PETROGLYPHS SUGGESTING THAT METEORS WERE RECORDED IN ANCIENT MOROCCO ARE QUESTIONABLE:

Ida 1, Photo Abderrahmane Ibhi.

An article in online magazine Meteor News, on January 19, 2019, reported petroglyphs carved into stone recording a meteor fall in Morocco. The find in the rural village of Ida Oukazzou, in the Tiwrare area, about 100 km north of Agadir, Morocco, consisted of three rounded rocks named by the investigators Ida 1, Ida 3, and Ida 3.

Ida 2, Photo Abderrahmane Ibhi.

“The characteristics for Ida1 and Ida2: length 20 cm, width 17 cm, thickness 5 cm and length 18 cm, width 15 cm, thickness 5 cm respectively. These are two pebbles of melanocratic cryptocrystalline quartz sandstone of subcircular form and very flat. They show traces of corrosion and a surface calcification layer consisting of thin platelets of carbonates. After careful cleaning Ida 1 (brushing and vinegar), the only engraved side of this piece offers a spectacular scene of a man and a woman seemingly distraught by the fall of a meteor (Figure 1). Identically on Ida 2, not yet cleared of its gangue of clay and sand and under the secondary precipitation of carbonate layers, we can identify a scene that includes a fleeing anthropomorphic and a huge fireball (Figure 2).” (Abderrahmane et al. 2019:1)

Ida 3, Photo Abderrahmane Ibhi.

              Ida 3 drawing, Photo                                 Abderrahmane Ibhi.

“Ida 3 (length 35 cm, width 27 cm, thickness 12 cm) is a thin, leucocratic sandstone pebble, rather flat and more or less square in shape. After cleaning, Ida 3 symbolizes a scene that includes an anthropomorphic, two cattle of different sized, a meteor and a figurative of the Sun with concentric circles in the center. To complete this ideogram, the artist has arranged two lines of inscriptions with Tifinagh characters with dull incised lines (Figure 3), this showing an image-inscription association which is arranged in the empty interval where it integrates harmoniously. These Tifinagh inscriptions, difficult to translate, are quite old, it is impossible to date them accurately.” (Abderrahmane et al. 2019:2)

Here is where I begin to doubt the whole story. “The astronomical observations reveal that these sculptures are those of a meteor, the three petroglyphs seem to represent the impact of a great meteorite that has frightened the inhabitants and that the artist has certainly experienced this astronomical event spectacular enough to be recorded on the rock.” (Abderrahmane et al. 2019:2)

These just do not strike me as fully believable. They admit to a cleaning with brush and vinegar. This treatment removed the calcite (which might have been datable) and seems to have also removed any patination which have allowed other analyses to be made. There is no mention of the circumstances of the discovery, were they buried, face up or face down, where and when? We are not even given many details of their claimed examination “performed with a binocular magnifier equipped with an integrated digital camera.”  (Abderrahmane et al. 2019:1) Such an examination should have offered clear evidence of tool marks which would have provided a great deal of information. Were I examining a supposed petroglyph with a binocular magnifier with an integrated digital camera I would have photographs of tool marks to help determine questions of possible age and authenticity. From what I can see in the photographs provided I feel the lines are suspiciously even, suggesting that they were created with a metal chisel, but without close-up photographs I can never personally know.

These just do not look believable to me, short of being able to examine the carving and surfaces with magnification I will remain skeptical. Whether the authors perpetrated the fraud, or have been taken in by someone else’s fraud, I also do not know, but I will give them the benefit of the doubt on this one for now and assume that they are naive but innocent, but I just cannot buy it.

NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on this report you should read the original report listed below.

REFERENCE:

Abderrahmane, Ibhi, Fouad Khiri, Lahcen Ouknine, Abdelkhalek Lemjidi, and El Mahfoud Asmahri, 2019 This Discovery of Mysterious Petroglyphs Suggests That a Meteor Has Been Observed in Ancient Times in Morocco, eMeteorNews, Vol. 4, Issue 1, January 2019