Archaeologists have a fascinating and challenging job. Every day they must carefully study artifacts from the past and use their observational skills to create an accurate picture of a forgotten time and place.
But just one new fact or unexplained piece of evidence can shatter their entire narrative.
In 2002, a group of amateur explorers stumbled into a desert cave to get a break from the heat. That’s when they discovered a number of hand prints on the wall. At first, they appeared to be human…but they weren’t.
In 2002, amateur explorers accidentally discovered the Wadi Sura II cave in the Egyptian portion of the Libyan desert.
The cave was a thrilling find for the archaeological community, and contained well over 5,000 ancient cave paintings.
The primitive murals portrayed scenes of animals in motion and of humans dancing. But there was one wall that baffled researchers.
It featured hundreds of what appeared to be human hand prints. At least, that’s what they thought at first.
Closer examination revealed something shocking: there was no way the smaller set of hand prints were human.
The prints found on the walls “differ significantly in size, proportions and morphology from human hands,” meaning there’s an “extremely low probability” these are human.
Researchers suspect that the prints were left by reptilian hands.
But we aren’t talking lizard people.
Scientists believe that the artists actually used the severed foot of a monitor lizard or a Nile crocodile as a sort of stencil. It was probably easier than using their own hand.
The practice of using animal parts as artistic tools has been seen before, such as in this cave in Argentina, but it was the first time the practice had been discovered in that part of the world.
I guess that explanation makes sense, but using lizard hands as a painting tool still seems pretty weird.
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