An extreme drought in parts of the Amazon has led to a dramatic drop in river water levels, exposing dozens of usually submerged rock formations with carvings of human forms that might date back 2,000 years.
Livia Ribeiro, a longtime resident of the Amazon’s largest city, Manaus, said that she heard about the rock engravings from friends and wanted to check them out.
“I thought it was a lie ... I had never seen this. I’ve lived in Manaus for 27 years,” said Ribeiro, an administrator, after viewing the dazzling relics.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The rock carvings are not usually visible because they are covered by the waters of the Rio Negro, whose flow recorded its lowest level in 121 years last week.
The surfacing of the engravings on the riverbank have delighted scientists and the public alike, but also raised unsettling questions.
“We come, we look at [the engravings] and we think they are beautiful, but at the same time, it is worrying... I also think about whether this river will exist in 50 or 100 years,” Ribeiro said.
Drought in Brazil’s Amazon has drastically reduced river levels in the past few weeks, affecting a region that depends on a maze of waterways for transportation and supplies.
The Brazilian government has sent emergency aid to the area, where normally bustling riverbanks are dry, littered with stranded boats.
The dry season has worsened this year due to El Nino, an irregular climate pattern over the Pacific Ocean that disrupts normal weather, adding to the effect of climate change, experts say.
The engravings comprise an archaeological site of “great relevance,” said Jaime Oliveira, an archeologist at the Brazilian Institute of Historical Heritage (IPHAN).
They are at a site known as Praia das Lajes and were first seen in 2010, during another period of drought not as severe as the current one.
The rock carvings appear against a backdrop of dense jungle, with the low brownish waters of the Negro River flowing nearby.
Most of the engravings are of human faces, some of them rectangular and others oval, with smiles or grim expressions.
“The site expresses emotions, feelings, it is an engraved rock record, but it has something in common with current works of art,” Oliveira said.
For Beatriz Carneiro, historian and member of IPHAN, Praia das Lajes has an “inestimable” value in understanding the first people who inhabited the region, a field still little explored.
“Unhappily it is now reappearing with the worsening of the drought,” Carneiro said. “Having our rivers back [flooded] and keeping the engravings submerged will help preserve them, even more than our work.”
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS