digital photograph(colour)
- Museum number
- 2013,2034.2192
- Description
-
Digital photograph (colour); view of painted rock art showing figures of four humans, two unidentified quadrupeds and three unidentified shapes. Left to right: quadruped (cow?); human figure, in profile but lacking features, arms extended in front; another, similar orientation but larger with pot belly (pregnancy?), three protrusions from back of head (headdress? hairstyle); more schematic human with arms either side of body. Above is unidentified shape. All these infilled in brown, upright and facing right; Roundhead Period (?). To right, outlined in faded grey-brown, are further, smaller figures (Left to right): unidentified shape, outline infilled by dots in single mass with two projections at base; antelope turned to the side and facing up with back to right, schematic in outline, with long straight vertical horns. Right of quadruped is series of unidentified connected lines coming to round point with two projections near forelegs. Wadi Ahloun, Libya.
Born digital
- Production date
- 14 October 2009
- Dimensions
-
File size: 70.10 megabytes
-
Resolution: 300 dots per inch
- Curator's comments
- See also 2013,2034.2193-2200.
Tassili n’Ajjer is a mountainous sandstone plateau covering around 72,000km² in the mid-Sahara, largely situated in eastern Algeria but straddling the borders with Libya and Niger. The area is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site due to its plethora of rock art, its geological attributes and its unique flora and fauna. Although previously known to the local Tuareg of the Kel Ajjer, the rock art was not discovered to academia until the 1930s, when the renowned French archaeologist and anthropologist Abbé Henri Breuil was made aware of it by a French Legionnaire who had observed some sites. Ethnographer and explorer Henri Lhote went on to record and publish numerous images, leading to the mounting of a celebrated exhibition of Tassilian art at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 1957-8. The rock art of Tassili n’Ajjer, has now been widely studied and discussed within the larger context of ‘Saharan Rock Art’, adjacent as it is to the Libyan ranges of Tadrart Acacus and Messak.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 2013
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- 2013,2034.2192
- Additional IDs
-
Previous owner/ex-collection number: LIBLTA0050003 (TARA number)