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abu wasil
WADI ABU WASIL-Site 26
Hans Winkler recorded Site 26 and relocating it was high on our agenda. A previous attempt had come up against a route blocked by boulders and another by a sand dune. Skirting round these obstacles in Feb. 1998, we came to what we thought was the right wadi. Unfortunately, Winkler's notes said that there was "good vegetation." We all remarked that this was one of the driest wadis we had seen!

However, turning the corner the amount of scrub on the desert floor increased markedly. Winkler noted, "It is near the edge where the sandstone touches the igneous mountains. It seems that this situation produced here and there well-watered fertile valleys, so that it attracted early men."

26 actually consists of a number of rock art sides on both sides of the wadi. The main tableau faces south and is on a vertical rock face approached by a low sand dune.
Left of main rock face and a bit of a climb, sail boat and flock of ostriches.
Site 26 main panorama with "Chieftains" tableau left. Right foreground; bovids and boats on flat rock with incurved sickle boat with cabin, ARF within, being dragged by 5 figures on triangular rock in front.
Slaughter of tethered quadruped (bovid?)
Large boat (114 cm) with two large figures (92 and 83 cm) with bows with twin plumes and three smaller figures. Right: large chieftain figure with outstretched arms. Above: Boat with 11 crew and large twin-plumed figure (45 cm) figure holding throw stick. Bovid held by rope to figure. Other tethering/ lassooing figures and more boats.
Near and below the rock to the right on fallen boulder, unidentified curvilinear shapes-any suggestions?
On a sloping rock 150 metres east of the main tableau-antelopes, elephant, bovids, ibex, hunters and 7 plumed figure (sometimes referred to as the predynastic punk) and boat with canopy. Faces South-East.
Larger version of the flat rock-with many bovids and tethering/lassooing and boats. The shape of one (see line drawing) has in the past misled some, including Winkler as a product of the 1930's, to see a Mesopotamian origin for the boats in the rock art.
South side of the wadi in a cleft behind some large boulders; the so-called "maceman." If it is a mace, it is an extremely rare feature in the Eastern Desert rock art.

 

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