Golan Heights (AFP)
The unexpected discovery of engravings carved out of a dolmen in the Syrian Golan region, occupied by Israel, gives a new glimpse of the presence of a mysterious society which prospered thousands of years ago, estimate Israeli archaeologists.
In a clearing in the Yehudiya nature reserve, huge stones covered with dark basalt tiles form a small burial chamber, surrounded by herbs yellowed by the sun.
This megalithic building is one of the thousands of dolmens scattered in the north of Israel and in the Golan, annexed by the Hebrew State in 1981, which were erected about 4,000 to 4,500 years ago, in the era of the intermediate bronze.
If the identity and beliefs of those who built these funerary monuments remain largely obscure, these discoveries of rock art help to shed new light.
"About two years ago, one of the rangers who was doing her daily round looked inside (of the dolmen) and saw something etched on the wall," said Uri Berger of the AMF. Israeli Antiquities Association (IAA).
She contacted the IAA and "when we looked inside, we saw that it was not only marks or spots on the wall, but rock art," added the archaeologist .
On one of the rocks, there are six animals with horns of different sizes: three are oriented towards the East and three towards the West. Two of them, probably a male and a female according to Mr. Berger, face each other. On another wall, an animal with a horn faces the herd.
- "Weird shapes" -
These zoomorphic representations, which have gone unnoticed since the beginning of the study of dolmens almost 200 years ago in the Levant, were the first reported in the region and are considered to be important discoveries by Uri Berger and his partner Gonen Sharon from the faculty of archeology of Tel Hai (northern Israel).
Until then, we did not know that the society that lived in this region at the time was drawing. And these animals seem to have been important to the locals.
An importance that remains to be defined, however, say these archaeologists, who published an article at the end of June in the scientific journal Asian Archeology.
Professor Sharon is responsible for the previous discovery of rock art on dolmens, in 2012, near the kibbutz Shamir in the Upper Galilee, on the edge of the Golan.
Come to hike with his children, Gonen Sharon, seated in the shade of the largest of the 400 dolmens scattered across a vast field, looks up at the huge slab and notices "bizarre shapes" that did not seem like natural origin.
When examined, they revealed a series of inscriptions resembling tridents.
"It was the first form of rock art discovered on dolmens in the Middle East," said Sharon.
This discovery has sparked new interest in dolmens and their many mysteries among archaeologists, some of whom have resumed their research on three small dolmens surrounded by stones arranged in circles, near the town of Kiryat Shmona (northern Israel).
On the relatively rounded cornerstone of the largest of the three dolmens, engraved lines create the image of two closed eyes and a grimacing mouth facing the sky.
"The grooves do not seem to have had any function," explains Gonen Sharon as if to emphasize that it is indeed art. "To us, it looks like a face."
- "Why ?" -
Dolmens have "shaped the landscape" of northern Israel, says Uri Berger.
But they have also been robbed, largely robbing them of elements likely to provide clues to their perpetrators.
Small pieces of ceramic, iron spikes, daggers and jewelry, and some bones, were found in the dolmens, "but it remains very rare," said Sharon.
Rock art discoveries "bring researchers closer to the civilizations they are trying to understand," said Berger.
They also highlight new questions: "Why these animals? Why on this dolmen and not another? What makes it special?" Asks the archaeologist.
For Sharon, these engravings suggest what culture was like at the time, like "a letter from the past".
© 2020 AFP