The Future is the Product of the Past

Staging of religion on rock paintings that are thousands of years old in southern Egypt desert

Egyptologists at the University of Bonn and the University of Aswan want to systematically record hundreds of petroglyphs and inscriptions dating from the Neolithic to the Arab period and document them in a database.

The desert in southern Egypt is filled with hundreds of petroglyphs and inscriptions oldest dating from the fifth millennium B.C. and few have been studied. A more than 5,000-year-old rock painting that shows a boat being pulled by 25 men on a rope among them stands out in particular.

“The first newly discovered sources shed new light on the pre-Pharaonic period of the Fourth Millennium and the importance of the socio-cultural periphery,” says Egyptologist Prof. Dr. Ludwig Morenz of the University of Bonn.

Mohamed Abdel Hay Abu Baker, who was specifically responsible for researching the rock images at the Aswan Inspectorate, among the images that captured during his explorations in the field, one, in particular, stood out to the Egyptologist from the University of Bonn.

It is depicted over the bumps and edges of the rock, how a boat is pulled by 25 men with raised arms on a rope. A ritual is obviously impressively shown here – namely the great procession of an image of the gods, according to Morenz.

This is clear from image details, he said: the boat with shrine and standard and, in particular, the cattle horns, which are typical of sacred imagery. “This rock image gives us insights into the sacred design of an apparently remote landscape, the Wadi al Agebab, which is still largely unknown in research,” says the Egyptologist.

The entire later Pharaonic culture is based on the beginnings of the pictorial staging of religion. Morenz: “Here, the high importance of religion and especially the cult of the gods in the still pre-Egyptian society of the second half of the Fourth Millennium is revealed as a culture-creating factor.”

Rock image - with ruler boat procession, ca. 3200 BC, Wadi al Agebab. © Photo: Mohamed Abdel Hay Abu Baker
Rock image – with ruler boat procession, ca. 3200 BC, Wadi al Agebab. © Photo: Mohamed Abdel Hay Abu Baker

Documentation

“This cultural treasure in the northeast of Aswan has been largely undocumented, let alone published,” says Egyptologist Prof. Dr. Ludwig Morenz of the University of Bonn.

The petroglyphs are found in numerous and often remote locations in dried-up river valleys, called “wadis” in Arabic. At the same time, the petroglyphs, which are sometimes inconspicuous at first glance, are under severe threat, especially from current quarrying activities in the desert.

 “Especially in recent years, there has already been serious destruction of this cultural asset,” says Morenz, who is also a member of the Cluster of Excellence Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS) and the Transdisciplinary Research Area “Present Pasts” at the University of Bonn. “Such losses can hardly be prevented completely, given the vastness of the area, but all the more important is at least good documentation.”

In the course of his doctoral studies at Aswan University in Aswan, Abu Baker will now work together with the University of Bonn to create a comprehensive database with an image archive on rock images. For this purpose, the University of Excellence Bonn supports the inspector of the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities for one year with a scholarship from excellence funds of the federal and state governments. Prof. Morenz is the second supervisor of the dissertation.

Cover Photo: Rock image – with ruler boat procession, ca. 3200 BC, Wadi al Agebab. © Photo: Mohamed Abdel Hay Abu Baker

University of Bonn

Related Articles

A rare 2,500-year-old shipwreck found off the Greek island of Kythera

5 November 2021

5 November 2021

A rare shipwreck from the ancient era was discovered during the maritime survey for the Crete-Peloponnese subsea link. The Independent...

The earliest manuscript of Gospel about Jesus’s childhood discovered in Germany

14 June 2024

14 June 2024

A newly deciphered manuscript dating back 1,600 years has been determined to be the oldest record of Jesus Christ’s childhood,...

Tombs rich in artifacts discovered by Swedish archaeologists in Cyprus

7 July 2023

7 July 2023

A Swedish archaeological expedition made the extraordinary discovery of tombs outside the Bronze Age trading metropolis of Hala Sultan Tekke...

A sanctuary for Cult God Mithras discovered in Germany

13 April 2023

13 April 2023

A place of worship for the Roman god of light, Mithras, was discovered during archaeological excavations in Trier, in southwestern...

Ancient skeletons buried with gold jewelry and expensive leather shoes found in newly discovered Roman necropolis in Italy

5 January 2024

5 January 2024

Archaeologists involved in a two-year-long excavation project at the site of a planned solar energy plant ancient city of Tarquinia,...

2000-Year-Old Marvel: The Mystery of the Parthian Battery

1 March 2024

1 March 2024

The Parthian Battery is believed to be about 2000 years old (from the Parthian period, roughly 250 BCE to CE...

Oldest prayer beads made from salmon vertebrae found on England’s Holy island

28 June 2022

28 June 2022

On the island of Lindisfarne, just off the coast of Northumberland, known in England as the “Holy Island“, archaeologists have...

An Egyptian Tomb Decorated with Magic Snake Spells Discovered

9 November 2023

9 November 2023

During excavations at Abusir, between Giza and Saqqara, archaeologists at the Czech Institute of Egyptology (CIE) found an ancient tomb...

4500-year-old tiger-patterned ritual weapon uncover in east China

4 April 2023

4 April 2023

Archaeologists discovered an extremely rare stone relic, an axe-shaped weapon used for rituals in ancient China, engraved with a tiger...

Archaeologists discover one of the largest Phallus Relief Carving of ancient Rome

28 August 2022

28 August 2022

According to an announcement by the region’s local history museum, a large Roman-era relief carving of a phallus has been...

The Roman Imperial period, There was Less Waste in the Production of Marble Slabs than Today

17 May 2021

17 May 2021

When talking about the architecture of the ancient Roman Empire, most people usually think of the mental image of white...

The Oklahoma City Museum of Art will launch “The Painters of Pompeii” on June 26

23 June 2021

23 June 2021

A number of collection highlights will travel to North America for the first time as part of the exhibition The...

A First! This Study on Pregnancy in the Viking Age Illuminates Warrior Women and the Fate of Babies

14 May 2025

14 May 2025

A groundbreaking interdisciplinary study by Viking experts from the Universities of Nottingham and Leicester has shed new light on the...

Gold coin hoard discovered in a cup beneath a North Yorkshire kitchen floor is being auctioned off

7 September 2022

7 September 2022

A couple in North Yorkshire found an early 18th-century gold coin hoard buried under the floorboards of their kitchen. The...

“Scythian golds” will be returned to Ukraine

15 November 2021

15 November 2021

The fate of the Scythian Golds, which were sent to be exhibited in the Allard Pierson Museum before the Russian...