Qurta Rock Art: Cultural Exchange in the Mediterranean

The discovery in the early 2000s of animal rock engravings near the village of Qurta in the Nile Valley (Upper Egypt) remains little discussed. This article focuses on the numerous stylistic links between these engravings and European Pleistocene figurations. These analogies allow us to date Qurta approximately to the end of the Last Glacial Maximum (between the end of Gravettian-Solutrean art and the beginning of Magdalenian art). This estimate is confirmed by OSL-dating obtained from a buried engraved panel from Qurta. The hypothesis as to European origin of the images is also reinforced by the presence of schematic female engravings identical to those scattered throughout Eurasia. The possibility of Mediterranean cultural exchange is considered. Several communication routes were possible. Taking into account the published documentation, we infer that the engravings at Qurta are less isolated than they appear and that rock engravings located on the Cyrenaican coast and in the Sinai could be the result of repeated contacts (including migrations) of people inhabiting the two shores of the Mediterranean.