Early in 2010 I was informed that our friend Andras Zboray was willing to visit the Emeri Highland sites we published (nobody really discover a rock art site, just report it). It was a long time I was planning a fourth expedition to the Emeri Higland thus I proposed Andras to plan togheter a joint expedition, aimed at the last white spots on the map unchecked for rock art. I do not belong to the last wave of snob travellers and

I think sharing a genuine passion for prehistory studies is a god thing. I never tried to fuck other researchers by trying to hit their preferred placed first. To me, rock art research is not a race.

With my friends I had "discovered" some outstanding rock art sites but we never though of imposing our names on them nor we was so foolish to advertise them as extraordinary discoveries in newspaper or TV specials or on the Internet. I was more than enough happy to succeed in publishing on scientific magazines no hooligans will never read. Actually, rock art does not need advertising of any sort! Contarry to what some professional archaelogist wrote, rock art is not a ressource to be exploited.

Up and down on the Uweinat granitic slopes

It was a long time I have been studying with a sophisticated GIS system and the original Quickbird high resolution images the Uweinat, selecting the best prospective area where to look for prehistoric traces and the remaining unreported rock art sites. With the experience in rock art hunting accumulated in the previous years it was straightforward to compile a long check list of place to explore for improving the Uweinat inventory of rock art sites.

On the granite highland of the Libyan Uweinat

Our November 2010 expedition was a success. Not for the forty previously unreported rock art sites we documented only but for the better documentation we got of already reported or published sites. The most important discoveries were from them, including a site that was discovered in 1961 and was subsequently visited by thousands of tourists in the usual hit and run visit of the Libyan Uweinat!

Entering the Marchesi Valley

As soon as we were back from the Uweinat, our friend Andras published on his web site a very detailed account of the trip. It took a quite long bit of time ordering, analysing and studying the huge amount of data we have collected on the field. By restless working during all my spare time, I assembled a thirty pages long report, which is very preliminary in realtion to the novelty introduced by the findings in the rock art body of the Jebel Uweinat. The really important discoveries were not spectacular or worth a travel for ordinary tourists but they are very important from a scientific point of view. Actually the newly reported prehistoric paintings were not even visible by naked eye. They emerged by digitally processing the near 2000 images acquired with various techniques.These are the discoveries that will not make you a celebrity but make possible to grasp something of the passed away humanity encapsulated in the Uweinat shelters. We undesrtood by their images their beloved world.

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Emeri IV -November 2010 - Next