The female representation of the rock art in Khufu area at Egyptian Western Desert (Typo-Analytical Study)

Abstract

The final stage of the Holocene humid period covers approximately the sixth millennium BC. This period in the Western Desert of Egypt is connected to the late Bashandi A cultural unit (around ca. 6420 to 5700 BC) or the beginning of Bashandi B cultural unit (around 5400 or 5650 to 3950 BC) in Dakhla oasis, when the desert dwellers were hunter-gatherers. Followed by the Middle Holocene regionalization phase, which is linked to the late Bashandi B cultural unit or the early Sheikh Muftah cultural unit (approximately 3800-2900 BC) in Dakhla Oasis. Due to a fundamental climatic change in the Sahara during this phase, the Western Desert of Egypt was depopulated except for some sites with favorable conditions for living like the oases which offered water supplies. Then, the Late Holocene Marginalization phase, which connected to the Sheikh Muftah cultural unit in the oases of the Egyptian Western Desert and coincides with the Late Predynastic or the Early dynastic at the Nile (McDonald, 2001; 2002; Riemer & Kindermann, 2007). The ancient dwellers of the Western Desert of Egypt left a lot of remains to mark their activities, including the rock art engraved in countless inselbergs, which involves the striking style of the supposed female figures, that Neolithic Bashandi B culture people are most likely to be responsible of them, with a possibility of continuation in Sheikh Muftah cultural unit.