Tassili Rock Art

January 31, 2008 12:30 PM

The rock art of the Tassili culture is found throughout North African mountains, the Tassili n'Ajjer.The rock art of Europe is well known around the world. Lesser known but just as amazing and less well-understood is the rock art of North Africa. (prev.,prev.) This tradition is thought to have developed independently of European rock art although researchers agree about very little else about it. This art hearkens back to a time when the Sahara's climate was milder and more wet. This rock art has often been compared to the pre-Nguni San rock art of Southern Africa. There are of course people who believe that aliens did it. The more research that is done about this area and its archaeology, the more we may have to rethink our ideas about the Sahara. . Sadly enough, like many archaeological sites it is becoming endangered.
posted by anansi (8 comments total)

Rockin'! You have a bad link though (Sahara's climate...)
posted by Mister_A at 12:36 PM on January 31, 2008

Nice links, thanks anansi!

Sadly, I just saw this on the BBC, about the Lajuad site in Western Sahara:

Peacekeepers 'deface ancient art'

It was reported by Nick Brook, a climatologist.

His blog

His Flickr stream
posted by carter at 12:47 PM on January 31, 2008

here's the bad link:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/07/990712080500.htm
posted by anansi at 1:03 PM on January 31, 2008

Hrm, I once had a question about a specific painting featured in those caves, this will be good reading. Thank you!

That is unbelievable, carter, ugh.
posted by prostyle at 1:05 PM on January 31, 2008

Rock art of England.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 1:53 PM on January 31, 2008

Nice first post!
posted by languagehat at 2:12 PM on January 31, 2008

the irony is that the tassili art was scrawled over 12 thousand year old vandalism. archaeologists at the time were also disappointed.

I don't mean to belittle the loss to science and our understanding of our past, but its just kind of funny that humans are for better or worse, more or less the same when and where ever you go.
posted by nihlton at 3:43 PM on January 31, 2008

Yes. We each have a little Bamiyan-bombing Taliban inside us, striving to express himself with vandalism and iconoclasm.
posted by XMLicious at 12:14 AM on February 1, 2008