Ancient and enormous South American rock art
Ancient and enormous South American rock art mapped for first time reveals mysterious 100-foot-long snake
The 2,000-year-old engravings, called petroglyphs, are located on a group of islands within the Atures Rapids, in the Amazonas State of Venezuela. The research is part of the ongoing Cotúa Island-Orinoco Reflexive Archaeology Project, now in the third of a planned four-year study. The purpose of the project is to examine the “cultural mosaic” around the Atures Rapids, according to Philip Riris, a member of the project and post-doctoral researcher at University College London Institute of Archaeology. The project, one of the first in-depth studies of its kind, is tracing the way pre-Columbian cultures interacted with one another, with a goal of better understanding how those interactions shaped lowland South America’s more recent history.
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Researchers hope that mapping the petroglyphs will shed new light into their archaeological and ethnographic context.Eight groups of engraved rock art were recorded on five islands within the Rapids. The largest panel is 304 square metres, and contains at least 93 individual engravings, the largest of which measure several metres across.
Another engraving of a horned snake measures more than 30 metres in length. In one panel surveyed, a motif of a flautist surrounded by other human figures probably depicts part of an indigenous rite of renewal. Performances coincided with the seasonal emergence of the engravings from the river just before the onset of the wet season, when the islands are more accessible and the harvest would take place.
This reminded me so much of the Voyager Golden Record showing life on earth and where to find us, i don't know why but it popped into my mind and i just had do research just to be sure.
Thanks for sharing Owls <3