cave of beasts earned its name from the 30+ figures of headless large creatures, depicted often interacting with humans. These “beasts” appear to hold tiny humans or hybrid creatures. They are mostly the center of attention, surrounded by humans who are eager to touch them. Sometimes they all seem to be dancing together. A lot of them also have oddly elongated necks.

In a scene, two headless yellow beasts stretch their arms to welcome what looks like a tiny human (or a child?)

A similar creature was also found in Cave of swimmers in the same place. Such depictions of headless creatures in a similar manner have not been found outside this region.

Upon further research, most beasts were headless, while some were depicted with heads and intentionally disfigured by the ones who drew it. There seems to be no decipherment of this as of now.

source1 https://www.fjexpeditions.com/resources/beasts/Wadi_Sura_in_the_context_of_regional_rock_art_Africa_Praehistorica_26_pp_18_23.pdf

  • Artwork@lemmy.worldEnglish
    91·
    3 个月前

    Thank you for the share! I haven’t read about the work yet, but the first idea that came is that the creature is the very Sun! ^^
    And the author tried to express people happiness alongside the happy huge magnificent Sun that shines on.

  • OwOarchist@pawb.socialEnglish
    8·
    3 个月前

    I don’t think the ‘creature’ was originally headless. There’s a faint bit of the top of its head left, and a chunk missing from the rock underneath. The (partially) missing head, I think, is just due to the underlying rock being damaged.

    I’m also not sure I buy the ‘eager to touch them’ interpretation here. The human figures around are in several different kinds of poses, a lot of which seem unrelated to the ‘creature’. In fact, it looks as if the smaller figures are older and the large yellow figure was added later – the yellow figure seems to overlap and cover up some of the others. For all we know, the yellow ‘creature’ could have been added hundreds of years later, after the other figures were already old.

  • SGforce@lemmy.ca
    4·
    3 个月前

    To me it looks like the large orange and maybe transparent creature is dancing while the people are gathered around holding hands. Also, lots of people on the ground. That and the fact that the creature’s “face” has chunk missing lots to me like a disaster struck and they’re burning bodies while praying. And pissed off at the dancing creature.

  • redsand@infosec.pub
    2·
    3 个月前

    I remember seeing a some specific aurora patterns that look like this from simulations of a carrington level solar flare. Could be unrelated but interesting

  • Asidonhopo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    3 个月前

    Looks like a bit of sex happening on the left side there. Some enigmatic figures there, like the people in the lower center left with the tattoos(?) and the confusing figure by the right foot of the yellow giant. Would love to see the entire image!