Sahara rock art

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Rock painting with depictions of animals in Gilf el-Kebir , Egypt

The rock art of the Sahara has been made in North Africa for 12,000 years. ( There are African rock art from North to South Africa). Many of these images are petroglyphs that have only been preserved by being deepened into the surface of the rock. For millions of years, the Sahara was a desert that was repeatedly subjected to extreme climatic fluctuations.

distribution

Sahara

Artifacts and rock art from the various phases of the Stone Age show that the Sahara was populated by people over and over again. Today rock carvings can be found mainly in mountains and caves, with favorable conditions for their preservation. At that time, the living conditions in these regions were also more favorable than in the plains. Around 1500 BC A dehydration set in, which continues to this day with interruptions. For the following Sahara rock art

a relative chronology has been proposed, which assumes that images of large wild animals are inevitably older than those of domestic animals . Five periods follow one another in time. These, connected with the climatic process, come to an approximately absolute dating.

Periodization

Bubalus period 10,000–6,000 BC Chr.

The dabous giraffes north of Agadez

The name Bubalus denotes an old buffalo ( Pelorovis antiquus , possibly related to the Cape buffalo) with meter-long horns, which became extinct in Africa about 5000 years ago. In this style the images of the entire African game are shown, e.g. B. elephant , rhinoceros , giraffe , buffalo , lion , various antelopes , gazelles and the wild asses often depicted (hence also called wild ass or hunter time). Depictions of crocodile and hippopotamus indicate abundance of water. People are shown hunting and collecting, but play a subordinate role and are shown comparatively small.

The greatest representations of Sahara rock art fall into this first period. The largest pictures reach a height of 8 m. Two regions can be separated from each other, which clearly differ in their motifs: the Central Sahara and the Maghreb .

In the Central Sahara, the rock carvings are mainly engraved. The inner surface has a smooth or linear pattern. The beings shown are reproduced in great detail. In addition to depictions of people, there are initially only wild animals. The main species represented were elephant, giraffe, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, bubalus, antelope, cattle, ostrich and, rarely, the lion.

Individual people can appear in connection with animals in two ways: Either as a small figure or in a realistic size ratio, but then always with a mask, usually in the form of a dog or jackal's head. Occasionally, antelope, bird, and cat-headed masks also appear.

A second major theme of the bubalus period are depictions of sexual content. Men are shown with an oversized penis, sexual intercourse with a woman is often shown, but animals can also play a role in this context. The men also often wear animal masks.

A third subject are the abstract motifs, especially the spiral, which can appear either on their own or in conjunction with depictions of people and animals.

In a more recent phase of the bubalus period, the gradual transition to the cattle period is noticeable. Domesticated cattle appear for the first time. In addition, in the early phase of animal husbandry there were apparently attempts to domesticate other species, for example in Tasili n'Ajjer there is a picture of a person leading an elephant on a leash. The animals are increasingly represented in herds. The display technique remains the same, however. Instead, a gradual stylistic change can be observed. The pictures lose their level of detail and a reduction of the animals to their essential characteristics can be determined.

In the Maghreb, the rock carvings are basically similar to those of the Central Sahara in terms of technique and motif. Here, too, there are depictions of animals and depictions of sexual content. There is also a tendency towards simplification of the images in the more recent phase. However, some stylistic features are only typical of this area. The animals are very often shown here with only two legs, which makes the scenes less dynamic.

The animals most frequently depicted are the bubalus and the ram. In addition to the bubalus, a person is sometimes shown in a worshiping posture. The illustrations of rams are domesticated forms. They are shown in their typical form as so-called sun rams. This designation goes back to a round object between its horns, which is reminiscent of a sun disk and gave rise to speculations about connections to the Egyptian god Amun-Re in older times. But this is hardly possible in terms of time. In addition, a divine character of Aries is also improbable because people depicted next to him usually turn their backs on him. It is therefore perhaps most likely a decorated sacrificial animal or there is no sacred reference whatsoever.

Another special feature of the Maghreb are the images of lions, on which the head is always shown frontally.

Round head period 7000-6000 BC Chr.

Representation of the people of the Rundkopfzeit, Tassili n'Ajjer

Largely at the same time as the bubalus period, another period occurs, which is called the round head period according to its most characteristic feature. In contrast to the bubalus period, their occurrence is very limited. It occurs only in Tassili n-Ajjer, in the immediately neighboring Tadrart Akakus and in Ennedi. The usual technique of representation is painting. The people depicted wear round heads that sit directly on the body. Art is characterized by stylization and abstraction. Big game and domesticated animals are hardly shown.

