digital photograph(colour)
- Museum number
- 2013,2034.8693
- Description
-
Digital photograph (colour); view of a desert landscape showing two industrial cabins. Background: hamada (stone desert). Wadi Mathendous, Libya.
Born digital
- Production date
- 07 October 2009 (original photograph)
- Dimensions
-
File size: 70.10 megabytes
-
Resolution: 300 dots per inch
- Curator's comments
- The photograph was taken in the entrance to Wadi Mathendous, one of the many dry riverbeds on the southern edge of the Messak Plateau in southwest Libya, near the borders between Algeria and Niger. That plateau, 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). Throughout these plateaus, numerous dry riverbeds run to the east into Murzuq erg. Wadi Mathendous, north to Wadi in Aramas, is one of the most important rock art sites in the Messak and together with some its tributaries as the Wadi Tilizaghen constitutes the core of the Messak rock art. The sandstone cliffs of these dry riverbeds are full with tens of thousands of rock art engravings –only a few paintings have been located insofar-, mostly depicted in vertical rocks.
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
- 2013,2034.8693
- Additional IDs
-
Previous owner/ex-collection number: LIBNAS0049 (TARA number)
