Huyge D. 2018: The 'Headless Women' of Qurta (Upper Egypt): The Earliest Anthropomorphic Images i... more Huyge D. 2018: The 'Headless Women' of Qurta (Upper Egypt): The Earliest Anthropomorphic Images in Northern-African Rock Art, in Huyge D. & Van Noten F. (Guest Eds.): What Ever Happened to the People? Humans and Anthropomorphs in the Rock Art of Northern Africa, Brussels: Royal Academy for Overseas Sciences & Royal Museums of Art and History, 419-430.
Summary. - The earliest anthropomorphic representations in Northern-African rock art belong to the late Pleistocene Late Palaeolithic period (ca. 17,000-15,000 cal BCE). They have so far only been found in the Upper Egyptian Nile Valley (with some possibly contemporaneous examples in the north-central part of the Sinai Peninsula). Several of these figures bear a remarkable similarity to the anthropomorphs of the Gönnersdorf (or Gönnersdorf-Lalinde) type, the so-called ‘headless women’, well known from the substantially later Late Magdalenian cultural phase of Palaeolithic Europe (ca. 13,500-11,000 cal BCE). The current contribution describes these earliest Northern-African anthropomorphic images in some detail and attempts to interpret them in a wider geographical and cultural context.
Huyge D. 2018: Postscript, in Huyge D. & Van Noten F. (Guest Eds.): What Ever Happened to the Peo... more Huyge D. 2018: Postscript, in Huyge D. & Van Noten F. (Guest Eds.): What Ever Happened to the People? Humans and Anthropomorphs in the Rock Art of Northern Africa, Brussels: Royal Academy for Overseas Sciences & Royal Museums of Art and History, 551-552.
Huyge D. 2017: King Sahure in Elkab, Egyptian Archaeology. The Bulletin of The Egypt Exploration ... more Huyge D. 2017: King Sahure in Elkab, Egyptian Archaeology. The Bulletin of The Egypt Exploration Society 50, 41-43.
Huyge D. 2014: [Review of] The Rock Art of Lower Nubia (Czechoslovak Concession) and The Rock Pai... more Huyge D. 2014: [Review of] The Rock Art of Lower Nubia (Czechoslovak Concession) and The Rock Paintings of Lower Nubia (Czechoslovak Concession), by Lenka Suková, Chronique d’Egypte 91, 342-344.
Huyge D. 2015: De la préhistoire à l’Ancien Empire. Premiers cerceuils, in Delvaux L. & Therasse ... more Huyge D. 2015: De la préhistoire à l’Ancien Empire. Premiers cerceuils, in Delvaux L. & Therasse I., Sarcophages. Sous les étoiles de Nout, Bruxelles: Racine, 14-23.
Huyge D. & Claes W. 2013-2015: Art rupestre gravé paléolithique de Haute Egypte: El-Hosh et Qurta... more Huyge D. & Claes W. 2013-2015: Art rupestre gravé paléolithique de Haute Egypte: El-Hosh et Qurta, Bulletin de l’Association Scientifique Liégeoise pour la Recherche Archéologique (ASLiRA) 28, 21-39.
Huyge D. 2015: “Battered bulls” again: destruction and first attempts at conservation of rock art... more Huyge D. 2015: “Battered bulls” again: destruction and first attempts at conservation of rock art in Egypt, in Hassan F.A., Tassie G.J., Owens L.S., De Trafford A., van Wetering J. & El Daly O. (Eds.), The Management of Egypt’s Cultural Heritage, Volume 2, London: ECHO and Golden House Publications, 78-85. Abstract. - Largely eclipsed by the extraordinary remains of Pharaonic civilization, Egyptian rock art has not received much interest from the general public and the scientific community alike. Consequently, very little has thus far been undertaken to safeguard this immense but highly vulnerable patrimony consisting of many hundreds of sites and thousands of images, the vast majority of which are of prehistoric age. Through recent surveys, it has become clear how much rock art destruction must have taken place in the past, especially as a consequence of large-scale quarrying operations for building materials along the Nile and in the Eastern Desert. This destruction, alas, is ongoing, but some recent, spectacular rock art discoveries have contributed to a growing awareness among the Egyptian antiquities authorities of the scientific potential of rock art, its fundamental cultural value and possible economic relevance. As a consequence, some tentative attempts have been made in recent years to protect rock art sites by installing fences and/or putting local guards in place.
Huyge D. 2014: [Review of:] Kuper R. 2013: Wadi Sura – The Cave of Beasts. A rock art site in the... more Huyge D. 2014: [Review of:] Kuper R. 2013: Wadi Sura – The Cave of Beasts. A rock art site in the Gilf Kebir (SW-Egypt), Köln, Rock Art Research. Journal of the Australian Rock Art Research Association 31, 249-251.
Huyge D. 2014: The Painted Tomb, rock art and the recycling of Predynastic Egyptian imagery, Arch... more Huyge D. 2014: The Painted Tomb, rock art and the recycling of Predynastic Egyptian imagery, Archéo-Nil 24, 93-102. Abstract. - Using a variety of evidence, both from prehistoric Upper Egyptian rock art and representations on Predynastic archaeological objects, this contribution attempts to explain the apparently incongruous iconography of the famous Painted Tomb (Tomb 100) at Hierakonpolis. It proposes that the decoration of this elite burial may only be properly understood if one accepts a Naqada III modernization of the original Naqada IIC composition. Such a dynamic concept of recycling and updating may have important consequences for understanding other imagery from the same time period.
