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The Wadi Sora celt |
Wadi Sora, the most important rock art site of the Gilf Kebir lies along the western scarp of the plateau. The 'caves' (wind excavated hollows at the base of a semi detached sandstone outlier) with rock paintings were discovered by Almasy during the 1933 Almasy-Frobenius expedition . While the archaeologist of the expedition, Hans Rhotert published the paintings in great detail, no published record was made of the archaeology of the area.
During our 1998 visit to Wadi Sora, a brief survey was made of the vicinity. The wadi itself is a short inlet along the western tip of the Gilf Kebir. The flat bottomed valley is nearly level with the plain at the base of the cliffs, and must have offered in prehistoric times just as now a sheltered inlet, that offers a clear view of the surrounding plain. The "caves" with rock paintings are located very close to the mouth of the inlet, which continues inwards for about one kilometre, with a conical inselberg occupying the inner middle of the valley. At the rear end, a high dune is blown against the face of the cliff, with a broad flat sandy area at it's base.
On this locality (which offers the best camping spot to this present day) we have noted a concentration of neolithic artifacts, composed mainly of well made microlithic and larger blades of quartzite, and the typical 'Gilf' type millstones of large grained sandstone. In the same area we found on the surface one implement that was strikingly different in both form and material from any other found, and unlike anything noted in the Egyptian part of the Lybian Desert
The implement is a ground, flat, pear shaped ax head with a distinct notch at it's tapering end, made of a fine grained green-grey igneous stone, tentatively identified as diorite or dolerite. (The closest possible source being the unnamed granite plateau 100 kms to the south, or the massifs of Jebel Uweinat or Jebel Arkenu, 50 kms beyond). The dimensions are: length 10.8 cm (longitudinal axis), maximum width 7.2 cm (near cutting edge), width at notch 5.7cm, maximum thickness 3.3 cm (ridge terminating notch) The lower (exposed) surface is pockmarked and polished by windblown sand, it's upper unabraded surface is smoothly ground but not polished. The sharpness of the cutting edge was obtained (and possibly maintained) by grinding the lower side flat at an angle to the cutting edge.
The only known similar implements are those found by Newbold in the Wadi Howar in 1923, at a straight line distance of 700kms to the south from Wadi Sora, and published in Sudan Notes & Records: "...we picked up from the floor of the depression five stone implements, like neolithic celts, ground and edged, but unpolished, and of very fine workmanship,..." Later and Newbold & Shaw discovered similar tools in the Wadi Howar, and one isolated example at Merga oasis in 1927, which were published in Antiquity: "... found more of the stone implements,... identified ... as being some of porphyrite, some micro-diorite, and some possibly dolerite... In type they are unlike any others I have seen or heard of ... ". More recently, Birgit Keding found a number of such implements in the Wadi Howar, and made the the most comprehensive treatment of this kind of axes ("Darfur axes") in her excavation monograph (Djabarona 84/13).
The discovery of this tool at Wadi Sora, hitherto known only from sites far to the south in Sudan, could point to a cultural link between the populations, already suspected from similarities in rock art, but unsupported by any archaeological evidence. For references, see:
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