Sharjah's Neolithic petroglyphs, revealed in 3D
Seven thousand years of petroglyphs, cut into boulders across Sharjah, recorded by archaeological survey and rebuilt as 37 fully interactive 3D models. The Kalba Rock Art Centre app sets each stone in a bespoke environment and traces its engraving onto the surface, so a visitor can turn a Neolithic boulder in their hands and watch a wild ass emerge. The Ether designed the experience for Shurooq to introduce the Centre at the World Travel Market in London, before it tours internationally.
On an ancient hillside at Khatm al Melaha, the oldest carvings show the Syrian wild ass, an animal now extinct, cut in the Neolithic and carved over by later hands for thousands of years. Shurooq is building the Kalba Rock Art Centre here as the gateway to rock art across Sharjah, and made it the hero of its stand at the World Travel Market in London. The Centre had not yet opened, so the experience had to travel. Shurooq asked The Ether to create an app that would put Sharjah's petroglyphs in the hands of a London trade audience, then go on to promote the Centre and serve visitors inside it. The Ether led the experience, interface and content, from the first wireframes to a 72-inch portrait kiosk on the stand.
Petroglyphs do not photograph well, and many are barely visible even in person. The archaeological record sat in the Global Digital Heritage survey of hundreds of stones, built for researchers with no ready library to export. Content was still changing through client and archaeological review, and every carving had to be found, prepared and checked without a single invented label or interpretation. The opportunity was to turn a research archive into something a stranger would want to touch: carvings as objects to handle, and a way to see what the stone is hiding.
The app is built around 37 carvings from Khatm al Melaha, Wadi Al Hilo, Al Mediefi and Luluya, each presented as a rich, fully interactive 3D model, alongside a model of the whole Khatm al Melaha hillside. Every stone sits in a bespoke environment, lit and staged like an object in a gallery, so visitors can turn a boulder, move in close and read its surface from any angle. Reveal the Carving traces each engraving onto the rock, so a faint scratch resolves into a wild ass, an ibex or a human figure. Around the stones, the app tells the story of the site and previews the Centre that will interpret it. The interface was designed for a 72-inch portrait screen on a busy stand, with controls set within easy reach and a journey that resets itself between visitors.
One tap traces the engraving onto its 3D scan, across all four sites.
Drag, rotate and zoom each carving and to reveal its surface.
Ibex, tahr, snakes, human figures and symbols share a single boulder, likely Neolithic or earlier.
Petroglyph J6, painted version, Khatm al Melaha. 3D scan by Global Digital Heritage and GDH-Afrika with the Sharjah Archaeology Authority. CC BY-NC 4.0. View source.
A Syrian wild ass, a motif found across southern Arabia, Oman and the UAE. Neolithic or earlier.
Petroglyph G26, Khatm al Melaha. 3D scan by Global Digital Heritage and GDH-Afrika with the Sharjah Archaeology Authority. CC BY-NC 4.0. View source.
The J6 boulder again, colour-enhanced with DStretch to bring out human figures in several styles, domestic goats and ibexes.
Petroglyph J6, DStretch version, Khatm al Melaha. 3D scan by Global Digital Heritage and GDH-Afrika with the Sharjah Archaeology Authority. CC BY-NC 4.0. View source.
Two sides, carved with two Syrian wild asses and a man in slightly different styles that suggest two different artists. Likely Neolithic, 5th to 4th millennium BCE.
Petroglyph V1, Khatm al Melaha. 3D scan by Global Digital Heritage and GDH-Afrika with the Sharjah Archaeology Authority. CC BY-NC 4.0. View source.
An ancient hillside on Sharjah’s east coast, with stone houses, shell middens and a ridge of rock art, mapped from 5,123 drone photographs.
Khatm al Melaha site model, Kalba. 3D scan by Global Digital Heritage and GDH-Afrika with the Sharjah Archaeology Authority. CC BY-NC 4.0. View source.
