The best known cluster of Predynastic petroglyphs (Locality HK61A) is found on one side of a prominent HK11 hill at the junction of the Wadi Abu Suffian and a side wadi leading to the Wadi el Pheel. The beautiful boat that forms the logo for the Expedition was discovered there in a natural rock cleft in 1979. This cleft formed when a large boulder rolled down the side of the hill and cracked in two. On the opposing walls of the cleft are three sickle shaped boats with elaborate prows. Above two of them are carved animals, one at least is clearly a bull. Also in the cleft is a finely carved giraffe, but it is unclear whether it was made at the same time as the boats or was already present when the boats were created. Similar boats are known in the Eastern Desert, especially at Kanais, however the ones at Hierakonpolis represented some of the few examples of such elaborate boats this far north and on the west side of the Nile (see Berger 1982, 1992).
Further exploration of the area around HK61 revealed another cleft rock nearby (HK61B) decorated on both sides with complex processions of similarly elaborate boats but on a smaller scale, together with a variety of animals (see Nekhen News 20 (2008)), The majority of these now faint drawings were made by pecking the rock surface rather than by incision and the patina that formed over the millennia makes them very hard to see. Distinguish the various motifs and incidents of activity here is also not easy and unfortunately, the rock faces were damaged by stone miners before the decoration could be fully recorded. The locality also includes our only human depiction: a male figure carrying a yoke, while further to the east another small concentration (HK61C) features a tiny but evocatively carved elephant among others not so well executed or preserved (see Nekhen News 27 (2015)).
Moving along the west side of the HK11 hill, rock art locations include Giraffe Cave, which is a rock overhang creating a large shelter high up on the slope overlooking the HK11C occupation area. On its façade are four panels composed primarily of lightly incised faunal motifs, mainly giraffes with crosshatched body decoration. Only visible in certain light, these drawings were apparently undetected by Ambrose Lansing, who explored the interior of the ‘cave’ he called the High Place’ in 1934. In it he found a selection of very early Predynastic pottery vessels now on display in the Metropolitan Museum, New York.
To the south at the foot of the HK11 hill are a number of small stone circles and on a slab near one of them is a drawing of a hippopotamus with cross-hatched body infill. These natural and man-made features on and around the area show that this prominent hill was a focus of likely repeated activity by presumably the local population, in which rock art played a part.
Another apparent gathering place is found at so called Donkey Hill, situated on a large stone outcrop in the center of the Wadi Abu Suffian, across from the HK11 area. About half way up the gradient of the hill on its east side is a rock overhang with a fairly large flat area in front. Surrounding it is a number of boulders on which boat depictions seem to dominate, in both complete and apparently partial execution. Nearby, a small sandstone boulder, likely displaced, was found which features a number of motifs. Most spectacular is a finely incised donkey with a smaller donkey directly beneath it. The body of the larger donkey is in-filled with zig zag decoration while the smaller one is plain. The animals are accompanied by a number of other simple forms (single, superimposed incisions etc), perhaps a boat, a quadruped, possible hieroglyphic characters and a likely modern drawing of a bird (a hoopoe?), lightly incised. All attest to a dynamic interaction with rock art and rock art localities, not just along desert tracks, but within centers of occupation (See Nekhen News 22 (2010)).
