Cave Drawings

Well, not all drawings are paintings...some are carved actually...as the tombstone of Pakal for example...and the drawing from Babylon is also carved in stone, I think.

Thanks for pointing that out. I sort of thought they were all drawings....not carved in stone.

No Indy. Part of the remarkable thing about the stone carvings were that they were done by different cultures like the Egyptians, Mayans, Mesopotamians, the people from the Isle of the Sky in Scotland, etc. They all of course therefore would use different materials, natural pigments and of course the carvings are in a class by themselves. I am curious why you think the Engineers provided the cultures with their materials? I don't think that follows from a direct association by the Engineers with the peoples of these cultures. They may simply have inspired them to express the cave art using what ever materials they normally used without guiding them other than the positions of the star or planetary systems ( still kind of unclear on that one - I thought they were referencing zeta II reticuli but are those supposed to be multiple stars or planets shown?).

From my reading there were examples of cave painting done with materials from location far away , something that might have been obtained by trading.(Silk Road came to mind) It seemed reasonable that when the Engineers did viisit earth they might have brought pigments needed for a nice cave depiction of the 'Invitation. There is nothing in our movie or discussions that suggested that the movie's carvings/paintings were not done by natives. There are current known cave painting examples where this was done not with native resources . Just info from a 'net source that sort of filled my imagination of a way that was efficient for the Engineers and natives to get together and recordthe moment so to speak.

The whole Sky Island cave painting is dubious at best. First, while not impossible, it's unlikely humans made it that far by 35,000 years ago - ice age and all. More probably that Neanderthals were there in that time period. Second, the cave painting looks way too advanced. It is apparently extremely rare to find early cave paintings with human figures - mostly you will get paintings of hands and human figures were first represented by stick-like figures (and much later than 35,000 years ago). The figures in the Sky paintings are fairly well fleshed out. Remember the oldest cave painting (about 40,000 years ago) we know now is just a red dot. And as pointed out earlier, the location shown on the Sky pictogram shown in Gaelic mostly translates as "Winged Island" which indicated that the Weyland company may have been involved.

Interesting Java, I have never read up on oldest cave paintings but I may now just to see whats out there on the topic. I guess that means there are no carvings with Engineers in them! Damn it now I have nothing to believe in. You have punched a hole in the whole validity of Prometheus:) lol. Just kidding folks.....

Perhaps you could ask Anunnaki50, our so-called archeological expert, what Holloway says about the Hittite civilization in his presentation - a presentation he has no doubt given dozens of times or more. And I always find punching with the evidence preferable to bending over.

I had to replay the crew meeting scene and have a closer look at the cave presentations as hiolloway gave his speech. From what I could tell the Skye painting maybe the only painted exampkle given! It certainly is the clearest and brightest painting of the group. Most of the others looked chisled or etched . None looked as detailed as the Skye finding. That is in's self seems odd because it looked more advanced than others(I'm no expert). Holloway uses the word 'painting' when referring to the Skye dig. and somehow i applied that word to all the images which clearly is not true. 35,000 years ago is quite early not only from what Holloway says but from notes on the 'net and reading here. All this may be technical stuff that doesn't alter the premise of our movie. Looking back I would be curious on how they arrived at the 35,000 year date.

The trick is to ask why Ridley chose Scotland, an unlikely place to find a cave painting and even more unlikely place to find one seemingly so advanced. He will have a reason - it won't be a random decision. I've already pointed one out - that [i]Eilean A’ Cheo’[/i] mostly translates into English as "winged island" and given we never stop seeing the winged logo of the Weyland company, this may be a clue that Weyland or some of his people were involved in the Scotland discovery in some way or other. Any news on the Hittites?

The Hittites are touring with Slayer on a 'End of The World' tour. Back to business. In thinking over the various earth locations (except for Africa) mentioned in our movie they just represent the worldwide audience for this movie. I didn't expect to hear Indiana mentioned but referring to most of the continents seemed like PC thing to do. If RS was making this movie for a Martian audience he would have used their locations for reference to draw in the Martian audience. That is sort of intersting. Because of the nature of the plotline this story could have been told in a hundred different ways because of the thousands of Engineer seedings inferred to in the movie.

PC? Are you kidding me Indy? Egypt, Babylonia, etc were put in because they're known by most people and it gives the impression that Holloway knows what he's talking about. Scotland and Hawaii are the odd ones out and are possible clues. Forget about the Hittites...I'll take it somewhere else.

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My knowledge of the Hittite culture is limited to the fact that the Iron Age seems to have started more or less with them (and/or their immediate predecessors, the Hattians). On cave paintings- those in the Chauvet Cave in France (the "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" as Werner Herzog called it) appear to be about 30000-35000 years old and are fairly complex. Sufficiently complex to represent what we see in the film, anyway. Meanwhile, a cursory look at present knowledge about prehistoric Scotland seems to indicate human settlements there date from about 8000BC.

