“The project will now systematically record the hundreds of rock art images in southern Egypt. ‘The first newly discovered sources shed new light on the pre-Pharaonic period of the Fourth Millennium and the importance of the socio-cultural periphery,’ Morenz says.

Among the images that Abu Baker captured during his explorations in the field, one in particular stood out to the Egyptologist from the University of Bonn. From this period of high cultural dynamism in the Assuan region of the later Fourth Millennium comes a hitherto unique scene that offers insight into religion and cult practice. It is depicted over the bumps and edges of the rock, how a boat is pulled by 25 men with raised arms on a rope.

A ritual is obviously impressively shown here – namely the great procession of an image of the gods, according to Morenz. This is clear from image details, he said: the boat with shrine and standard and, in particular, the cattle horns, which are typical of sacred imagery. “This rock image gives us insights into the sacred design of an apparently remote landscape, the Wadi al Agebab, which is still largely unknown in research,” says the Egyptologist.

The entire later Pharaonic culture is based on these beginnings of the pictorial staging of religion. Morenz: ‘Here, the high importance of religion and especially the cult of the gods in the still pre-Egyptian society of the second half of the Fourth Millennium is revealed as a culture-creating factor.'”—”Cult of the Gods in Pre-Egyptian Society. Researchers study the staging of religion on thousands of years old rock images.”