… At the top of one of the rocks of the northern steep coast of the Makhtandush wadi, we found two-meter engravings of creatures dancing on their hind legs with deep-set eyes, sharp ears, tails and a strip of wool along the ridge. Who is it? Doing dance steps cats? The rearing goats? At the same time, there is something humanoid in the figures. The guides insisted that they were genies…
The significance of the discovery of rock art in North Africa can hardly be overestimated. With very scanty archaeological finds, petroglyphs became the main source of knowledge about the nature and population of the Sahara during the period not only of the Paleolithic and Neolithic, but also of antiquity.
Then the Greek and Roman authors had information only about the garamans, and the rest of the Great Desert was described as an absolutely uninhabited area. Without the rock carvings discovered in the early thirties of the twentieth century, there would be an irreplaceable gap in our knowledge of the past of North Africa. The murals also clarify questions about the common cultural heritage of the peoples of the Mediterranean, the formation of the ancient Egyptian civilization and the mysterious Garamantida.
Ancient images of hunters with masks on their heads were first discovered in Fezzan in 1850 by the German traveler G. Bart. It did not attract much attention then. But the opening in 1933 in Tassili-Ager (Algeria) and in the adjacent Akakus of two natural museums of prehistoric art in the open air turned out to be a real sensation.
The heroes of these events were Lieutenant of the Foreign Legion Brenan and the German traveler L. Frobenius. Both at first it seemed that they were dreaming. They saw hundreds of petroglyphs on the rocks and in caves - like miniatures transferred from a museum, hastily made sketches, gigantic engravings, panels depicting scenes of everyday life, hunting, and holidays. The most amazing were the drawings of animals that lived in these places thousands of years before the Sahara became a desert.
In the same 1933, the Italian scientist P. Graziosi began in Fezzan a systematic study of petroglyphs - these messages that have come down to us from the darkness of millennia of people who once inhabited North Africa.
The two most famous "museums" of petroglyphs in Libya (I visited them relatively recently) are located on the border with Algeria - the Akakus mountain range adjacent to Tassili and the Mahtandush wadi (wadi is a temporary drying up watercourse, a valley in the desert). Incidentally, the latter's engravings are among the most valuable in the world.
The most ancient drawings and prints appeared in the "era of hunters". With amazing skill, they depict predators - lions, panthers, wild cats or animals that needed a lot of water for life - elephants, rhinos, crocodiles. It is strange to see them today in the middle of the dead world of the desert scorched by the sun. The realism of the drawings is striking. Many animals are so vividly depicted in motion, in running, that it seems a little more - and they will fall off the rocks and rush into the distance.
On one of the frescoes in Akakus, an ancient artist depicted an angry elephant: ears are spread out, tusks are exposed, the trunk is extended forward. Opposite him is a rhinoceros, frozen in a fighting stance and at the same time indecisive: he is clearly afraid of the enemy. In the Makhtandush wadi, a flock of lions prowling along the plain and already preparing for an attack looks very picturesque. There are also images of people with spears, clubs, nets in their hands.
The climate of Central Sahara was then similar to the modern equatorial one. Forested mountains rose in the middle of the green plains, palm groves adjoined wooded valleys, through which deep rivers flowed. Now, while in Akakus, travelers are moving along the ancient bed of a dried-up river covered with sand, surrounded by lifeless black mountains. In some places the channel narrows, forming gorges; steep walls 80-100 meters high rise on both sides. In the rocks one can come across mysterious grottoes with natural columns, reminiscent of ancient pagan temples. Along the banks of the river and the tributaries flowing into it, near the caves in which primitive people lived, petroglyphs are grouped, mostly frescoes, although there are also scratched drawings - engravings.
Wadi Makhtandush lies in the middle of dead plains covered with black stones, which extend beyond the horizon in the north, and in the south abut the sandy mountains of Erga Murzuk (erg is the zone of dunes), 60 kilometers away. Scattered along the yellow, waterless channel are olive trees, acacias, camel thorn bushes, leaning towards small lakes - gelts. A full-flowing river once flowed here as well. From the foot to the upper edge of the cliffs of the northern coast, which is steep, as if composed of giant blocks, large, and sometimes huge, engravings stretch in a continuous strip for 60 kilometers. Occasionally you come across free-standing stele-like stones covered with mysterious ornaments.
