Abstract
Cave Art in Palestine.—In Man for May, Miss D. A. E. Garrod figures and describes three objects of meso-lithic age from the cave of Mugharet-el-Wad, which lies at the foot of Mount Carmel. The cave consists of a large well-lit chamber and long inner corridor facing north-west and commanding a wide view of the plain. In November 1928 it was found by means of trial trenches that the cave contains a very abundant microlithic industry, without associated pottery, closely resembling the mesolithic industry found at Shubka in western Judæa in the spring of 1928. In association with this industry Mr. Lambert, the excavator, found a carved bone and pierced shoulder blade. The carving represents a young cervine animal fashioned partly in the round and partly in relief at the end of a fragment of some fairly large long bone. The head is thrown back, possibly in the act of sucking, and the detail of the head is beautifully rendered. The large eyes with well-marked tear glands are very typical of the young deer. Both ears are present. The legs are carved in low relief on the shaft of the bone and show two series of horizontal incisions at the joint. There are also a series of parallel notches on the breast, possibly intended to represent loose skin. The shoulder blade which was found has a large elliptical hole cut through the thick part of the bone, close to the articular end. It recalls the baton de commandement of western Europe. The British School of Archæology took over the excavations from May to July 1929. It was found that the archæological sequence is Early Bronze, Mesolithic, Upper Palæolithic, Capsian, Middle Aurignacian, Early Middle Aurignacian, Mousterian—the most complete prehistoric sequence yet discovered in Palestine. At the base of the Mesolithic was discovered a crude representation of a human head shaped from a fragment of compact banded impure calcite—the first work of art of the Stone Age to be discovered in Palestine.
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Research Items. Nature 125, 794–796 (1930). https://doi.org/10.1038/125794a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/125794a0