ArtFire

We found this Natufian petroglyph or stone writing on our way home from a camp out in Wadi Rum on the Jordanian Desert. You may be familiar with the place as it is shown in the movie Lawrence of Arabia. The Natufians left a large footprint in the areas now covered by Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Turkey and Jordan. One of the ways they made themselves known to the present day are the 12,000 year old signs they pecked into limestone and sandstone canyons of the desert, called wadis by the present populations in the area. The signs are made with a sharp tool by pricking the surface and graving out the lines of the figures with a permanent white pigment on the pointed tool.

The Natufians have been traced from North Africa to Lebanon and then it is assumed they spread throughout this region with a mild climate that offered much more rainfall and ground cover than it provides now. The pollen studies show that the region provided forest and grass and a water supply as well as wild grains and wild life.

The Natufians were semi sedentary; they did not farm, but they did settle in places for a while with their herds of domestic sheep and goats and their dogs. They buried their dead with rituals, and were accomplished stone tool makers. In fact, some of the most beautiful tools in my collection were made in the time period that the Natufians were settled in Wadi Rum. While there we found a small site with beautifully veined quartz tools, small, roundish and flatter than those made by the cultures in the Middle Stone Age and earlier.

But the rarest and most mysterious artifacts left by the Natufians are their petroglyphs. We picked this stone up from the ground surface, not far from the scatter of stone tools that we had found among the only trees still struggling for survival in present day Wadi Rum. Obviously some 12,000 years before we walked there, a settlement of Natufians had lived there in a more hospitable climate for trees and humans.

Measurements: 7 inches (18 cm) high, 5 inches (13 cm) across, 1.5 inches (4 cm) thick

For more detailed information, I refer you to amirazira.wordpress.com, who has written a summary of a study she did of the Natufian culture.

stone

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