source Yahoo News
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis
Thu Oct 11, 2007
Photos
DAMASCUS (Reuters) -
French archaeologists have discovered
an 11,000-year-old wall painting underground in northern Syria
which they believe is the oldest in the world.
The 2 square-meter painting, in red, black and white, was
found at the Neolithic settlement of Djade al-Mughara on the
Euphrates, northeast of the city of Aleppo, team leader Eric
Coqueugniot told Reuters.
"It looks like a modernist painting. Some of those who saw
it have likened it to work by (Paul) Klee. Through carbon
dating we established it is from around 9,000 B.C.,"
Coqueugniot said.
"We found another painting next to it, but that won't be
excavated until next year. It is slow work," said Coqueugniot,
who works at France's National Centre for Scientific Research.
Rectangles dominate the ancient painting, which formed part
of an adobe circular wall of a large house with a wooden roof.
The site has been excavated since the early 1990s.
The painting will be moved to Aleppo's museum next year,
Coqueugniot said. Its red came from burnt hematite rock,
crushed limestone formed the white and charcoal provided the
black.
The world's oldest painting on a constructed wall was one
found in Turkey but that was dated 1,500 years after the one at
Djade al-Mughara, according to Science magazine.
The inhabitants of Djade al-Mughara lived off hunting and
wild plants. They resembled modern day humans in looks but were
not farmers or domesticated, Coqueugniot said.
"There was a purpose in having the painting in what looked
like a communal house, but we don't know it. The village was
later abandoned and the house stuffed with mud," he said.
A large number of flints and weapons have been found at the
site as well as human skeletons buried under houses.
"This site is one of several Neolithic villages in modern
day Syria and southern Turkey. They seem to have communicated
with each other and had peaceful exchanges," Coqueugniot said.
Mustafa Ali, a leading Syrian artist, said similar
geometric design to that in the Djade al-Mughara painting found
its way into art throughout the Levant and Persia, and can even
be seen in carpets and kilims (rugs).
"We must not lose sight that the painting is
archaeological, but in a way it's also modern," he said.
France is an important contributor to excavation efforts in
Syria, where 120 teams are at work. Syria was at the crossroads
of the ancient world and has thousands of mostly unexcavated
archaeological sites.
source Yahoo News
HemuZ Planetary
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