Art rupestre à la Tadrart

Terres Touareg

Rock art in the heart of the Algerian Sahara

The rock art of the Sahara is a fascinating testimony to the creativity and life of ancient peoples. Mainly concentrated in the Tassili n’Ajjer in Algeria
and the Tadrart Acacus in Libya, this art is made up of numerous engravings and paintings. Unlike the Palaeolithic rock art found in the deep
caves of the Franco-Cantabrian region, Saharan works adorn rock shelters and exposed walls. Protected from the wind, sand and sun,
these works offer a unique insight into the wildlife, rituals and scenes of daily life in ancient times.
Discover the history and richness of this rock art.

The discovery of Saharan rock art

In the early 1930s, the French lieutenant Charles Brenans discovered rock paintings and engravings depicting numerous anthropomorphic figures and large animals from the African wild fauna. These turned out to be the oldest paintings in the Sahara.

In 1956, Swiss ethnologist Yolande Tschudi published the first monograph devoted to this art. In the same year, the French prehistorian Henri Lhote and a team of Tuaregs carried out a 15-month study campaign organised by the Musée de l’Homme in Paris, the CNRS and the Institut d’études sahariennes d’Algérie. He carried out extensive documentation work in the Tassili n’Ajjer.

On his return to Paris in 1957, he inaugurated an exhibition that was an immediate success and a great success. The paintings and engravings were brought to the attention of the general public by Henri Lhote, but unfortunately he was also the main person responsible for the deterioration of these discoveries. To date, researchers have been able to record more than 15,000 paintings, drawings and engravings made around 10,000 years ago, with a wide variety of subjects bearing witness to the peoples who lived in this region in prehistoric times. We can see all kinds of animals, humans, more or less human figures, weapons, chariots, scenes from everyday life (pastoralism, hunting, war, marriage, mating, etc.).

Styles and techniques

Researchers have classified Saharan rock art according to different styles and techniques, based on the different motifs. The ‘round head’ style, known to be the oldest style, is characterised by a human silhouette whose face is generally represented by a circle without any features. The ‘bovidian’ style usually depicts pastoral scenes as well as scenes from everyday life. The ‘caballin’ style is distinguished by the motif of the chariot, driven by a rider and pulled by horses.

The gradual desertification of the Sahara led to the disappearance of the pastoral societies that raised large cattle and horses there. The paintings were then replaced by camels, giving rise to the ‘camelin’ style.

Rock art is characterised by two techniques: engraving by incision (exceptional) or by staking, a widespread technique in which men hammered a rock support with a hard stone. The second technique was painting using crushed minerals with a wider range of colours than in the Palaeolithic: white, in particular, was not uncommon during this period.

Chronology of prehistoric civilisations

The rock engravings and paintings of the Sahara correspond to the different chronological phases of this desert. Saharan art is extremely fragile, with a succession of images of animals and people on the rocks, veritable chronological indicators. Until the end of the Middle Palaeolithic, the development of tools in North Africa was identical to that in Europe and the Near East. But from the Upper Palaeolithic onwards, around 400,000 BC, North Africa, and the Sahara in particular, evolved differently, with the Aterian retaining flake-based tools, while Europe and the Near East developed blade-based tools. Around 10,000 BC, the central Sahara, particularly the Tassili n’Ajjer, became a centre of pottery manufacture. Man tried to domesticate various animals, including oxen and mouflon sheep, and improved the yield of plants such as millet.

This new way of integrating into the environment gave rise to the term Neolithic. In certain Saharan regions, however, man continued to lead the same way of life. He was still a hunter, gatherer and fisherman, and there was no evidence of any new ecological behaviour, but as his technology had evolved, he was called Epipaleolithic. They did not enter the Neolithic world until much later. Saharan rock art has been linked to material life for a long time in the case of bovid art, and more recently in the case of round-head art, an expression of the Saharan-Sudanese Neolithic, the origin of which has recently been found in the Kel Essuf engravings. But we still don’t know which culture, or cultures, produced the bubaline engravings. As for Caballin or Camelin art, it belongs to that still little-known period when prehistoric times turned into historical times.

Rock art in the heart of the Algerian Sahara
Rock art in the heart of the Algerian Sahara
Rock art in the heart of the Algerian Sahara

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