Holloway stated that after showing 7 examples of Engineers/humans/stars all contained similar star clusters. I take exception to 'all'. Any exporer would not be able to pinpoint what he expects to find. ' Surely there must have been many examples of carvings/painting/even writings that were not related to the themes of our movie. BLANDCorporatio points out a dating problem ithe Scotland finding. Does that bring into question the dating of the other finds? or even the locations? Assuming that there were many more sites explored by Shaw/Holloway it would be curious to know if they uncovered other examples of several pictorgraphs showing perhaps different star clusters. size/shape of engineers and even animals. Earth could have ben a focal point for several competing Universal entities with a sort of winner take all attitude. Sort od 'Super Bowl' of creations using whatever means possible.

irt. [b]Indy John[/b]: I only know very, very little about this. Just did a quick check, is all. Currently, it appears that archaeological evidence supports humans living in Scotland from about 8000BC onwards. Archaeology is not physics. It's conceivable that some very hidden thing would change that estimate (stuff like that happens all the time). So I'm not signalling any problem. If anything, maybe RS chose the Isle of Skye for the scenery and precisely because it's a bit 'out there'. There are already mysterious symbols in ancient cultures, but in terms of cave paintings, things seem more straightforward. So maybe, the reasoning went, lets conjure a cave that nobody yet knows about, which happens to contain the odd star map.

@corpo I'm talking about the humans in the painting. It is extremely rare (if at all) to find human figures in paintings dating this far back, especially in Europe. Ridley's use of the Rubik's cube at the beginning of the presentation indicates a puzzle to be solved. Remember Ridley is the bloke who agonized over what mug should be placed on Holden's desk at the beginning of BR and then sent someone out to buy a dozen so he could choose the one that's just right (which none of us would have even noticed). Or do you think the Rubik's cube was just a random idea and when someone asked him why Rubik's cube, he just said, "No reason, Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!." Same with Scotland. There's a reason beyond pretty landscape. I've already pointed one out - that [i]Eilean A’ Cheo’[/i] (shown as location on Scotland site pictogram) mostly translates into English as "winged island" which resonates strongly with the winged logo of the Weyland company. Are you going to argue this is just coincidence and it's (like a lot of things in the movie) not important anyway. As for the Hittite civilization, whose pictogram is clearly displayed second from the end in Holloway's presentation, why doesn't Holloway mention it. In fact, he calls it the Mesopotamian [civilization], of which there is no such thing. Just a little mistake by the writers I suppose.

theres no ancient cave paintings in scotland, there are in nottingham (creswell crags, found 2003) but thats beside the point, scotland tends to have rock carvings rather than paintings, also they have found in 2003 flints in south lanarkshire from 14000yrs ago suggesting people crossed the 'doggerlands' just as the iceage ended. i guess skye was just more cinematic than lascaux lol or maybe theres some reason known only to ridders and eilean a cheo means 'misty isle' as far as i'm aware, dont know where the 'wings' thing came from?

A Mesolithic hunter-gatherer site dating to the 7th millennium BC at An Corran on a northern peninsula of the island of skye aka 'eilean a cheo' as the locals prefer to call it now, is one of the oldest archaeological sites in Scotland. but i beleive the findings involved a rock shelter and arrowheads n bits of flint no cave paintings i'm afraid.....

now i really fancy going a ferry trip to arran :/ do a spot of hill walking have a look at some standing stones! alas its freezing and my spur heel is playing up

@caenorhabhditis Yes, you're right about the Misty Isle bit - that's why I said "mostly translated as Winged Island". But I'm wrong about that as well. There is some confusion over the etymological origins of the islands name - "In Gaelic it is normally referred to as An t-Eilean Sgitheanach, which translates as The Winged Isle, so called because of the wing-like shape formed by the two northern peninsulas of Waternish and Trotternish"; the other is Misty Isle - in Gaelic Eilean a’ Cheo. My theory that Ridley pointed us to winged still stands. Are you Scottish?

yes i am, and ah right, ...may also mean sheild or sheltered place but i agree winged would have more meaning in this context so i do concur lol....

it was in trotternish they found the 7th millennia mesolithic site by the by

@ caenorhabhditis Have you seen the Scottish Gaelic film [i]Seachd: The Inaccessible Pinnacle[/i]? It's set in the Cuillen Mountains on Skye Island and tells the story of a young boy who has lost his parents and his search for the truth. It starts off with some kids who want to open their Christmas presents early. I think Ridley is referencing this movie in Prometheus.

no i havent but i'll check it out ta