Unique, prehistoric rock art drawings have been found within the Andriamamelo Cave in western Madagascar.
I used to be a part of a workforce that found and described these ancient treasures. They’re the primary really pictorial art, depicting photos of nature with human-like and animal-like figures, to be seen on the island. Until not too long ago, rock art in Madagascar had solely yielded just a few websites with primary symbols.
The dramatic discoveries contained a number of surprises, together with hints at some exceptional cultural connections.
First, scenes depicted in some instances linked up pretty on to Egyptian non secular motifs from the Ptolemaic interval (300-30 BCE)
Second, different inferences from symbols and writing on the partitions confirmed connections to the Ethiopian and Afro-Arab worlds.
Finally, prevalent symbology and motifs evoked a two-millennia-old cave art model from Borneo.
An extra realm of surprises: at least three extinct animals of Madagascar (thought to have been extinct for a lot of centuries) could also be depicted – an enormous sloth lemur, elephant birds and an enormous tortoise.
It has lengthy been believed – and proof has confirmed – that the individuals, language, and tradition of Madagascar are rooted in distant ancient connections to Borneo, an island in south-east Asia, mixed with sturdy influences from continental jap Africa.
However, who the primary Malagasy had been, once they arrived, and what they did after that, are all hotly debated subjects.
Though our findings are speculative, any data that is likely to be derived from the Andriamamelo Cave proof is of appreciable curiosity to the reconstruction of Malagasy early historical past.
Connections past Madagascar
Our analysis group – together with Malagasy scientists from native establishments, and American, British and Australian specialists – visited the positioning close to the village of Anahidrano on the north-west fringe of the 17,100-hectare Beanka protected space in 2013.
Our workforce spent a number of days recording the pictures, surveying and mapping the whole cave, trying to find related archaeological websites, and interviewing native villagers relating to the art. It took a number of years, nevertheless, to go looking by way of related literature and museum archives to verify the individuality and significance of what we’d discovered.
We made digital copies and hand-drawings of 72 cave-art objects. These had been drawn in black pigment and included 16 animals, six human types, two human-animal hybrid types, two geometric designs, 16 examples of an M-shaped image, and many different patterns and vague types.
Egyptian connections are hinted at in eight main photos, together with a falcon (Horus); the bird-headed god Thoth; the ostrich goddess Ma`at and two human-animal figures which had been just like Anubis – an ancient Egyptian god normally depicted as a person with a canine head.
Anubis.
| Photo Credit:
David Burney/The Conversation
The ubiquitous and mysterious M-figures demand clarification: we instructed, after looking many related alphabets, that it’s a excellent match for just one, the letter “hawt” (ሐ) within the ancient Ethiopian Amharic alphabet, pronounced “ha”.
M determine.
| Photo Credit:
David Burney/The Conversation
Surprisingly, although, we additionally discovered this image in cave art from Borneo regarded as about 2,000 years previous, and in no different cave or rock art all through the Indo-Pacific area. In some Austronesian languages (the various language household that extends from Malagasy on the west to distant Hawaii and Rapa Nui within the Pacific), the phrase “ha” is a time period for the “breath of life”.
All these potential connections remind us that Madagascar’s individuals, language, and tradition are in themselves syncretic, mixing African and Asian influences to provide a singular Malagasy individuals.
The richly detailed and numerous art is notable additionally for what it doesn’t present.
No Christian, Muslim or Hindu symbolism is depicted, and no comparatively trendy motifs such because the Latin alphabet, automobiles, airplanes or flags. Even the ever-present zebu (cattle), the culturally paramount image of the final thousand years or extra in Madagascar, are absent.
When and whose
It’s onerous to know precisely when these drawings had been made. Direct relationship of cave art is notoriously troublesome, and proved so on this case because the black pigment was constructed from darkish inorganic minerals with solely a small part of charcoal we may use for radiocarbon relationship.
The presence of extinct animals, and the dearth of contemporary motifs and the alphabet utilized in trendy Malagasy, weigh closely in opposition to the notion of a current origin for the art.
We suspect that the art is about 2,000 years previous – relationship again to the time of Cleopatra or earlier than, primarily based on the non secular motifs. If it’s, that’s exceptional and helpful to know as a result of it could present proof for who colonised Madagascar and when.
If, then again, a set of pre-Christian non secular beliefs has survived for hundreds of years and even millennia amongst sure ethnic teams in very distant areas of the immense island – retaining recognisable influences from Egypt, Ethiopia and Borneo – that might be maybe extra exceptional. Village informants hinted at that chance, by insisting that the “sorcerer” pictured was a member of a mysterious group of “Vazimba” or “Bosy”) who lived within the forest close by.
So, whose art is that this? We want we knew, however clues are principally missing. The solely potential writing, in addition to the M-figures, is a line of faint script within the decrease proper nook of this rock-art extravaganza.
Our finest guess is that the legible center six of eight characters, inferred to be sorabe, archaic Malagasy writing in Arabic script, could say “D-A-NT-IA-R-K”.
Does that seek advice from Antiochus IV Epiphanes? This king of the Seleucid Empire (western Asia) within the Ptolemaic interval constructed a big navy, conquered a lot of Egypt in 170 BCE, and despatched exploring and buying and selling expeditions down the Red Sea and the east African coast. Ivory merchants in that interval unfold Roman items as far south as ports in Tanzania south of Zanzibar, to commerce with Azania.
Until extra art or related archaeological proof turns up for ancient African and Asian influences in Madagascar, we will solely speculate.
David Burney is professor of conservation palaeobiology, National Tropical Botanical Garden, Hawaii, and adjunct professor, University of Hawaii. This article is republished from The Conversation.
