Cave painting of a wild pig might be oldest art found in the world

• Author: HAGAY HACOHEN
• Published date: 17 January 2021
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

Discovered on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, the Leang Tedongnge limestone cave-art depicts three Sulawesi warty pigs painted in red ochre - two of them appear to be fighting while the other looks on. While the fight scene survived poorly, the third animal is in nearly pristine condition. The authors of the scientific article claim that "to our knowledge, the animal paintings from Leang Tedongnge is the earliest known representational work of art in the world."

The cave was discovered four years ago by Basran Burhan, a Griffith University PhD student. The finding "blew me away," said archeology Prof. Adam Brumm, also of Griffith.

"It's one of the most spectacular and well-preserved figurative animal paintings known from the whole region," he told Artnet News.

Using Uranium-series isotope dating, Maxime Aubert was able to discover that a calcite deposit which formed on top of the painting was 45,500 years old, BBC reported.

"The people who made it were fully modern," he said, "they were just like us."

Burhan, Brumm and Aubert are among the scientists who cooperated to write the scientific article regarding the discovery.

Ochre was the pigment of choice for many prehistoric artists, from Lascaux Cave in France to Blombos Cave in South Africa and Ubirr Australia. While the art found in the South African cave is thought to be 70,000 years old, it isn't as well preserved as the recent finding...