A two-and-a-half-meter-tall stone camel, carved into a wall 39 meters above the ground. To create it, the artist worked on a ledge as wide as a step, without ever seeing the finished work. Yet the result is naturalistic, proportionate, and precise. Rock art? It's more complicated than that.
We are in the Nefud Desert, Saudi Arabia, 12.000 years ago. The last ice age has recently ended, and seasonal lakes have returned after millennia of extreme aridity. Nomads follow the water and carve giant animals into the rocks: not to celebrate, but to mark. Water here. Safe path. Our territory. The discovery, signed by Maria Guagnin and an international team, it was published on Nature Communications..
When the desert wasn't deserted
Between 16.000 and 13.000 years ago, after the Last Glacial Maximum (the last great glaciation), northern Arabia experienced a climatic transformation. Rainfall returned. Seasonal lakes formed where there had previously been only sand. Analysis of the sediments in the three explored locations (Jebel Arnaan, Jebel Mleiha and Jebel Misma) confirms the presence of bodies of fresh water during the period in which the engravings were made.
Until now, the archaeological history of northern Arabia between 25.000 and 10.000 years ago was a black hole. Few traces, no documented settlements, and the prevailing hypothesis was total abandonment. Too arid to live. Too hostile to survive. New research overturns this narrativeThe nomads were there. They thrived. And they left messages for those who would come later.
176 engravings, four phases of “functional” rock art
The team documented over 60 panels with 176 individual figures. 130 of these are life-size animals: Camels, ibex, wild asses, gazelles, and aurochs (extinct ancestors of modern cattle). Some are three meters long, others over two meters tall. Sculpted by removing the dark patina of the rock to expose the light-colored sandstone underneath.
Stylistic analysis has identified four artistic phases later. The first phase, the oldest, depicts small stylised female figures, often with accentuated forms. In the second larger human figures arrive. The third stage This is the monumental phase: naturalistic animals with individual details, each camel different from the next. The last, fourth phase, displays a more schematic, almost cartoonish style, as if abstraction were the next step in a mature artistic tradition.
Some carvings overlap. This means the same place was used multiple times, perhaps for centuries. As Maria Guagnin explains on Scientific American magazine, this overlap could indicate the development of a shared concept: the camel as a symbol of resilience, survival, adaptation to the desert.
Sculpting at 39 meters high (without seeing what you're doing)
The most impressive thing isn't the size of the figures. It's where they were made. At Jebel Mleiha and Jebel Arnaan, the carvings They are on vertical walls up to 39 meters high. To get there, you had to climb. To work, you had to balance on ledges just a few centimeters wide. And the viewpoint was flawed: the artist had the rock a few centimeters from his nose, making it impossible to see the entire work.
Yet camels are well-proportioned, naturalistic, and recognizable. How did they do it? Secondo National GeographicThey had to have precise anatomical knowledge and extraordinary technical skill. They didn't improvise. They knew exactly what they were doing, even without being able to see it.
A panel at Jebel Misma depicts 19 camels and 3 donkeys. It stands 128 feet high (about 39 meters), accessible only via a downward-sloping ledge. The engravers likely risked their lives. But the message must have been visible from afar. It must have been impossible to ignore.
Survival maps, not just rock art
Why sculpt giant animals on inaccessible walls? The most likely answer: report vital resourcesThe carvings are found near seasonal lakes, along migration routes, and at strategic points in the landscape. They weren't hidden in caves or crevices. They were visible, monumental, and meant to be seen from afar.
"These large carvings weren't just rock art. They were likely declarations of presence, access, and cultural identity," he explains. Maria Guagnin of the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology. Ceri Shipton, co-author of the study fromUniversity College Londonhe adds:
“Rock art marks water sources and travel routes, perhaps indicating territorial rights and intergenerational memory.”
He's like a polite but distracted colleague: he doesn't explicitly tell you where to go, but he makes you understand that if you follow the stone camels, you'll probably find water. And if you don't, at least you know you're in the right territory.
Connections with the Levant (but with a style all their own)
The excavations have brought to light stone tools Levantine type: El Khiam and Helwan points, typical of the pre-ceramic Neolithic populations who lived in present-day Lebanon, Syria, Jordan. Beads of dentalium (sea shells) and green pigment, materials that suggest long-distance contacts.
But the rock art of Nefud is different. The monumental scale, the naturalism of the animals, the placement on very high walls: all this has no parallel in the Levant. It's as if the Arabian nomads had borrowed techniques and materials from other cultures, but developed a visual language all their own. A unique cultural signature, adapted to an extreme environment.
Faisal Al-Jibreenand Heritage Commission of the Saudi Ministry of Culture, summarizes it this way: "This unique form of symbolic expression belongs to a distinct cultural identity, adapted to life in an arid and challenging environment." It's a fancy way of saying: they weren't just passing through. They were at home.
The Green Arabia project and the future of research
The discovery is part of the Green Arabia Project, an international initiative coordinated by the Heritage Commission Saudi involving the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), theUniversity College London, Griffith University and other institutions.
Michael Petraglia, head of the Green Arabia project, comments:
“The project’s interdisciplinary approach has begun to fill a critical gap in the archaeological record of northern Arabia between the LGM and the Holocene, shedding light on the resilience and innovation of early desert communities.”
The next step? Understanding the extent of this artistic tradition. The methods developed to model and detect these faint signals can also be used in astronomy, planetary defense, and monitoring the impact of human technology on our space environment. Other areas of the desert need to be mapped, archaeological layers more precisely dated, and the wear patterns of engraving tools analyzed.
Because this discovery changes everything
Before this research, we thought northern Arabia was empty between 12.000 and 10.000 years ago. A demographic hole. A literal and figurative desert. in the many historical gaps that still need to be filled. We now know that human groups not only survived, but thrived. They created monumental rock art. They developed navigation techniques. They passed knowledge down the generations.
The rock carvings of Nefud They are 2.000-4.000 years older than previous rock art findings in Arabia. They push back the chronology of stable human occupation in the Arabian Desert. And they demonstrate that Adaptation to extreme environments is not a modern prerogative: it is a constant in human history.
Why did it take us so long to realize they were there? Well, because the desert hides them well.
Fortunately, stone remembers better.
