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Another rock inscription at Sinai has recently been interpreted by researchers at the University of Bonn in Germany. The 5,000-year-old inscription at Wadi Khamila, in south-west Sinai, depicts a large man with his arms raised over another figure. The smaller figure kneels before him and appears to be injured, with an arrow in his chest. The scene is thought to demonstrate Egypt’s early subjugation of the local people of the region, and is one of the oldest ‘smiting scenes’ to have been found. Similar rock art in other nearby wadis suggests that the Egyptians had a colonial network across the region in the 4th and early 3rd centuries BC. Two of the inscriptions make direct reference to the god Min, giving a religious justification for the colonisation of the area.
Text: Sarah Griffiths / Image: Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities
