digital photograph(colour)
- Museum number
- 2013,2034.7604
- Description
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Digital photograph (colour); view of engraved rock art on a rock face, showing six cows, three giraffes, an ostrich and three unidentified shapes, all of them outlined with pecking. To the right and the left there are two cows depicted upright facing left, with patched coat pattern markings and curved upturned horns. The rest of the animals are engraved around these two cows, depicted upright facing left or right, some of then infilled with pecking or with grid-style coat pattern markings. Tigui Tongour, Chad.
Scanned
- Production date
-
November 1996 (original photograph)
-
16 March 2006 (date digitized)
- Dimensions
-
File size: 121 megabytes
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Resolution: 300 dots per inch
- Curator's comments
- The photograph depicts an impressive frieze of eighteen big cows engraved along two long rock faces and surrounded by smaller images of other animals and human figures.
See 2013,2034.7598 to 2013,2034.7602 and 2013,2034.7604 to 2013,2034.7635 for different views and details of this rock art site.
The Tibesti Mountains are placed at the north-western corner of Chad, with a small part of them running into Libya. The central area of the Tibesti Mountains has a volcanic origin, with one third of the range covered by five volcanoes. That origin has formed vast plateaus as well as fumaroles, sulphur and natron deposits and other geologic formations. The erosion has shaped big canyons were seasonal rivers (wadis) flow irregularly. Rock art was discovered at the Tibesti Mountains as soon as 1869, although it was between the 1910’s and 1930’s when the first preliminary studies started to be carried on by François D’Alverny. However, the main boost in the research came in the 50’s and 60’s thanks to the work of Paul Huard. During the last 50 years, researchers have found thousands of depictions throughout the region, most of them engravings although paintings are well represented, too.
As in the Ennedi plateau, the Tibesti Mountains engravings are more modern than those placed to the north, dating of about 5000 years BC, with the oldest images being related to the Round Heads style in the Central Sahara. Later depictions are very numerous, especially engravings and paintings of the Pastoral, Camel and Horse periods. As happens in the Ennedi Plateau, the Tibesti Mountains are characterized by the existence of different local styles, with differences between the northern and southern ranges.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 2013
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- 2013,2034.7604
- Additional IDs
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Previous owner/ex-collection number: CHATDS0020010 (TARA number)