digital photograph(colour)
- Museum number
- 2013,2034.12398
- Description
-
Digital photograph (colour); view of painted rock art showing figures of seven unidentified quadrupeds and two human figures, all faded. Clearest figure at top right, upright with protrusion at left pointing down and another at right pointing up in red-brown. Others below are in brown, very faded, central four appear to have riders. Schematic stick-figure style human figures at top right and bottom left with downward pointing arms. 5cm photo scale fitted at base of image. Guilemsi, Mauritania.
Scanned
- Production date
-
April 2004 (original photograph)
-
10 April 2008 (date digitized)
- Dimensions
-
File size: 122 megabytes
-
Resolution: 300 dots per inch
- Curator's comments
- Detail of 2013,2034.12397.
Guilemsi is an 11-km long ridge, about 70 m high at its highest point. The rock art there was first recorded by a team from the Trust for African Rock Art in April 2004.
Guilemsi is located in the desert, around 50 km north of the town of Tidjika, and about 200 km west of the renowned Neolithic sites at Dhar Tichitt. Guilemsi’s south face contains many ravines with rock shelters, and the rock painting sites scattered around the area are to be found in open shelters and ridges or boulders on the cliff faces, as well as on the stone banks of a dry river. These sites are notable both for the solely painted nature of the rock art, and the variety of its subject matter. Guilemsi is flanked to the South by the vast chain of sandstone escarpments forming the Dhars Tagant-Tichitt-Walata-Néma chain. Rock art research in the Tichitt area was pioneered by French researchers in the mid-20th century with the most significant contributions to study made by Theodor Monod and Raymond Mauny, with more recent syntheses produced by Robert Vernet. Many rock art sites specific to the Tichitt-Walata region have been published in relation to archaeological work there on Neolithic settlements, but academic research on rock art in this area of Mauritania has not been extensive.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 2013
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- 2013,2034.12398
- Additional IDs
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Previous owner/ex-collection number: MAUTAG0030016 (TARA number)