THE ANCIENT SAHARAN CULTURES (C. 6000–C. 1500 B.C.)
Though the Sahara today is virtually uninhabitable, 8,000 years ago, it was a lush region of rivers and valleys. For thousands of years, it was home to many cultures, some of them quite advanced, to judge from their artwork. Who these peoples were—it appears there were many groups—remains a mystery, though they left behind an extraordinary record in the form of their rock-art paintings and carvings
The rock art, which varies greatly in its representation of human and animal figures, is divided into four historical groups. First is the Hunter period, from about 6000 to about 4000 B.C., depicting a Paleolithic people who survived by hunting the many wild animals then available in the region.
Next was the Herder period, from about 4000 to 1500 B.C. As their name suggests, these people maintained herds of animals and also practiced basic agriculture. Much more civilized than the Hunter people, they produced the most sophisticated Saharan rock art, much of it portraying their herds. In fact, their ability to portray perspective and the movement of the human form was much greater than that of the Egyptians.
As the Sahara began to become drier and drier, however, there were no more herds. Egyptians began bringing in domesticated horses to cross the desert: hence the name of the Horse period (c. 1500–c. 600 B.C.) By about 600 B.C., however, not even horses could survive in the forbidding climate. There was only one creature that could: the hardy, seemingly inexhaustible camel. Thus began the Camel era, which continues to the present day.
The Brilliant Legacy of Saharan Rock Art
In about 6000 B.C., what is now the Sahara Desert was a land of fertile green fields, lush valleys alive with all manner of plants and animals, and flowing rivers filled with fish. It was also the home to a series of highly advanced societies whose identity is unknown to historians. In fact, most of what modern people do know about these ancient Saharans comes from the artwork they painted and carved on stone surfaces throughout the desert.
These paintings provide evidence of extensive wildlife in the region, including giraffe, elephants, and cattle. Later scenes show camels. Other pieces illustrate the cultural and political life of the ancient Sahara, including dances, rituals, battles, and the workings of justice. One particularly complex piece portrays judges, police, jailers, and officials, with a man at the center who was apparently found guilty of a crime. Only a highly advanced civilization could have such a formal justice system.
Another painting, obviously from the Herder period, looks as if it were painted in the A.D.1800s—but it is more likely a product of the 1800s B.C. The women in the picture are clearly wealthy and relatively pampered, with complex hairdos. These details indicate that the people of the ancient Sahara had mastered their environment and were well past the point of merely surviving.
After 2000 B.C., the Sahara began to dry up, and the human population almost completely disappeared. If the paintings had been in a tropical rainforest environment, they might have been ruined; as it was, the dry desert air preserved them. Nor did they suffer the fate of Egyptian or Chinese treasures stolen by graverobbers. The Saharan rock art was hard to get to, protected by nests of poisonous snakes and miles of forbidding sand dunes.
The world owes a great debt to French explorer Henri Lhote (ahn-REE LAWT), who in 1956 discovered a great collection of rock art at Tassili n’Ajjer (tah- SEEL-ee nah-ZHAYR) deep in the desert. Lhote and his team of artists made it possible for everyone to see the great treasures of the Sahara without going there. Photographing the artwork would not do, especially because many pieces were in dark caves and their colors had faded; therefore he and the others painstakingly copied some 800 works of art, restoring original colors. This was a particularly difficult task given the nature of the environment. Not only was it hard to get to Tassili and other sites, but, in copying the art, members of the team often had to stand on tiptoe or lie on their backs while they worked.
The treasures of the Sahara are more valuable than diamonds. During the late twentieth century, people more interested in money than history (the modern counterparts of the ancient grave robbers) began looting artwork from sites in Morocco. Using crowbars, they removed pictures to sell them in Europe. In response to these and other abuses, the Moroccan Ministry of Cultural Affairs and groups such as the Trust for African Rock Art began working to preserve the treasures of the Sahara.
David Coulson, cofounder of the Trust for African Rock Art, published an article called “Ancient Art of the Sahara,” in the June 1999 National Geographic. The group also works to preserve prehistoric artwork in other parts of the continent, including South Africa, where the Bushmen left a rich legacy of rock art before they were displaced by the Bantu peoples.
“Scrambling after my guide, Aissa, I scale a jumble of rocks and duck into a large cleft open to the wide African sky. It’s been a long day –plodding across stony plateaus, stung by Sahara’s bitter December winds– but it’s all about to pay off. Quickly scanning the sandstone walls, I stop at one bright patch. It’s a lone figure about nine inches long that seems to leap across the rock, its energy undiminished after millennia. The detail is astonishing; I can see the taut muscles in his legs and the string of the bow he carries in his clenched right fist.
This ancient archer is from one of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, of rock art sites in northern Africa. Over the past dozen years these site have become my passion and recording and protecting them my life’s work. Each time I find one, I’m transported back thousands of years to a time when this vast desert was a grassland, veined with braided rivers and shallow lakes, and home to thriving civilizations. Like the rivers and lakes, the people have vanished, but through their art their stories have survived.
The tale begins perhaps 12,000 years ago, when elephants, rhinos, and the prehistoric wild ox Bubalus antiquus roamed northern Africa’s plains. For some 4,000 years rock art of the so-called Bubalus period was dominated by engravings of large animals that were hunted by humans. Then about 9,000 years ago representations of people ushered in what experts call the Round Head period, which overlaps the end of the Bubalus.
About 7,000 years ago domesticated livestock entered the scene — a momentous change immortalized in the art of the Pastoral period. As the Round Head ended and the Pastoral began, art changed dramatically, says my colleague Alec Campbell, who travels with me through the Sahara, documenting the desert’s art. “The paintings start to sow man as above nature, rather than as a part of nature, seeking its help.”
The next big change came after the 1650 BC, when the Hyksos conquered northern Egypt by chariot and introduced the domesticated horse, common in rock art of the Horse period. Then camel arrived from Asia about 2,000 years ago, inspiring the Camel period.”
The above is by David Coulson taken from page 104 of the National Geographic June 1999 edition : Ancient Art of The Sahara (on pages 98 through 119).
Kathryn Byrd, ‘The Egyptian Predynastic: A review of the evidence’, Journal of Field Archaeology, 21/3, 1994, 265-288
