Oldest Portrait in Peril

[3113]

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.

Opposition to the development is led by Robin Chapple, a British-born Green MP, whose seat in the Western Australian parliament is the world’s largest at 860,00 square miles. “The Burrup has the highest density of carvings of rock art in the world,” he said. He attacked Woodside’s decision to move some examples. “What Woodside has done is like taking a couple of pillars out of Stonehenge and putting them somewhere else. If you do that, you lose the integrity of the site.”

Rest of the article here.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Opposition to the development is led by Robin Chapple, a British-born Green MP, whose seat in the Western Australian parliament is the world’s largest at 860,00 square miles. “The Burrup has the highest density of carvings of rock art in the world,” he said. He attacked Woodside’s decision to move some examples. “What Woodside has done is like taking a couple of pillars out of Stonehenge and putting them somewhere else. If you do that, you lose the integrity of the site.”

Funny, it worked for Abu Simbal and the world applauded . . .

 

[TE999]

Does that plant have to be built right there?

It's not like there's no room in Australia.

 

[noknife]

Very good

 

[Safe_Bet]

Very good

Hello Mr. SpamBot. How the fuck are you today? Great postings, BTW!