Petroglyph

Peculiar pre-Hispanic petroglyphs & ancient astronaut theories

A Turkish expert, who has been working on petroglyphs for a decade, has alleged that his team has found some cave paintings belonging to ancient Turks in Mongolia's Gobi Desert that need geological dating.

Gobustan Rock Art Cultural Landscape in Azerbaijan is a bridge connecting the past and modern ages, a reserve official said in an interview.

"Same as Azerbaijan stands as an economic, cultural and historical bridge between Europe and Asia, Gobustan also stands as a bridge between ancient and modern times," said Fikrat Abdullayev, deputy director of the reserve.

Archaeologists and historians are lamenting the destruction of several 3,000-year-old rock carvings on the Pangaion Hills near Kavala in northern Greece and calling for measures to protect the remaining samples of this ancient art.

A Dutch art detective has returned two priceless stone reliefs stolen from an ancient Spanish church after tracing them to an English nobleman's garden where they were displayed as ornaments, reports AFP. 

Arthur Brand, dubbed the "Indiana Jones of the art world", said he handed over the centuries-old carvings to the Spanish embassy in London at a private ceremony on Monday.

These remarkable images show some of the earliest known examples of what we these days might dub pornography.
The Kangjiashimenji Petroglyphs, in Xinjiang, north-west China, depict an intense fertility ritual the likes of which is almost unique in the ancient world.

For centuries the discovery of the Americas was credited to Christopher Columbus (even though we know for a fact that Vikings landed there much earlier) but new findings show that the Chinese may have been here much sooner than either.