The rock carvings are well preserved, and this is explained not only by the fact that most of them are protected by overhanging rock canopies, but also by the fact that they are made with paints made of "coloring stone" (guides showed it to us, tracing several lines along the rocks). Such stones were previously ground into powder and mixed with an astringent. The earliest designs are one-color, then two-color ones appear, in which mainly red ocher and white paint were used. On some petroglyphs, they are already combined with a bluish-gray tone.
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In later drawings, savanna animals predominate. The fact is that 10 thousand years BC. the climate began to gradually change, becoming more arid. There are still many images of elephants, but giraffes, antelopes, and ostriches are already adjacent to them. Livestock can also be found, mainly buffaloes with bent horns protruding forward, ready to repel the attack of predators.
There are many images of people, mostly hunters, although shepherds are also seen. Petroglyphs are extremely picturesque. In one "painting" in Akakus, one can see expressive figures of people with graceful bodies and round heads. They chase game, shooting bows on the run. One of them has used up all the arrows, but continues to run with the others. And here's another scene: hunters surround a herd of mouflons and aim at them with bows, while dogs chase fleeing animals. I also remember the engraving in wadi Makhtandush - little men attack a huge elephant. Attention is drawn to the frescoes depicting people hunting hippos while standing in pies that look like ancient Egyptian boats.
One of the engravings in the Mahtandush wadi depicts a man riding … a giraffe. What does this mean? Perhaps primitive people tried to tame giraffes, but they failed? Or did they tame some, as cheetahs were tamed in Ancient Egypt?
It is curious: for many hunters, the heads of animals rise above their foreheads. According to the guides, this was how they disguised themselves, trying to get as close as possible to the pursued animals. There are also images of sorcerers - with the head of an animal worn on the top of the head and a tail attached to the back, they perform a magic dance. These kinds of rituals, possibly accompanied by striking beasts, preceded every major hunt and were intended to guarantee good luck.
The success of hunting, especially for large animals - elephants, rhinoceroses, was predetermined by the coordination of actions of the participants, exact adherence to a previously worked out plan, and unquestioning obedience to the orders of the leader.
Archaeological excavations carried out in Akakus made it possible, despite the scarcity of finds, to reveal three groups of stone tools for hunting and labor. The first of them includes flint arrowheads, large cannonballs, stone axes, plates for throwing at wild animals (or serving as tools for skinning). The second group is harpoons and fishing hooks. The third includes tools for crushing grain obtained from the collection of wild-growing cereals, and, possibly, already from cultivated plants. Hence the conclusion: the population of the Sahara was engaged not only in hunting, but also in fishing and agriculture.
The hunters belonged to the Negroid race, their guides are called "Black Ethiopians". In terms of body structure, they are similar to the stunted Bushmen. The "father of history" Herodotus, who mentioned this race, wrote that "the cave Ethiopians are the fastest runners of all people we have only heard of."
For 8 thousand years BC. a new period begins - the “era of pastoralists”. The hunters are replaced by shepherds, who drove before them huge herds of cattle, which found here both juicy grass and rivers still filled with water. The pictures carefully depict obese cows, bulls, goats, antelopes.
There are many everyday scenes. Women preparing food outside thatched huts. Men with axes prepare to cut trees. Children - wrapped in bedspreads, sitting on the ground. A group of people sitting in a circle. The girl cutting the hair of another. Warriors going on a campaign. Women's clothing consists of loincloths or skirts and many ornaments - beads on the neck, pendants on the chest, embroidered belts, bracelets on the arms, knees, ankles. Household items are visible in the huts - baskets, vessels made of baked clay. Looking at the drawings, you have a strange feeling of belonging to what happened many thousands of years ago.
