Viper’s Dream
Django Reinhardt
The Encyclopedia of Jazz - Swing Time
Volume 047

These are masterpieces that we will never see with our own eyes — paintings, engravings, and hand stencils dating from 27 000 years ago when a sparse population occupied the cold and barren Mediterranean seaside. These works of art are so fragile and precious that the underwater passage leading to them has been sealed off by the authorities.

Only a few people have actually seen the marvels of the Cosquer Cave: the professional diver from Cassis who discovered it in 1985 and gave it his name, and a handful of divers-archaeologists who were commissioned to perform a thorough survey once the discovery was officially declared to the authorities in 1991.

27 000 years ago, when the Cosquer artists were at work on the walls of the cave, sea level was about a hundred meters lower than it is today. The coastline was located 10 kilometres further to the south and the landscape was reminiscent of present-day Norway. Men were few; but antelopes, giant stags, horses, small penguins called auks, bison and aurochs abounded.

Today, the entrance to the Grotte Cosquer is 37 metres below sea level in one of the Calanques, the small Mediterranean fjords that dent the coastline between Marseille and Cassis. …

via http://www.iter.org/newsline/105/1449

The Caves of Gargas in the Pyrennes region of France are known for their cave art from the Upper Paleolithic period - about 27,000 years old.

Papua New Guinea

via Cave Painting Art

Stencil of a human hand, dated 27,000 B.P. [Before Present] from Cosquer Cave. as shown in the National Museum of Archeology, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France.

via wikipedja

The Panel of Hands, El Castillo Cave, Spain. A hand stencil has been dated to earlier than 37,300 years ago and a red disk to earlier than 40,600 years ago, making them the oldest cave paintings in Europe. [Image courtesy of Pedro Saura]

via Were the Neanderthals Cave Painters? - Popular Archaeology

Prehistoric cave painting at the Petta-kere cave in the Leang-leang Prehistoric Park (Maros regency in South Sulawesi, Indonesia). These hand stencils belong to the Mesolithic Toalean (Tolian) culture (6000 BCE to 500 CE).

Cave painting at Petta-kere, South Sulawesi | Flickr (by Sanjay P. K.)

Aboriginal hand stencil rock art

via Grampians Aboriginal Rock Art | Deano Around The World

Prehistoric hand stencil rock art from Gilf Kebir, in the desert of southwest Egypt

via Colloquium Notes: The Signs of Which Times? | The Archaeology of Egypt’s Deserts

sekhemkare:

“Become like a chest of writings!” - Instruction of Amennakhte.

Just proving to myself I still, on occasion, do actual work. (The middle photo is actually from ages ago, but never mind.) You can go about your business: move along.

I’m with Amennakhte - I wanna be a library if/when I grow up. One with a massive Egyptian section, of course.

sekhemkare:

“I am the lord of fire, who lives on truth,
the lord of eternity and the maker of joy;
the snakes of the netherworld have not rebelled against me.”

~ Coffin Text 1130.

The ‘Lord of All’ describes himself.

Blue Drag
Featuring The Quintet of The Hot Club of France
An Introduction To Django Reinhardt: His Best Recordings 1934-1942

hermes:

SAUT HERMES

Saut Hermès 2013

This guy does parkour. Everyone else is just pretending.

How sexy is this horse?! OMFG

galicseas:

IT’S SO CUTE IM REBLOGGING TWICE