Giving Voice to Stone: An Alliance of Craftsmanship and Innovation
As part of their research project, two PhD candidates in the Jaussen & Savignac programme, Romy Vartin and Elise Melão-Pinard, are studying rock and cave art—Romy focusing on the Arabian Peninsula and Elise on the Eastern Sahara. Last February, they trained in archaeological recording methods for rock and cave art developed by the Centre National de Préhistoire - Ministère de la culture (CNP, a department of the Ministry of Culture). France, in fact, has the largest heritage of decorated Paleolithic caves in the world.
This summer, Romy Vartin was able to apply these methods during the programmed study of the decorated cave of Commarque (in Dordogne), a project directed by Oscar Fuentes (CNRS, Ministère de la Culture, UMR 8068 TEMPS).
One of the key challenges for specialists in this field is to gather as much information as possible about these fragile traces of ancient societies, because:
• there is what can be seen—for example, the reliefs of horses and human faces engraved in the rock;
• and there is what can no longer be seen, what has disappeared or been altered over time, but still needs to be considered in order to better understand these remains.
The scientific rigor of archaeological recording therefore aims to comprehensively document not only the anthropogenic marks that shape rock and cave art motifs, but also the morphology of the walls and the various types of alterations that have occurred over time.
Romy Vartin, under the supervision of Gaëlle Tallet and Guillaume Charloux, is focusing more specifically on the rock art of the Arabian Peninsula.
The third stage of her research will therefore consist in adapting these methodological approaches to the particular issues raised by Arabian rock art: in the heart of the peninsula, this art is predominantly located outdoors and unfolds across a much broader temporal scale, extending from prehistory to the present day.
Would you like to know more?
So would we – stay tuned in the coming months for the next steps!