digital photograph(colour)
- Museum number
- 2013,2034.5878
- Description
-
Digital photograph (colour); view of engraved rock art on a rock face, showing two human figures, three elephants, a rhinoceros? warthog? and a graffiti. Right: two infilled (pecked) human figures upright facing front, holding unidentified object (weapon?) with their hands to the left. From left to right: three infilled (polished) elephants upright facing right. An infilled (pecked) rhinoceros or warthog is placed between the first and the second elephants to the left. A Libyan-Berber graffiti superimposes the elephant to the right. Oukaïmeden valley, Morocco.
Scanned
- Production date
-
29 February 2008 (date digitized)
-
March 1998 (original photograph)
- Dimensions
-
File size: 119 megabytes
-
Resolution: 300 dots per inch
- Curator's comments
- See 2013,2034.5880 to 2013,2034.5883 for details.
This series of animals is known as the Elephants’ Frieze, and is one of the most famous scenes in the Oukaïmeden valley. The frieze includes another animal (a lion or cat) who doesn’t appear in the phototograph (see 2013,2034.5882).
The engravings are located in the Oukaïmeden valley, in the Moroccan High Atlas, a mountain range that extends across the northwestern stretch of North Africa, including Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. The highest peaks are placed in Morocco, reaching more than 4000 meters and being the highest in North Africa. Throughout the years, thousands of rock art engravings have been discovered around three areas: the Oukaïmeden valley, the Yagour plateau and Jbel Rat. The engravings of the High Atlas Mountains are stylistically different from those to the south, showing animals, weapons and human figures but with almost no examples of Tazina, Cattle (Pastoral), Horse and Camel periods common in the Sahara rock art traditions. Some of the engravings –as halberds- have been interpreted as depictions of archaeologically known weapons and dated in the Bronze Age.
Research in the High Atlas is relatively modern and only started after the Second World War. The first works were made by Jean Malhomme, who published a corpus of two volumes in 1959, and went on in the 1980s and 1990s, when Alain Rodrigue published several articles that ended in a comprehensive study in 1999.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 2013
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- 2013,2034.5878
- Additional IDs
-
Previous owner/ex-collection number: MORATM0130023 (TARA number)
