The Sahara (5 page)

The Ahaggar and Tassili where Lhote explored are rightly renowned for the magnificent collections they house, the greatest storehouse of ancient rock art on earth, both in quantity and quality. Although these stone canvases were first scored and chipped some 8000 years ago, our knowledge of them was extremely limited until Lhote’s work, which is why it is such a pity that he is today largely remembered for his outlandish claims.

Lhote’s published findings declared that the admittedly striking and strange, round-headed figures were proof that ancient man once had contact with aliens from outer space. He even named one of the largest and most distinct figures Jabberen, and announced that it was a Martian god. Erik von Daniken who, like Lhote, claims to believe in ancient astronauts, wrote about the round-headed figures in his book
Chariots of the Gods
, citing them as evidence that the earth had been populated by humanoids from outer space. This obviously did nothing for Lhote’s reputation. And neither did his failure to realize that a number of heavily stylized, Egyptian-like paintings he “discovered” were hoaxes perpetrated by members of his own research team.

Whether artists from the Roundhead period were recording encounters with aliens or simply being creative, the next artistic period is altogether more straightforwardly named. The Cattle period, also known as the Pastoral period, is variously dated as starting between 7500 and 5000 BCE and ending between 4000 and 25 00 BCE and clearly marks the time when Saharans domesticated cattle. If the scale of the herds in these drawings is to be taken literally, it was evidently a time of abundance, when life in the Sahara had never been more comfortable, and when the existence of such food stocks must have contributed to a steep climb in local populations.

From 3000 to as recently as 800 BCE, the Horse and Chariot period marks another profound change in the Saharan landscape, with wheeled vehicles making their mark on the landscape, forging paths from the northern coastal region southwards through the Fezzan to the Sahel and beyond.

The final period is the Camel period, the dates for which, like the preceding periods, are disputed although reckoned to start between 2000 and 400 BCE and stretching to the present day. Like all art, contemporary rock art reflects present-day norms and realities that, in the case of today’s parietal art, includes representations of modern inventions such as aeroplanes and modern weaponry as well as human figures and graffiti in Arabic, Berber and Tamasheq, the language of the Tuareg.

Iconography and Graffiti

Establishing a definitive answer to the question of the purpose of rock art is as unlikely as authorities agreeing on its age. One thing is certain; the creation of many of these works of art took a great deal of time and energy, which is suggestive of a relatively highly developed society. In these societies, either time was set aside where everyone was involved in creating art, perhaps after a successful hunt when food was temporarily plentiful, or perhaps there had developed certain individuals in society whose role was making pictures.

One of the most often proposed functions of parietal art is religious. What constitutes religious feeling is naturally subject to interpretation, and with this in mind there is nothing to suggest that the hunting scenes might not be religious icons, both representing the necessity of securing a food supply and offering thanks for any perceived divine assistance received in the chase. It is equally possible, if impossible to prove, that the hunt was itself a religious event, along the same lines as attending those formalized rituals common to any Sunday, or Friday, or Saturday, service.

The figure of a large-breasted female on a cave wall is interpreted without controversy as a symbol of fecundity; perhaps a goddess whom the artist’s clan hoped would bless them with healthy children or, for sedentary agriculturists, a good harvest. Similarly, an obviously male figure supplied with an outsized and erect penis might likewise represent a fertility god, or could it just be that it was meant for a spot of fun? There is the hint of a suggestion that certain examples of this megaphallic art may be little more than graffiti, scratches or daubs added later by individuals with a lewd or juvenile sense of humour.

Although in many cases the works are clearly too elaborate for this suspicion to be justified, one certainly senses levity at work in some of the more sexual images. Dr. Bonnet, working for the Paris Natural History Museum in Algeria in the nineteenth century, noted that a number of the engravings’ hunters “brazenly display monstrous phalluses... in most cases it is easy to recognize, from the form and the colour of the line, that these organs are later additions to the rest of the figure.” In other words, Bonnet saw some of these large erections as little more than early graffiti. There has surely been no time since the emergence of
Homo sapiens
when those distinctive male and female body parts have not been, so to speak, held up as objects of ribald humour.

The overtly sexual illustrations so shocked a number of the Europeans who re-discovered this art that many ignored them altogether in their accounts. However, in 1848 the French traveller Jean-Jacques Ampere published an account of his journeys through Egypt and Nubia, which included comments on engravings he had found around Philae. Apart from lions, elephants and ostriches, he noted some distinctly obscene portrayals of humans. Of all the human figures proudly displaying their sex, those engaged in acts of zoophilia have always provoked the sharpest intakes of breath. Even so, bestiality is surprisingly common in the works of these early artists: the shock of the old, perhaps. It also happens that bestiality in Saharan rock art is more common than in other sites around the world of a similar age. Whether this is because most of these works were destroyed elsewhere in the world or whether Saharans had a particularly keen enthusiasm for coupling with animals, it is impossible to say.