In the oldest phase, the representations are monochrome, painted flat or as outlines, depending on the region. People are only dressed in aprons, often wear feather headdresses and hold bows and other, often unidentifiable objects in their hands.

This is followed by a phase of polychromy in which the red or purple-brown contours are filled with white, yellow or ocher-brown color. In addition to people, there are also images of animals, but people and animals are almost never shown together and animals predominantly appear individually. In addition to the species that were already typical of the hunting period, there are also images that cannot be clearly assigned to any known animal species.

Clothing and equipment of the people do not change in this phase, but now additional jewelry and body painting or tattoos become visible. The people are represented in very rough forms. The heads are placed directly on the fuselage and sometimes have round or oval elements that are reminiscent of cyclops eyes. A well-known example of this is the so-called "Mars god" by Tassili n'Ajjer.

Unlike animals, humans often appear in groups. Your actions are not always clear. In some cases, however, the scenes are clearly cultic, such as a four-foot tall figure surrounded by women in a praying posture. The round head period shows a style development opposite to the bubalus period, because here the greatly simplified forms are at the beginning, while naturalistic forms appear at a later stage. This phase retains the old motifs, but red-brown areas with white contours now prefer to appear. The bodies are slimmer, the head is no longer sitting directly on the body and sometimes has clearly negroid features. Mask representations also occur in this phase.

Cattle period 5000-2500 BC Chr.

Probably around 6000 BC BC, with the beginning of the Neolithic era , the cattle age begins . What is noticeable in this period is a dichotomy in the display technique, with only a few overlaps. Paintings can be found in Tassili n'Ajjer, Tadrart Akakus, Ennedi and Uweinat, whereas engravings can be found in Tibesti and Ahaggar.

The cattle representations are relatively small, rarely longer than 40 cm. Both humans and animals are shown in great detail despite their small size. Images of domesticated cattle , sheep , goats and dogs predominate . People are increasingly represented in everyday scenes.

The most striking motif of this period are the herds of cattle. However, there are also numerous depictions of people, such as scenes in the camp or around the campfire, as well as hunting or erotic scenes. In contrast to all other things, people's dwellings are never realistically depicted. It should be a top view of mat tents.

The depictions of people apparently reveal three different groups, which differ from one another in appearance, settlement area, their way of life and their furnishings: In the southeast of Tassili, dark-skinned people settled who can be divided into two groups: On the one hand, a group with very negrid features and a second group that has a strong resemblance to today's Fulbe people. These groups lived entirely as cattle herders and were represented with bows and arrows. In the northwest, however, settled a light-skinned group. They were represented with spears, throwing sticks and clubs and kept sheep and goats in addition to cattle. Depictions of people with a sheep running behind them are reminiscent of the “sun rams” of the Maghreb hunting period.

Horse time 1500 BC Until the turn of the ages

Representation of a rider; Djado , Niger

The horse period, which began in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC, only occurs in the central and western Sahara. The representations are only small in size. The horses are barely longer than 30 cm and the people barely taller than 20 cm. The painting is usually done in a flat monochrome style. Anatomical details are hardly reproduced, the human body resembles a double triangular shape. Heads are often completely missing or reduced to a single line. Men wear a short tunic and women wear ankle-length dresses. The animal species depicted reflect an increasingly dry climate. Only ostrich, antelope, gazelle and mouflon are found in wild animals.

The people are shown in scenes similar to those in the cattle period, but now fight scenes are often added. Common weapons were shield and spear. A typical motif were also wagons, which could mostly be pulled by horses, but also by cattle. In the Maghreb, Western Sahara and Mauritania there are also engraved depictions of individual wagons without draft animals.

The chariot eventually became less important and the horse was increasingly used as a mount. During this phase, the first short inscriptions in Tifinagh script also appear.

The images fall after the last moderate greening. These drawings come from the Garamanten mentioned by Herodotus . The Garamanten were an ancient Berber people living in Fezzan. They settled no later than the 5th century BC. The interior of Libya in today's Fessan around the main towns Zinchecra and Garama (Djerma northwest of Murzuk). Through horse breeding and the first use of four-horse chariots, they were able to subdue the surrounding peoples.

