14 DAY TRIAL // The Cave of Swimmers in the mountainous Gilf Kebir plateau in the Sahara desert in Africa, which was discovered back in 1933 by a Hungarian explorer named László Almásy, displays several rock paintings believed to have been created millennia ago.
What's interesting is that, as it turns out, these ancient drawings kind of, sort of double as maps. Thus, with their help, researchers were able to identify ancient, dried-up lake beds in the region. The study is detailed in a paper in Astrobiology Magazine.
As explained by scientist Chris McKay and colleagues, the ancient cave paintings that this investigation focused on, featured in the photos accompanying this article, were created some 7,000 years ago. They show people swimming and diving, and even animals such as giraffes and cows.
Based on these drawings, researchers concluded that, millennia ago, the region that is home to the Cave of Swimmers likely also accommodated for lakes where people could go swimming and that also attracted all sorts of animals such as the ones that our ancestors depicted in their works.
Sure enough, the scientist eventually managed to find geological evidence confirming the presence of at least two lakes not far from the Cave of Swimmers thousands of years ago. “Indeed, we found that there were lakes not far from the Cave of the Swimmers,” Chris McKay said in a statement.
The lakes in question, estimated to have existed around the same time that the rock paintings were created, sat at a distance of about 200 kilometers (nearly 125 miles) south of the ancient cave, in two neighboring valleys in a region known as Gebel Uweinat region.
Mind you, several other previous investigations have found evidence that, ages ago, the Sahara desert was a fairly wet place and was home to several lakes. Today, the region is one of the world's driest.