Then there are those images of men copulating with animals far larger than themselves, including giraffes, rhinos and elephants, which certainly raise far more questions than they answer. Whatever the reason for carving these images into a rock face, it was not done lightly. Again, there is nothing to suggest that there is not present here some religious iconography. It is still the case today that hunters in certain tribes will engage in ritual copulation with antelopes they have just killed. Perhaps these images are of great symbolic, rather than literal, importance, votive offerings for human domination over larger and potentially lethal prey. Other forms of bestial activity include engravings of men either urinating or ejaculating into the eyes of rhinos.

Another opinion is that the images are linked to the existence of prehistoric, mythical creatures, a race of giant men whose ritual intercourse with animals was linked to the daily life of mortals. Support for the ritual or shamanistic nature of these curious couplings can also be found in engravings of therianthropes, creatures with both human and animal attributes, most frequently with the head of a dog or a bird. Saharan therianthropes are sometimes shown standing alone but more commonly are depicted copulating with female humans. There are probably as many possible interpretations for these examples of rock art as there are pieces, and the ritual, boastful, humorous explanations all have a possible validity.

Like other parts of the Sahara, the desert in Egypt beyond the oases was once wet enough to support sizeable animal and human populations. In the farthest south-western corner of the country, the Gilf Kebir is a large rocky plateau near the border with Libya and the Sudan. It was here in the 1930s that a British-Hungarian team, including Liszl6 Almasy, found the so-called Cave of Swimmers, popularized in
The English Patient
. Whether the figures are really swimming or engaged in some other activity such as prostrating themselves before a deity, is not clear. Either way, it is a most evocative corner of the Sahara and the red and ochre paintings are simply awe-inspiring. Archaeologists have determined that bones and cooking pots found in the area date from some 5000 years ago. While this makes this remote culture contemporaneous with ancient Egypt’s Nile Valley civilization, the Gilf Kebir settlements were almost certainly distinct from it.

Animals apparently dancing

Today there is grave concern about the continued survival of these prehistoric masterpieces, which face various threats, the most insidious being unscrupulous collectors who scrape or chisel off what chunks of rock they can, taking these broken pieces away with them. It has also been known for cultural vandals to commission locals to perform these vile acts, paying a handful of dollars for priceless artefacts. Whether for financial profit or a magpie-like desire for a personal hoard, the results are the same. Every year, pieces of mankind’s ancient bequest, our collective cultural inheritance, are damaged, smashed, and stolen.

Equally culpable are those who think it appropriate to add their own graffiti. Painted or, more ruinously, carved alongside or over the top of the ancient art, the perpetrators of such vandalism presumably see nothing wrong in doing their bit to destroy this repository of Saharan and world culture. Such defacement is not exclusively modern. Cultural vandalism has long accompanied an ascendant ideology underscoring its domination by destroying anything of the old order. The visitor, however, whether moneyed Victorian or twenty-first century package tourist, has no excuse for this behaviour, nor is ignorance an acceptable excuse. Where once tourists threw water onto cave paintings to make the colours brighter, thus enabling a better photograph, today most guides will stop their clients from this terribly damaging practice. But not all of the destruction of rock art is manmade. The elements have played their part with wind erosion no doubt causing most wear and tear over time.

Steps are being taken to educate people about the fragility of these works, but it is an enormous task, whose sphere of activity is continental in scale, and funding for such causes is not easily secured. The problem has attracted enough attention to warrant the involvement of the United Nations, with Unesco World Heritage status being declared for a number of the better-known sites. At the same time, awareness of the problem is increasing, thanks to the work of organizations such as the Trust for African Rock Art, and the efforts, albeit sometimes patchy, of national governments, local agencies and tour companies who all recognize that visitor income depends on the continued existence of the rock art.

Saharan Urban

A number of Sahara towns have locations that are among the most dramatic, wild and beautiful on earth. Some have been inhabited, without interruption, for thousands of years. Several enjoyed high status in the ancient world, about which Herodotus and others wrote, noting the oracular wisdom imparted there. One was an unrivalled seat of learning in the medieval world, and several were ruled over by kings whose wealth was equal to that of Croesus. Today the majority are simple, unremarkable places, quiet, isolated and frequently forgotten by outsiders. Yet many of these plain and dusty towns have other charms that draw visitors to them. The allure of an ancient name, a place of legend or mystery, is easily more powerful than that of a younger, brassy locale. Timbuktu has nothing to fear from Las Vegas.

Art in the Sahara is not what it was, however. Taste has changed since ancient artists scored and painted the record of their residence. The people who live in the oasis-towns today may still adorn their walls with pictures, but they no longer feature hunting or round-headed aliens. It is more likely that one will come across an Alpine scene, an eight-by-twelve foot photographic image delivered in a roll, as wallpaper. I have seen these pictures - snow-capped peaks and green pastures, or the common variant of a limpid, palm-fringed lagoon - adorning walls in homes, offices and cafes across the desert. Such images are obviously not found solely in the Sahara, but their very incongruity here reminds one of the desert dwellers’ love of water and cool places, which many will only ever experience through Chinese made posters, in themselves a wry nod to globalization.