Camel time from the turn of the times

From the turn of the ages, the camel period appears as the last phase. Representations of camels are extremely numerous throughout the Sahara, sometimes over a hundred camel images can be found on a rock wall, but these have no relation to one another. The images appear in both engraving and flat painting. The reduction in forms continues in this period. Animals are reduced to their essential characteristics (the humps of camels), humans are only recognizable as stick figures. Horses are still represented in the Sahara at the beginning of the camel period, but cattle are completely absent. Only ostrich and mouflon are shown of wild animals. Hunting and fighting scenes are still common, but the armament is supplemented by daggers and swords.

Representation techniques

Two different techniques are used in the rock art of the Sahara: engraving and painting . Both techniques were not used in parallel, but tend to be mutually exclusive. In some areas of the Sahara only engravings can be found, in others only paintings.

Two different techniques are actually summarized under engraving. The first is actually an engraving. The rock is scratched with a sharp object, such as a stone blade, creating a V- or U-shaped cross-section.

The other technique is that of the struck stroke, where the strokes are made either with a hammer and chisel or with a hand-held percussion instrument. It was also possible to combine both techniques. The contours were first struck and the lines then sanded smooth.

In addition to the outlines, there are also often designs of the inner surfaces. For example, grids are typical for giraffes but also for cattle.

There are also several variants in painting. On the one hand there are monochrome two-dimensional paintings. They usually look like a silhouette, but details can also be reproduced by not completely painting areas, for example when drawing the fur of cattle. Another technique is monochrome linear painting. This allows much more details. Anatomical details such as the eyes are visible, but also details of clothing, hairstyle and body painting.

Flat and linear painting also appear in polychrome variants. With the linear technique, the interiors of the motifs are painted over with one color. The flat paintings show contours of different colors or details.

Three different materials were used for the colors: white was most likely obtained from calcium oxide , black from soot . For all other color tones, ocher was used, which occurs in various shades from yellow-brown to red-brown to purple-brown.

Dating of the rock art

The exact dating of these phases is difficult and by no means undisputed. Since charcoal was hardly used as a dye, it is not possible to date the images directly using the radiocarbon method . Instead, the dating is done using archaeological and historical evidence from the surroundings of the pictures. However, this method only provides usable results for the last two periods, since the introduction of the horse and camel into Africa can be determined fairly precisely thanks to Egyptian sources. The horse and the chariot were first used during the Hyksos rule towards the end of the 18th century BC. Introduced in Lower Egypt and used throughout Egypt from the New Kingdom onwards. In the period that followed, horse use also spread to the west. A second important phase of horse use falls in the 13th century. During this time, the Sea Peoples invasion of Egypt occurred in 1230 under Ramses III. could be pushed back successfully. Some of these peoples seem to have migrated from Libya to the Fezzan after the defeat.

The introduction of the camel can also be dated with certainty. In Egypt it was first used during the first Persian rule from 525 BC. Introduced. However, independent use in the Sahara only began in the first century BC.

The older periods of rock art are far more difficult to date. The beginning of the bovine period is equated with the beginning of the Neolithic period, but the transition from the bubalus to the bovine period is fluid and the separation of the two periods is not always clear. The actual beginning of rock art can hardly be clearly determined either. In the meantime, two very different systems have become established within rock art research: On the one hand, there is the “Brief Chronology” with Alfred Muzzolini as the most important representative. According to this view, rock art did not begin until the wet phase of the Neolithic around 5000 BC. A. In contrast, there is the “Long Chronology” with Fabrizio Mori as the main representative. He sees the beginning of rock art in the late Pleistocene around 10,000 BC. Chr.

Because of this high level of uncertainty, there have been repeated attempts since the 1950s to date the images not only through stylistic comparisons but also with scientific methods. The investigation of the rock surface was already used as the oldest method by Henri Lhote . Penetrating moisture dissolves iron and manganese oxides that collect on the rock surface through evaporation and form a dark patina , known as desert varnish . The scratched out pictures stand out brightly, but darken again over time. Lhote was able to make out clear color differences for the various phases. The engravings of the Bubalus period were “dark”, those of the cattle period “dark, sometimes a little lighter”, those of the horse period “ chamois ” and those of the camel period “light, almost white”.

