World’s oldest portrait in peril

[Adsos Letter]

Source: TimesOnline

The world’s oldest depiction of a human face could be threatened if Australian mining companies are permitted to build an explosives factory on the remote Burrup peninsula in the northwest of the country.

A bulbous image of indiscernible sex, with huge eyes and sunken cheeks, the 10,000 year-old carving is chipped out of hard rock. Thousands of other carvings, mostly of plants and animals, which date back to beyond the last Ice Age, are scattered about the peninsula.

Archeologists believe that aboriginal tribes made the distinctive carvings up to 30,000 years ago. They could be nearly twice as old as the Lascaux cave paintings in the Dordogne, France.

Last year the mining company Woodside Energy won permission to move 170 pieces of rock art to a new site to make way for a liquefied natural gas plant. Next year Burrup Nitrates is planning to build an explosives plant on the site.

Read more: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article5337657.ece

[saltpoint]

1. Recommended.

Thank you for posting this for us.

[stlsaxman]

2. K & R! Something MUST be done to stop this.

[Hissyspit]

3. Not twice as old as the Chauvet cave paintings in the Ardeche Valley, France, though.

About the same age, although there are no depictions of humans at Chauvet. There is a prehistoric child's footprint deep, deep in the cave.

Interactive: http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/chauvet/en/

[navarth]

4. they'll call it 'progress'. ech.

[Beartracks]

5. Taliban contractors could do the job!

I'm sure they would happily blow it up for "progress." :P

[Psephos]

20. lol n/t

[progressoid]

6. Pics...

http://www.news.com.au/common/imagedata/0,,5509990,00.jpg

[Ian David]

7. That's okay. I'm tired of looking at John McCain. n/t

[jberryhill]

8. Here, Bush would call it an "anti-graffiti" program /nt

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. Australia's a big country with lots of empty land

Why do they have to build the explosives plant THERE?

[Hippo_Tron]

10. If the election were still going on...

I would ask if it was McCain's face that was carved into the stone. But since the election is over, I will not.

[DFW]

11. It can't be a portrait of McCain anyway

The carving is 10,000 years old, and McCain is barely half that.

[Doctor Cynic]

12. His running mate must not think this is real given that the earth is only half that old.

[hootinholler]

13. So they are building an explosives factory next to an LNG plant...

And the thing holding it up are prehistoric carvings, and not putting 2 things that go boom together?

-Hoot

[Earth_First]

15. But they promised to be really, really careful...

really careful.

[MasonJar]

14. I am astounded to find out that Australia is as backward as we are.

They need to rethink this asap. With all the barren land in Australia, why would they need to endanger such a monument? In fact I am surprised that the country does not do more to promote such a treasure. The world must stand up and protest.

[Odin2005]

17. Well, Australia WAS founded by ex-convicts... n/t

[FailureToCommunicate]

18. Not "ex-convicts". Transports. And many were jailed for the crime of being

Irish, or poor. Like debtors prison.

[saltpoint]

16. Kick.

Churchill felt that "the farther back we look, the farther ahead we can see."

[Pacifist Patriot]

19. Stories like this break my heart.

[No Elephants]

21. K & R. So sad