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Comment by encyclopedism | Hacker News Reader

Absolutely fascinating. I'm surprised by the quality. Indicative of both a keen eye and a fine skill for art.

This isn't meant as a criticism of you personally, but rather of the general tendency to label all petroglyphs and pictographs as "(rock) art." There's no evidence that these were viewed that way by their creators, and using that term can bias how we interpret them

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroglyph

"A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art."

I think the argument is there is a distinction to be made between signs that were made for practical purposes (as a sort of proto-writing) versus ones that were made to be pretty. We don't obviously know why these signs were made, but the the hypothesis that they were there to guide travelers to water sources suggests the former.

Why not both? A lot of art has practical purposes.

> practical purposes (as a sort of proto-writing) versus ones that were made to be pretty.

Why not both? It's obvious some effort was put into carving the figures as they look pretty to me. I am sure some people were better than others at making rock carvings making them artists IMO.

> I think the argument is there is a distinction to be made between signs that were made for practical purposes (as a sort of proto-writing) versus ones that were made to be pretty.

That still fails to distinguish between "art" and "not-art". Your faulty assumption is that art can not serve a practical purpose.

"art" as a separate concept which is only for expression or decoration or things along those lines is relatively modern

When the flush of a newborn sun fell first on Eden's green and gold, Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mold; And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart, Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves: "It's pretty, but is it Art?"

— Rudyard Kipling, The Conundrum of the Workshops

+1 for quoting Kipling in 2025

You’re right, it’s not art until the artist has shown at a reputable gallery and sold their first piece to a collector.

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