A footprint in Egypt may be the oldest

The Egyptian scientists who discovered it believe that it is 2 million years old and maybe even more

Archaeologists in Egypt claim to have discovered what may be the oldest human footprint ever found. The imprint was found embedded in mud, which has since turned to stone, in the Siwa desert oasis in the western desert in northern Egypt, near the border with Libya south of the latitude of Cairo.

"This may be evidence of over two million years," says the Chairman of the Council for Antiquities, Dr. Zahi Hawass, but Khalad Saad, Director of Prehistoric Affairs at the Council, says that it could be even older and predates "Lucy" the skeleton Ben The three million years found in Ethiopia. These footprints are 10 times older than the previous evidence of human activity in Egypt.

Discovered in 1974 in Afar, Ethiopia, Lucy is a hominid of the extinct species Australopithecus afarensis whose age has been dated to 3.2 million years.

Creatures of its kind are thought to have left footprints found in volcanic ash in Lightoli, Tanzania. The footprints date back 3.6 million years. The oldest footprints (and hands) thought to be of modern humans (homo species) are sealed in volcanic rocks in Roccamonpina in Italy. They are about 350,000 years old.

Commenting on the discovery - which has not yet been examined by external scientists - Hawass says, "This may be the most important discovery in Egypt."

So far, the earliest evidence of human activity in Egypt is 200,000 years old. The culture in Egypt known from the time of the pharaohs is also one of the oldest in the world, but it is also only 5,100 years old, the period when the pharaonic dynasty that ruled Upper Egypt also took over Lower Egypt and unified the country for the first time.

For news on the subject at the BBC