Huyge D. & Claes W. 2013: ‘IJstijdkunst’ in Qurta. De paleolithische ouderdom bewezen, Ta-Mery 6,... more Huyge D. & Claes W. 2013: ‘IJstijdkunst’ in Qurta. De paleolithische ouderdom bewezen, Ta-Mery 6, 116-127.
Huyge D. 2013: 10.000 ans avant “L’Art du contour”, in Delvaux L., Huyge D., Pierlot A., Therasse... more Huyge D. 2013: 10.000 ans avant “L’Art du contour”, in Delvaux L., Huyge D., Pierlot A., Therasse I. & Willemen C.: Regards sur le dessin égyptien, Bruxelles: MRAH, 12-23.
Huyge D. 2011: The head from a Third Dynasty private statue in the Egyptian collection of the Roy... more Huyge D. 2011: The head from a Third Dynasty private statue in the Egyptian collection of the Royal Museums of Art and History, Brussels (E.5592), Bulletin des Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire 82, 5-16. Summary. - The small stone head E.5592, which must have belonged to a private statue, was acquired by the RMAH in 1920. It has never been published or cited before. On the basis of a comparison with similar sculptures in the Louvre and the British Museum, it can be assigned to the Third Dynasty. As such, it is a welcome addition to the very small corpus of Egyptian non-royal pre-canonical statuary.
Huyge D., Vandenberghe D.A.G., De Dapper M., Mees F., Claes W. & Darnell J.C. 2012: Premiers témo... more Huyge D., Vandenberghe D.A.G., De Dapper M., Mees F., Claes W. & Darnell J.C. 2012: Premiers témoignages d’un art rupestre pléistocène en Afrique du Nord: confirmation de l’âge des pétroglyphes de Qurta (Egypte) par datation OSL de leur couverture sédimentaire, in Huyge D., Van Noten F. & Swinne D. (Guest Eds.): The Signs of Which Times? Chronological and Palaeoenvironmental Issues in the Rock Art of Northern Africa, Brussels: Royal Academy for Overseas Sciences, 257-268. Resumé. - La question de l’existence d’un art rupestre pré-holocène en Afrique du Nord a soulevé des débats pendant des décennies. Des trouvailles récentes en Egypte, plus spécifiquement à Qurta dans la vallée du Nil en Haute-Egypte, fournissent à présent les premiers témoignages d’un art rupestre figuratif sophistiqué
datant du pléistocène, au nord du continent africain. Des sédiments éoliens ayant recouvert en partie les pétroglyphes des panneaux de Qurta II ont permis d’obtenir une suite de dates par la technique de luminescence stimulée optiquement (optically stimulated luminescence ou OSL), démontrant que l’âge minimum de l’art rupestre remonte à ~15 000 années calendaires. Ces résultats prouvent indéniablement que les gravures rupestres de Qurta sont de loin les plus anciennes retrouvées jusqu’à ce jour en Afrique du Nord.
Huyge D. 2012: Postscript, in Huyge D., Van Noten F. & Swinne D. (Guest Eds.): The Signs of Which... more Huyge D. 2012: Postscript, in Huyge D., Van Noten F. & Swinne D. (Guest Eds.): The Signs of Which Times? Chronological and Palaeoenvironmental Issues in the Rock Art of Northern Africa, Brussels: Royal Academy for Overseas Sciences, 375-377.
Huyge D. & Storemyr P. 2012: A ‘masterpiece’ of Epipalaeolithic geometric rock art from el-Hosh, ... more Huyge D. & Storemyr P. 2012: A ‘masterpiece’ of Epipalaeolithic geometric rock art from el-Hosh, Upper Egypt, Sahara. Revue de préhistoire et histoire sahariennes 23, 127-132.
Huyge D. & Willems H. 2012: Belges d’hier et d’aujourd’hui en Egypte, in Bavay L., Bruwier M.-C.,... more Huyge D. & Willems H. 2012: Belges d’hier et d’aujourd’hui en Egypte, in Bavay L., Bruwier M.-C., Claes W. & De Strooper I. (Eds.): Ceci n’est pas une pyramide… Un siècle de recherche archéologique belge en Egypte, Leuven: Peeters, 16-19.
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Papers by Dirk Huyge
Summary. - The earliest anthropomorphic representations in Northern-African rock art belong to the late Pleistocene Late Palaeolithic period (ca. 17,000-15,000 cal BCE). They have so far only been found in the Upper Egyptian Nile Valley (with some possibly contemporaneous examples in the north-central part of the Sinai Peninsula). Several of these figures bear a remarkable similarity to the anthropomorphs of the Gönnersdorf (or Gönnersdorf-Lalinde) type, the so-called ‘headless women’, well known from the substantially later Late Magdalenian cultural phase of Palaeolithic Europe (ca. 13,500-11,000 cal BCE). The current contribution describes these earliest Northern-African anthropomorphic images in some detail and attempts to interpret them in a wider geographical and cultural context.
datant du pléistocène, au nord du continent africain. Des sédiments éoliens ayant recouvert en partie les pétroglyphes des panneaux de Qurta II ont permis d’obtenir une suite de dates par la technique de luminescence stimulée optiquement (optically stimulated luminescence ou OSL), démontrant que l’âge minimum de l’art rupestre remonte à ~15 000 années calendaires. Ces résultats prouvent indéniablement que les gravures rupestres de Qurta sont de loin les plus anciennes retrouvées jusqu’à ce jour en Afrique du Nord.