However, this dating method has remained very imprecise to this day and is unsuitable for determining reasonably accurate dates. The indirect dating of broken and buried rock art by means of the radiocarbon method proved to be reasonably meaningful. However, so far there is only one really reliable dating from Uan Muhuggiag in the Acacus Mountains. It is a boulder with images of cattle that was discovered in the 1970s. A fireplace was discovered in the rubble covering it, which could be dated to 4730 ± 310 BP. There are also other measurements which, however, have doubts as to their correctness or which are of little use because it is not clear what is actually shown in the relevant images. For Uan Telocat, Acacus Mountains, there is a dating for 6754 ± 175 BP. However, the drawing was assigned to the round head period only on the basis of the patination and color. The date from Uan Muhuggiag thus remains the only fixed point and ultimately only gives a terminus ante quem for the cattle period.

Another method has been tried since 2008 to date the images of the Round Head Period in Tassili-n-Ajjer. The investigation took place in the neighboring sites of Ti-n-Tazarift and Sefar. Here, too, the dating was indirect. The starting point was the investigation of eroded deposits beneath rock paintings that are no longer accessible today. These deposits formed the original walking horizon at the time of the rock art artists and are still visible today as gray discolorations on the rock. After the stratification of the deposits had been clarified, a total of 13 samples were taken and dated by means of optically stimulated luminescence (OSL). The investigations showed that the formation of the deposits came to an end about 10,000 years ago. However, the most recent date recorded from the upper layers was only 1500 years old. It is therefore only possible to state a maximum age of 10,000 years for the round head paintings, but not a minimum age. Extensive further investigations are therefore necessary for a reliable absolute chronology of the rock art.

literature

  • Barbara E. Barich , Thierry Tillet , Karl Heinz Striedter (Eds.): Hunters vs. Pastoralists in the Sahara. Material Culture and Symbolic Aspects (= British Archaeological Reports. International Series. 1338). Archaeopress, Oxford 2005, ISBN 1-8417-1684-7 .
  • Peter Breunig : Dating African rock art. In: Contributions to general and comparative archeology. Volume 11, 1991, ISSN  0170-9518 , pp. 115-143.
  • Ulrich W. Hallier, Brigitte C. Hallier: Rock paintings of the Central Sahara (= investigations based on more recent rock art finds in the South Sahara. 2 = special publications of the Frobenius Institute. 12). Steiner, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-515-06183-5 .
  • Augustin FC Holl: Saharan Rock Art. Archeology of Tassilian Pastoralist Iconography. AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek CA et al. 2004, ISBN 0-7591-0604-5 .
  • Jean-Loïc Le Quellec : Rock Art in Africa. Mythology and Legend. Flammarion et al., Paris 2004, ISBN 2-0803-0444-5 .
  • Henri Lhote : A la découverte des fresques du Tassili (= Collection Signes des temps. 3, ZDB -ID 1069165-0 ). Arthaud, Paris 1958 (German translation: The rock paintings of the Sahara. Discovery of an 8,000-year-old culture. Zettner, Würzburg / Vienna 1958).
  • Fabrizio Mori : The Great Civilizations of the ancient Sahara. Neolithization and the earliest evidence of anthropomorphic religions (= Bibliotheca Archaeologica. 21). L'Erma di Bretschneider, Rome 1998, ISBN 88-7062-971-6 .
  • Alfred Muzzolini : L'art rupestre préhistorique des massifs centraux sahariens (= British Archaeological Reports. International Series. 318 = Cambridge Monographs in African Archeology. 16). BAR, Oxford 1986, ISBN 0-86054-406-0 .
  • Karl Heinz Striedter: Rock paintings of North Africa and the Sahara. A procedure for their systematic recording and evaluation (= studies on cultural studies. 64). Steiner, Wiesbaden 1983, ISBN 3-515-03397-1 (also: Frankfurt am Main, University, dissertation, 1980).
  • Karl Heinz Striedter: Rock paintings of the Sahara. Prestel, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-7913-0634-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jörg W. Hansen: Tassili. Kind of rupestre dans les tassilis de l'ouest et du sud algérien. = Rock art in the western and southern tassilis, Algeria. = Rock art in the western and southern Algerian Tassilis. = Arte rupestre nei tassili dell'ovest e del sud algerino. Preface by Paul G. Bahn. Somogy éditions d'art, Paris 2009, ISBN 978-2-7572-0251-7 .
  2. ↑ Darren Naish: The 'Great bubalus' in ancient African rock art. In: scienceblogs.com. ScienceBlogs , April 28, 2011, accessed September 2, 2017 .