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On the wall of a cave, a hand reaches out of the darkness. It is not a real hand. It is the outline of one, sprayed in red pigment across the stone, the fingers spread wide. Around it gather more hands, dozens of them, a silent crowd pressed against the rock. In some places, images like these were made more than thirty thousand years ago. Stand before them and something extraordinary happens. The distance collapses. A person you will never know, separated from you by hundreds

Imagine carving a picture into solid rock using nothing but another rock. No metal chisel. No steel blade. Just a hard stone held in your hand, struck against the surface again and again, chipping away one tiny fragment at a time. To create a single figure this way might take hours of patient labour. To cover a cliff with images, the work of days, or of many people across many years. This is how petroglyphs were made. They are among the most enduring artworks humanity has eve

On a rock in the Sahara, someone painted a hippopotamus. Stop and consider how strange that is. The hippopotamus is a creature of rivers and lakes, of deep water and lush banks. It cannot survive long away from water at all. Yet here it is, painted onto a cliff in the driest desert on Earth, a place where it would perish within a single day. It is not alone. Elsewhere on the desert rock are crocodiles. Fish. Great herds of cattle. People swimming, arms outstretched, gliding t