Although the petroglyphs themselves are devoid of magical or religious meaning and their creation is caused by an exclusively natural love for art for a person, the desire to reflect life, it was at this time that the first gods appear, the first myths arise. Man still retains a sense of the close connection of his existence with the life of animals - it is no coincidence that in the legends that arose then, the fertility of women is linked with the fertility of animals. At the same time, the tradition of using masks for ritual purposes was widely spread. Until now, it is preserved among the pagans of Black Africa.
Some of the petroglyphs depict people playing musical instruments similar to those used by the Libyans today. Such instruments include, for example, a small drum, which is a hoop made of ceramic and covered with leather on both sides. The drummer hangs it around his neck to be able to dance and beat the drum at the same time.
Here and there scenes of battles come across. The warriors are armed with spears and javelins, which they throw as they run. The dead and the wounded were sprawled here and there on the ground. It seems that the invasion of pastoral tribes was not painless everywhere, it met with resistance from the indigenous population.
The people depicted in the frescoes of this period belong mainly to the Negroid race, but they are taller than the "black Ethiopians", resembling the body structure of the modern inhabitants of the African savannah.
The pictures show harmonious color combinations. Along with red ocher and white, red-brown, green, yellow, violet, and sometimes blue tones appear.
For 2.5 thousand years BC. another climate change begins. The last pluvial, that is, rainy, period ends, and the steppes gradually disappear, giving way to the desert. Droughts and heat are forcing large mammals to leave the Sahara and move to Central Africa, where they still live, and to the Mediterranean coast (where over time they were exterminated by humans).
The most important event of this period is the invasion of North Africa 1300 years before the onset of a new era of the "peoples of the sea", apparently the Achaeans, Sards, Etruscans, who, having captured Marmarica and using it as their main base, are trying to break into Egypt, but are defeated. Part of the "Sea Peoples", making raids in the south-western direction, reaches Fezzan, thanks to the superiority in the means of warfare (cavalry, war chariots, bronze weapons) easily conquer it and extend their domination up to Western Sudan.
In the XI century BC. In Wadi Al-Ajyal, the first state in this region, Ga-Ramantida, appears. In 18 BC. it becomes a vassal of Rome. The prehistoric period ends and the Sahara enters into History. The Garamantes created a civilization unique for antiquity (along with Palmyra) in the desert, which existed for one and a half thousand years, until the conquest of North Africa by the Arabs. (The Qel-Ajer Tuaregs living in the Gata region consider themselves to be the direct descendants of the Garamans.) The high mobility of troops, provided by excellent cavalry and chariots, allowed the Garamants to confidently control vast areas of the desert. It is no coincidence that the Romans who settled in North Africa after the defeat of Carthage regarded them as their most dangerous opponents in these lands.
In Akakus, drawings of chariots have been preserved from that time. Fours of horses harnessed to them are depicted, as a rule, in a "flying gallop" with symmetrically raised front and hind legs. This style is characteristic of Mycenaean art, and this serves as some confirmation of the hypothesis that the Garamans are immigrants from Greece.
Near the petroglyphs there are many inscriptions made in the ancient Libyan alphabet. Although the Berber writing - tifinagh - originated from it, the outlines of the letters have changed so much that the Tuaregs are unable to read them. Scientists have not yet been able to decipher them, despite the fact that many of the inscriptions were made in two languages - Old Libyan and Punic.
The most recent petroglyphs of the Libyan Sahara date from the 1st century BC. until the 5th century A. D. This is already the "era of camels". Their images are found almost everywhere along with drawings of horses and carts. However, these primitive frescoes are of no particular artistic value.
As suggested by some scholars, the culture of the prehistoric Sahara influenced the formation of the culture of Ancient Egypt. An invaluable contribution to the elucidation of this relationship was made by the Italian archaeologist F. Mori (I happened to meet him in 1994 during one of my trips to Akakus). Studying the petroglyphs of the Libyan Sahara since 1960, F. Mori discovered the body of a child who died in 5.5 thousand years BC. and mummified by the same methods used by the Egyptians. But at the same time, the remains of a child belong to a much earlier era than the first dynasty of the pharaohs and the most ancient Egyptian mummies!
