New Book: Swimmers in the Sand

From Miroslav Bárta

Swimmers in the Sand. On the Neolithic Origins of Ancient Egyptian Mythology and Symbolism

ISBN 978-80-87025-26-0, 112 pages
Publisher: Dryada: Prague
Publication date: April 2010
Author: Miroslav Bárta, photographs Martin Frouz

I couldn't find this on any of the usual online retailers but perhaps it is not available just yet. I for one am interested in getting hold of this title so if anyone finds it available online please let me know.

The origins of ancient Egyptian civilisation have been attracting the attention of archaeologist ever since the beginnings of Egyptology more than 200 years ago. This book presents a new and original interpretation of the rock art in Egyptian Western Desert which is of a key importance for our understanding of the roots of ancient Egyptian civilisation. Indeed, her very origins can be most likely dated to the 6th millennium B.C. In this time and the centuries to follow the paintings in the Cave of the Swimmers known from a blockbuster English Patient and in the Cave of Beasts discovered only few years ago were created. These caves are located in a distant and hardly accessible part of Egypt, on the border of Egypt, Libya and Sudan.

The rock-art preserved in these caves features several unique motifs that will become cornerstone of ancient Egyptian iconography and mythology. Among them may be named the motif of the sky goddess and the earth god, prototypic representation of an ancient chieftain in the much later pharaonic guise or the concept of cave creatures protecting the entrance to the Netherworld.

During the Fifth and Fourth millennia B.C. the vast areas of Western Desert suffered from a major depredation of climate that most likely caused a gradual evacuation of the region and instigated appearance of permanent settlements in the Nile valley which led to genesis of ancient Egyptian culture. The present study aims to present a theory according to which at least some parts of the discussed rock art in the Western Desert was created by an ancient mind that later on contributed to the intellectual emergence of ancient Egyptian civilisation in the Nile valley.