Location: Tamanrasset Province Map
Area: 72,000 km²
Tassili n'Ajjer in the language of the local Berber tribes
literally means "Plateau of the Rivers". It is a mountain range in
the South East Algeria. Tassili n'Ajjer plateau is spread in the
Sahara desert in the Southern Algeria. Sandstone eroded under action
of wind and water forming interesting and beautiful shapes. In
addition to esthetics these arches, caves and canyons became a
suitable place for first human hunters that began to leave Africa.
Tassili n'Ajjer is famous for prehistoric art inside numerous
caves spread through the region. First rock art was discovered in
1909 and many more followed as scientist began to explore Tassili
n'Ajjer plateau. Archaeologists discovered over 15,000 separate
drawings and engravings in Tassili n'Ajjer that date to 6000 BC.
Many depict biosphere that once existed here before the climate
became much drier. Judging by the drawings these lands once were
rich grasslands that extended for miles in all directions. People
herded herds of cattle along now dried fields and ancient hunters
once fished in rivers that now left only dry river beds. Tassili
n'Ajjer ancient art became part of a UNESCO World Heritage List in
1982.
Due to the height and water-holding
properties of sandstone, the growing season of plants is slightly
longer than in the surrounding desert; therefore, the existence of
endangered endemic species of Saharan cypress and Saharan myrtle in
the upper reaches of the eastern part of the plateau is possible
here.
The literal translation of the name of the ridge -
"Rivers Plateau" - refers to the period when the local climate was
much more humid than today.
The world-wide fame of Tassilin-Adger was brought by the huge bright drawings discovered here in 1909, depicting people, animals and scenes from life. These drawings indicate that the now lifeless desert was once a fertile area, in the vastness of which huge herds of animals roamed, and people who were engaged in hunting, gathering and fishing settled on the banks of rivers and lakes.
Made in different styles, the drawings belong to
different time periods. The earliest - petroglyphs, covered with a
dark layer of patina - are made in a naturalistic style and date
back to 6000 - 2000 BC. e. These are mainly hunting scenes and
images of animals of the so-called "Ethiopian" fauna: elephants,
rhinos, giraffes, hippos, crocodiles, ostriches, antelopes, an
extinct species of buffalo, etc. The animals are depicted very
realistically. There are some drawings made later, but their style
is already different. The people depicted here are of the so-called
"Bushman type". These are people in masks, with bows and arrows. The
researcher of Tassilin-Adjera's drawings, Henri Lot, who studied
them in 1956-1957, called them "round-headed people."
Later
drawings, the age of which is determined by the period of the end of
3000 - 1000 BC., are made with paints, and depict pets. These are
sheep, goats, cattle. In addition, there are images of horses, dogs,
mouflons, elephants and, occasionally, giraffes. Drawings are made
more conditionally than the previous group. People are usually
masked, with bows and arrows, darts, axes and crooked sticks. Men
are dressed in short, wide raincoats, women in bell-shaped skirts.
Sometimes women have a pronounced steatopygia, and men are depicted
with thread-like figures, resembling murals in South Africa. These
multicolored designs were made by tribes of pastoralists who also
hunted and collected.
They also found images of horses and
carts with wheels dating back to the middle of the 2nd millennium
BC.
In the drawings depicting bulls or rams with a sun disk
on their heads, they saw the result of Egyptian influence and were
associated with the cult of Ra, however, there is also an opinion
that the worship of the sun was spread throughout Libya. Perhaps
from them the cult of the sun penetrated into the Nile Valley, since
these drawings are older than the cult of Amun-Ra in Egypt.
The appearance of the camel in the figures corresponds to 200 - 700
AD and marks the fourth period - the "camel period" - according to
the established periodization.
The archeology of
Tassilin-Adjer is not limited to drawings alone (of which there are
hundreds of thousands). Many arrowheads, scrapers, bones, grain
grinders, stone knives, and similar human tools were also found
among the rocks. Radiocarbon analysis of organic residues made it
possible to more accurately determine the time a person spent here.
For the first time, drawings
on the Tassilin-Adjer plateau were noticed by Cortier in 1909. The
French officer Brenand spent eight years in this region of the
Sahara (from 1932 to 1940), and made many sketches, which were later
shown to A. Breuil. Breuil planned to organize an expedition, but
the plans were interrupted by the Second World War. After the war,
Breuil published Brenand's sketches with a description. Since the
sketches were inaccurate and conveyed only an idea, they received a
very free interpretation. For example, Breuil saw in the images
whole scenes with a moral and ethical content, as in the case of
"Josephine being sold by her sisters": this is a scene where a group
of women is depicted, one of whom - "Josephine" - her sisters are
forcibly dragged to a group of men, standing nearby.
In 1933,
a book by L. Jolleau was published, in which he outlined the
periodization of drawings from four time periods:
The "era of the
buffalo", which consisted of realistic drawings of rhinos,
elephants, giraffes and people of the so-called "Bushman type";
The "era of the African elephant", when images of domestic animals
appear, including those associated with the culture of the sun: a
ram with a sun disk on its head, and then a "solar bull";
drawings where a horse, wheel and chariot appear;
The “era of the
camel” is the last group.
In 1935, the French archaeologist
Reigass briefly visited the area. Familiar with many of the Sahara
murals, Reigass created an approximate periodization of the
drawings. He designated the most ancient petroglyphs depicting
animals of the tropical fauna: hippos, rhinos, cattle, giraffes,
buffaloes, antelopes and ostriches; to the second group he included
multi-colored and more conventional murals with cattle and chariots.
A very approximate and careful dating needed verification, and in
1956-57. the leadership of the expedition was entrusted to Henri
Lot, who had already visited the area in 1934, was familiar with
Breuil and took part in the publication of his work.
Henri
Lot prepared himself thoroughly and spent a year and a half studying
drawings with a group of artists and photographers. Lot's expedition
confirmed the correct dating of Reigass. Upon his return, Lot
published a book "In Search of the Tassilin-Adjer Frescoes" with a
lively and interesting description of his expedition. In the book,
Lot, along with serious data, expressed several unlikely hypotheses
about the origin of the Fulbe people from the Neolithic population
of the Sahara on the basis of the similarity of women's hairstyles
in the drawings and among the Fulbe themselves. A few years after
the expedition, one of its participants, photographer Jean-Dominique
Lajoux, again went to the caves and areas known to him, spent 10
months there, reshoot all the drawings and published a book in which
all the photographs were accompanied by very meager, but sober
comments ... For example, Lajoux warned about the conventionality of
attempts to determine the age of images by their style. He also
pointed out that the drawings do not provide sufficient basis for
determining the species of animals or the race of the people
depicted. He argued that bone research is critical in determining
age or race. In the same way, he criticized Lot's attempts to
determine the age of images from the sequence of layers of drawings.
Later studies by the Italian Fabrizio Mori, who surveyed the neighboring area on the border of Algeria with Libya, collected information that helped to determine the dating of the Tassilin-Adjer images more accurately. Research by palynologists has shown that the supposed age of the drawings is older than previously thought. Excavation data in neighboring areas showed that the Neolithic of the Sudanese tradition - that is, Tassilin-Adjera and Ennedy - is older than the Neolithic of Southern Europe and Cyrenaica, and ceramics in Eastern and Central Sahara appeared simultaneously with ceramics in Western Asia.