digital photograph(colour)
- Museum number
- 2013,2034.3587
- Description
-
Digital photograph (colour); view of engraved rock art on a rock face (sandstone), showing at least five circular holes (cupules?). Messak Mellet, Libya.
Born digital
- Production date
- 07 March 2008
- Dimensions
-
File size: 69.90 megabytes
-
Resolution: 300 dots per inch
- Curator's comments
- Close-up of 2013,2034.3583. Most of the circular holes probably have a natural origin. The Messak Mellet is the southern part of the Messak Plateau, which runs southeast-northwest in the south-western Libyan province of Fezzan, near the border with Algeria and Niger. The plateau has numerous dry riverbeds that run to the east into the Murzuq desert, where the engravings are usually depicted usually over vertical rocks. Contrarily to the northern plateau (Messak Settafet) whose rock art was discovered as early as 1850 by Heinrich Barth, the Messak Mellet hasn’t been properly studied until recent times (Van Albada 1994).
The rock art represented in Messak Mellet is directly related to that of the best known region of Messak Settafet, sharing the same technical, stylistic and chronological criteria. Engravings –Few paintings have been documented insofar- represent wild animals as buffaloes, rhinos, ostriches or giraffes, along with domestic species as cows, camels or horses. Human depictions and therianthropes are also common. All the periods documented at Messak Settafet –Bubalus, Pastoral, Tazina, Horse and Camel- are also represented in this area.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 2013
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- 2013,2034.3587
- Additional IDs
-
Previous owner/ex-collection number: LIBMES0250038 (TARA number)
