The land that is now hiding under the greedy sands of the Sahara knew different times and saw not only a riot of green plants and cool blue surfaces, but also … paleocosmonauts. More precisely, some creatures that clearly do not "fit" into human "framework". This is dispassionately evidenced by the amazing frescoes from Tassilin-Adjer in Central Sahara (Algeria).
GREEN LIFE
Surprisingly, the fact is - "Tassilin" in translation means … "river plateau". Nowadays, talking about rivers in the center of the Sahara is at least ridiculous, but the landscape itself indicates that once very powerful rivers flowed here: many canyons formed by water flows, as well as the territory of the massif completely indented by water, are clear evidence of this.
People, seeing such an oasis with lush vegetation, cool water and an abundance of animals, simply could not “pass by”. And they didn't. Almost 10 thousand years ago, settlers already lived here.
We know practically nothing about this lost Saharan civilization, which left behind not temples and any other structures, but only painted caves. And we are unlikely to ever find out, but the frescoes covering the caves of Tassilin-Adjer slightly reveal the secret of the world now buried under the sands.
And if ecologists see on the frescoes, first of all, evidence of the mild and favorable climate of the ancient Sahara, zoologists - animals that are now found only where there are abundant rains and there are rivers and lakes (crocodiles, hippos), then historians find concrete evidence of the pastoralist way of life mysterious civilization, as well as many mysteries.
Promotional video:
ON THE EDGE OF FANTASTIC
I must say that the Saharan civilization developed in parallel in time with the mighty civilizations of Egypt, India, Ancient China. But, unlike them, her age was short-lived - about 1000 BC. e. The Sahara began its rapid offensive, and people were forced to retreat forever in front of this life-eater, leaving behind only rock paintings.
The frescoes in Tassilin-Adjer are not even hundreds, but thousands, one might say - this is the world's longest picture gallery, stretching for hundreds of kilometers. The images are perfectly preserved, which suggests that the climate was dry and thus actively prevented weathering, and the excellent patina covering the drawings indicates their extreme antiquity. Well, the earliest images appeared over 7 thousand years ago.
The frescoes convincingly proved that in prehistoric times the Sahara had steppe flora and fauna, here once there were heavy rains, rivers flowed and lush vegetation grew.
But for historians, of course, the main thing is still the images of people and their occupations. The earliest designs, painted with lilac ocher and exaggeratedly large round heads, look rather sketchy. This stage of images in Tassilin-Adjer is also called the "round-headed" style. Plots of scenes in which armed "roundheads", dressed only in loincloths, take part, are often incomprehensible.
The drawings "evolved" over time: the bodies became more elongated, the purple ocher was replaced by red and yellow, but the shape of the head remained round.
And then something mysterious happened to the frescoes: on the one hand, the images clearly demonstrate the decline of the style of the "roundheads", on the other, it seems that the artists suddenly saw or learned something that went beyond their usual reality. And this "something" in the drawings manifested itself in the form of images of fantastic creatures of incredibly huge sizes.
By the way, the Tuaregs are a mysterious African tribe with an unknown "pedigree" that clearly goes into prehistoric darkness - the area in Tassilin-Adjer is called Jabbaren, that is, "giants". Maybe only because of the giant images, or maybe because the mysterious giants, in fact, have once been here.
GREAT GOD MARSIAN
The merit of discovering mysterious huge images of incomprehensible creatures belongs to a scientific expedition led by French explorer Henri Lot. It was he who introduced the world to fantastic drawings from the Tassilin area.
He even called one of the frescoes "The Great God of the Martians." This image is one of the largest in prehistoric painting - it reaches a height of 6 meters!
Seeing the photographs (a wedding photographer in Krasnodar) of the Saharan "god", the UFO community was agitated - this "god" really looked like a paleocosmonaut in a spacesuit. The "Martian" was a man with a round head, in the center of which there was a double oval. What is this, if not a hermetic helmet, and even with antennas, which are very clearly visible in the figure? And the strange connection of the head to the body, namely the tightly fitting collar with horizontal folds, indicates that the creature was wearing a spacesuit.
By the way, the photo of the “great god of the Martians” was shown to Yuri Gagarin and asked if this “Martian” looks like an astronaut? To which cosmonaut # 1 replied: "It looks and … does not look like."
Skeptics, however, were not so careful in their statements and immediately ridiculed the ufological hypothesis, explaining right off the bat that the figure clearly depicts a priest in a ritual dress with … a hollowed out pumpkin on his head. But at the same time, they could not intelligibly explain the incomprehensible "collar" and did not "focus" on this.
Meanwhile, such straightforward skepticism is clearly inappropriate here. Copies of the Martian giant were found, one might say, on the other side of the Earth - on the Japanese islands. The famous dogu figurines from the Jomon culture are very similar to the Saharan depictions of the "paleocosmonaut gods." And not only that - their age coincides with the drawings in Tassilin-Adjer! It is like ancient astronauts visited several places on Earth at the same time.
"Portraits" of the mysterious "roundheads" are also available … in Australia. In the upper reaches of the Prince Regens River, you can see images of strange creatures with a round head, which somewhat resembles a helmet of either a motorcyclist or an astronaut, with a characteristic stripe around the neck, like a sealed collar. An incomprehensible ellipse with two branches emerges from the helmet, and outlandish "accessories" in the form of brushes are attached to the arms and legs. And if we add that there is a horseshoe-shaped object with rays nearby, then the "landscape" with a flying saucer and an alien can be considered quite complete.
DRAWINGS FROM NATURE?
Among the frescoes in Tassilin-Adjer there are images of not only mysterious "Martian gods", but also generally incomprehensible creatures. Here is how Henri Lot himself wrote: “… the paintings are a little smaller, nevertheless they are placed so thoughtfully and the figures are depicted in such strange poses that they make a strong impression. In the first grotto, we were frightened when we saw one of them, which was about three meters high. In her raised hand, she is holding an egg-shaped object. This figure seems to dominate hundreds of other images of different eras … We managed to distinguish the image of women who stretch out their hands to the giant, as if begging him for something … There is something terrible in the whole form of the figure, and this prompted us to christen the new find “sandy a monster."
There is also a drawing of a huge figure with … a square head in one of the caves in Tassilin-Adjer. The "face" of this creature depicts something like a blind, and instead of ears - obvious antennas. And, what is especially impressive, this monster has a wide tail in the back!
This tailed creature is one of the most incomprehensible. Ufologists have made the assumption that this fresco depicts a robot aliens or the alien itself, but some special "breed".
According to scientists, this is a shaman in a ritual dress. Similar ceremonial robes are found among shamans from Easter Island. But then it becomes even more interesting, because where is Sahara, and where is Easter Island! They are separated by thousands of kilometers of water surface. And the images are similar. As if ancient artists from Easter and the Sahara saw the same thing. But what exactly? What was the "nature" for such terrifying "portraits"?
And finally, one cannot fail to mention one more mystery from Tassilin-Adjer. Among the frescoes, there are images of not only humanoid creatures, but also obvious hybrids, such as an antelope with an elephant's body or an ostrich with a lion's face.
The land that is now hiding under the greedy sands of the Sahara knew different times and saw a riot of green plants and cool blue surfaces
Could the human mind of the Stone Age, still largely primitive, pure and not "burdened" with bizarre surreal fantasies in the style of Hieronymus Bosch, have invented such a thing? Most likely not, and the ancient artist simply depicted what he saw. And he saw, perhaps, an artificial hybridization carried out by all the same aliens. The experiment was clearly not a success for those, since the bred hybrids remained to live only on the frescoes.