Among the petroglyphs, there are images of bulls, rams, stone goats with a ball drawn between the horns - this reminds, on the one hand, of frescoes depicting the ancient Egyptian goddess Hathor, and on the other, the symbol of the god Amun, whose oracle was located in the Siwa oasis in the Western Desert. and the temple is at Tebessa in Upper Egypt. According to Libyan researchers, the petroglyphs depict the sun god Gzharzal, who was worshiped in ancient times by the inhabitants of the Sahara. And these drawings, scattered throughout the Great Desert - from Western Sahara and Mauritania to the Chadian highlands of Tibesti and the Al-Uweinat mountains on the border of Sudan with Libya - were also created much earlier than the Egyptian ones!
In general, there are many analogies between Saharan art, which flourished in the era preceding the appearance of the first dynasty of the pharaohs, and Egyptian frescoes. Thus, the engraving in the Makhtandush wadi depicting a crocodile with unusually long legs and beautifully traced scales, head, tail, is very similar to the drawings of crocodiles found on Egyptian monuments of the ancient kingdom period.
The Italian scientist A. Gaudio puts forward the following hypothesis in this regard. Egypt was inhabited by Hamitic tribes who migrated across the Sahara in the 4th millennium BC. and settled in the Nile Valley, and it was they who created the Egyptian civilization, pushing this country to the world stage. But then it turns out that the cradle of Egyptian culture was not the Nile Valley, but the Sahara! One way or another, states A. Gaudio in this regard, “each new discovery poses new problems for us, for which only temporary, tentative solutions can be found”.
While traveling across the Sahara, I also came across mysterious drawings. True, we will have to disappoint the ufologists: only once we managed to see an image of a "flying saucer", an astronaut in a spacesuit standing next to it and a primitive man who had fallen down in front of them. But, alas, a style different from the style of petroglyphs, and many other things betrayed the modern origin of the fresco, and it was not painted with paint, but with a "painting stone".
As for the "great Martian god" discovered in Tassili-Ager and really looking like a man in a spacesuit, the riddle is solved quite simply. On the head of the "astronaut" is not a helmet, but not a fully drawn round ritual mask, his body is indicated by a contour, which makes him look like a spacesuit. You can verify this in the Bardo Museum in Algeria, where a copy of the "great Martian god" is placed next to copies of others - similar, but completely drawn figures.
But the really amazing thing that I happened to see was the images of strange marsupials with short front legs, powerful hind legs and a long tail. The guides claim that it is a kangaroo. Indeed, the animals are very similar to kangaroos, but for some reason they are drawn not vertically, but horizontally. As the guides told, in some gelts of the Algerian Sahara they met dwarf crocodiles. I, I confess, did not believe this, but later in the works of the French researchers R. Capo-Rey and Y. Guy I read that such crocodiles, adapted to the changed climate, are indeed found in the reservoirs of Hoggar in Algeria and Annedy in Chad.
At the top of one of the cliffs of the northern steep coast of the Makhtandush wadi, we found two-meter prints of creatures dancing on their hind legs with deep-set eyes, pointed ears, tails and a strip of wool along the ridge. Who is it? Doing dance steps cats? The rearing goats? At the same time, there is something humanoid in the figures. The guides insisted that they were genies. But this explanation did not satisfy us. It is curious that the German traveler L. Frobenius, who studied Makhtandush, found quite a few images of strange creatures, which he calls "monsters."
Once, at a halt, the guides told a legend that the Idenen mountain range located to the north of Akakus is considered the abode of spirits. Somehow one of the Tuareg tribes went to these mountains and did not return. “They all disappeared,” said our guide, “men who were brave warriors, women, children, camels. Since then, the Tuaregs have not ventured into Edenen. We listened with interest to this tale. And later I read from R. Capo-Rey that in 1850 O. Barth, who penetrated these mountains, where the guides refused to accompany him, got lost and almost died of thirst. It is surprising here that Edenen (visible from the Sebha-Gat highway) is not such a large array, and it is not clear how one can get lost there at all. After all, even if O. Bart's compass was out of order, he could navigate by the sun shining on the always cloudless desert sky.