digital photograph(colour)
- Museum number
- 2013,2034.3028
- Description
-
Digital photograph (colour); view of engraved rock art on a rock face (sandstone), showing a buffalo, a cow and an unidentified quadruped. Centre: infilled (polished) buffalo upright facing right with curved upturned horns. Superimposed by buffalo, outlined (polished) cow upright facing right, curved upturned horns. Only head and neck depicted. Left: outlined (polished) unidentified quadruped upright facing right. Wadi Beddis, Libya.
Scanned
- Production date
-
01 March 2008 (date digitized)
-
March 1998 (original photograph)
- Dimensions
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File size: 57.40 megabytes
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Resolution: 300 dots per inch
- Curator's comments
- Close-up of 2013,2034.3024.
Buffaloes are one the most characteristic animals depicted in the older periods of Messak rock art. The one depicted in the photograph has exaggeratedly sized horns, but follows all the stylistic conventions of Bubalus style. The human figure to the lower left seems to have been holding a bow.
The engravings are located near Wadi Beddis (or Geddis) Isar, at the northern Messak Plateau (Messak Settafet). Wadi Beddis is one of the many dry riverbeds that run east into the Murzuq erg in southwest Libya, near the borders between Algeria and Niger. The Messak, which runs southwest-northeast through the Libyan province of Fezzan, is divided in two by the Tilemsin pass, which defines two smaller plateaus (Settafet to the north and Mellet to the south). Although located to the north of the main area of engravings around the wadis Tilizaghen and Mathendous, its rock art engravings share similar features, as the distribution of depictions on vertical rocks along the wadi and the styles documented within it, mostly Bubalus, Pastoral, Tazina, Horse and Camel periods. Depictions include buffaloes, elephants, ostriches, rhinos and giraffes, along with domestic animals as camel and cows and human figures.
The Messak rock art has been known since Heinrich Barth’s expedition in 1850, although it wasn’t until 1932 when the engravings were systematically studied by Leo Frobenius. In more recent times the area has been extensively studied by Pesce (1969), Graziosi (1970) and Jelinek (1984, 1985). Figures appear both isolated and within complex scenes which include engraved life-size elephants, giraffes, crocodiles, buffaloes and figures which mix human and animal features (therianthropes) along with numerous figures of more modern periods as horses and camels. Most of the engravings belong to the so called Bubalus style, but Tazina, Pastoral, Horse and Camel styles are also well represented. Research at Wadi Beddis and its tributaries began later with respect to the core area around the Tilizaghen and the Mathendous wadis, with the first works taking place in the 80’s by Jelinek, Castiglioni and Negro.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 2013
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- 2013,2034.3028
- Additional IDs
-
Previous owner/ex-collection number: LIBMES0150005 (TARA number)