digital photograph(colour)
- Museum number
- 2013,2034.3343
- Description
-
Digital photograph (colour); view of desert landscape and unidentified person. Background: sandstone cliffs and unidentified person taking a photograph of a rock face with engravings. Wadi Taleshut, Libya.
Scanned
- Production date
-
05 March 2008 (date digitized)
-
March 1998 (original photograph)
- Dimensions
-
File size: 69.90 megabytes
-
Resolution: 300 dots per inch
- Curator's comments
- The photograph was taken at Wadi Taleshut, of the many dry riverbeds located at the Northern Messak Plateau (Messak Settafet) that run east into the Murzuq erg. Although located at the south of the main area of engravings around the Wadis Tilizaghen and Mathendous, its rock art shares similar features with the core area, including the distribution of depictions on vertical rocks along the wadi, the absence of painting and the styles documented within it, mostly Bubalus, Pastoral, Tazina, Horse and Camel periods. Depictions include wild animals -ostriches, giraffes, rhinos and antelopes- and domestic species as dogs and cows, as well as human figures and therianthropes. Animal tracks are also represented in the area, along with other symbols as cupules, concentric circles and spirals.
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. The area is home to some of the oldest engravings in the Sahara desert (around 10,000 years old) and some of the most popular depictions in Saharan rock art, as the “Sparring Cats” or the so-called “Apollo of the Garamantes”.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 2013
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- 2013,2034.3343
- Additional IDs
-
Previous owner/ex-collection number: LIBMES0200073 (TARA number)
