In the middle of the Sahara, rock paintings show people swimming.
The art in the Cave of Swimmers may be up to 10,000 years old, from when the desert was a green land of lakes, giraffes and hippos.
The events
- The Cave of Swimmersc. 8000 BC · Gilf Kebir, Egypt. Rock paintings on the Gilf Kebir plateau show people apparently swimming, plus a giraffe and a hippo. They may date back to about 8000 BC, when the Sahara was green and wet; the shelter was found in 1933 by László Almásy, the real figure behind The English Patient.
- End of the Green Saharac. 3000 BC · Sahara. For millennia the Sahara was a savanna of lakes, giraffes and hippos, as rock art records. By about 3000 BC, by most estimates, the humid period had ended in stages and people moved to the Nile, just as a unified Egyptian kingdom arose there.
More amazing facts
- 8000 BC The oldest known boat is about 10,000 years old. The three-metre Pesse canoe from the Netherlands was hollowed out of a single pine trunk with stone or antler tools between 8040 and 7510 BC.
- 8000 BC · 2560 BC One of the world's oldest towers is 10,000 years old. The 8.5-metre stone tower of Jericho was built around 8000 BC, some 5,400 years before the Great Pyramid.
- 7500 BC · 1600 BC A cat was buried beside a human on Cyprus 9,500 years ago, nearly 6,000 years before the famous cats of Egyptian paintings.
- 7400 BC · 6200 BC Britain became an island after Çatalhöyük was built.
- 7000 BC Some flutes about 9,000 years old can still be played.
- 7000 BC One of the world's oldest known alcoholic drinks was a cocktail of rice, honey and hawthorn.