11,000 years ago, humans were painting the walls they'd built inside their homes with influential designs and symbolism that were continued by other artists in the lands that became Turkey and Syria for thousands of years.
"The two square metre painting, in red, black and white, was found at the Neolithic settlement of Djade al-Mughara on the Euphrates, northeast of the city of Aleppo."
It does indeed like a modernist painting by Paul Klee, but it has been carbon-dated to 9000BC. The artist really liked rectangles. Whether that was for just artistic reasons, or those rectangles are meant to convey information through symbols is not yet known.
The colours for the painting came from charcoal, crushed limestone and burnt hematite rock (for the oranges).
By 2025, a sprawling network of Neolithic villages across Syria and Southern Turkey were being discovered. The communities shared art, resources and had extensive communications over thousands of years.
"Mustafa Ali, a leading Syrian artist, said similar geometric design to that in the Djade al-Mughara painting found its way into art throughout the Levant and Persia, and can even be seen in carpets and kilims.
"We must not lose sight that the painting is archaeological, but in a way it's also modern," he said.
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