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Prehistoric Saharan Arts and Cultures in The Light Of Discoveries in the Acacus Massif.
( Libyan Sahara )

By: Fabrizio Mori

Africa has been, for a long time and wrongly, considered devoid of any noteworthy cultural heritage. Egypt was, by common accord, set apart of the rest, since it appeared to geographers and, in the 18th century, Jonathan Swift recorded that, in maps of Africa, they drew pictures of wild beasts in unknown places and figures of Negro savages in inhabited zones.

The survey of what is today the greatest desert in the world was actually begun towards the middle of the last century, thanks to some daring and intuitive explorers who - sometimes at the cost of their lives - penetrated these arid regions and sent the first news of traces of vanished civilizations: the paintings and graffiti.
From then onwards, especially after the first decade of this century, investigations in several branches of science have multiplied. Many were the Italian expeditions to Libyan Sahara. Elsewhere there were the French expeditions and those of the English, German and Spanish scholars that greatly forwarded the knowledge of these desolate regions.

Thus, slowly the true character of this tract of dead territory began to be delineated.
It appeared in a new light, and its aridity acquired real meaning when framed in data that emphasized its gradual mutation. The watercourses, great and small, at present dried p, the ( Wadis ) once irrigating that immense desolation, revealed signs of the water that must have existed in abundance, and with it the flora, and with the flora the fauna: rhinoceroses and hippopotami; lions, giraffes, ostriches, monkeys, antelopes and cattle animals that a progressive aridity had destroyed or forced to move to regions further south.

Climatic changes, in a period between four and ten thousand years ago, rendered dry and desolate a huge expanse which many people had to abandon, and where the rare remaining groups were shut in, as by an impassable ocean.
Silence reigned, and sand completed the work of time, burying every trace of those very ancient people. Every trace but one: the splendid pictures engraved and painted on rock walls which sun and rain could not erase.
Hence their great palethnological importance. Only through them, indeed, could we return to the past and try to reconstruct the life, customs and nature of these peoples. It meant a patient work of analysis, based on factual evidence.

The graffiti, unlike the Paleolithic works in France and Spain hidden in deep, dark caverns, are in the open air, in full daylight.
On spacious, smooth, vertical rocks, they have withstood damage from rain and wind. They are found on the banks of the great (Wadis), in spots selected by the ancients for celebration of magic rites and worship for the paintings it is somewhat different. They were executed in true and appropriate colors: magnificent tempera colors derived from ochre, ground earth mixed with a strong adhesive "vehicle" made from milk-casein, still used by traditionalist painters.
How they applied their colors so delicately to the rocks is uncertain, but it is thought that they employed very find brushes of animal hair or birds' feathers. To red, the sole color used in the earliest period, were added - little by little - green, white, yellow and black, sometimes used together in compositions of exceptional skill.

Where are the paintings found? They too are in the open air, but - unlike the graffiti, sheltered from sun and rain; they are concentrated, for the most part, in the great massif which made a suitable setting for their execution, Thus, at the foot of imposing rock-formations, we found "niches", abundantly decorated on their inner walls, that look almost like prehistoric sanctuaries. Generally the rock was unprepared; the paint was applied directly to it and it is only due to the " vehicle" that it has adhered so perfectly and penetrated the porous sandstone.

The paintings are, naturally, in varying stages of preservation. From one extremely fresh, we came to another hardly visible; the earliest artists possessed technical secrets unknown to their successors. While the oldest paintings stand up to repeated sponging, the most recent are very easily damaged. This is consistent with the development of Saharan rock-are in general. The magnificence of the earliest period is followed by a progressive decadence of form.

Having described, with inevitable brevity, the material nature of the rock-pictures, I must say that the gradual progress of discovery in this field has caused remarkable changes in the appreciation of this mysterious Saharan phenomenon.

As late as 1931 Hugo Obermaier defined the art of the great desert as " clumsy and inexpressive". And the great abundance of evidence known before this last decade seemed, indeed, to tell us of very primitive cultural environments, of simple human aggregations, just as simply depicted. Today, however, something very different and fascinating is emerging from the mists which cover the past of this desolate region. Recent discoveries are opening up new horizons in the study of Saharan prehistory. Our eight Italian expeditions too the Acacus, on the extreme confines of Libya, have brought to the knowledge of the scientific world a quantity of works of art and archaeological data which would seem far from being exhausted.

The Acacus is rugged massif not far from the Tassili, where French scholars discovered, a few years ago, another fine collection of rock paintings.
In 1995, at the end of an expedition covering the whole of the Fezzan, we penetrated this unknown massif where, at Ti-n-lalan, the first emplacement to graffiti were found.
In the expeditions of the following years the zone of research was extended and the final result has been the most extraordinary collection of rock-art discovered in the last twenty years: hundreds of graffiti and thousands of paintings of all epochs; scenes of wild-animal hunting; pictures of tribal life or of a Magico-religious ceremony; and scenes of a decidedly sexual character together with anthropomorphic divinities and masked human figures. In the remotest places, in outstanding positions, were graffiti of large wild fauna, isolated and incised on the rocks to commemorate man's fear of his surroundings or the artist's consciousness of his ability to dominate it by intelligence.

	These works of rock-art, no longer mute, signalized the existence of an intense and stood, was pregnant with a feeling and religious sensibility never before suspected. But when did all this occur? How can we place this phenomenon in time and so give it concrete form and possible affinities? The problem of absolute chronology is, to tell the truth, wide open. It assumes particular importance when - in a certain sense - in conditions other unanswered questions:
	the anthropological.
	The climatic.
	Possible contacts between the sahara and its surroundings cultures, among which that of pre- and proto-dynastic Egypt takes first place.
	It has peen possible laboriously to establish a "relative" chronology that places the superpositions, patinas, styles and techniques. Through these there has been established a classification which, although far from being definite, shows these principal groups:
	Graffiti of large wild animals or of the "Bubalus antiquus"
	Period of the "round-heads" paintings
	"Pastoral" period, characterized by the presence in paintings of numerous herds of domestic cattle
	The "horse" or "chariot" period.
	The "camel" Period.

Such a classification (which, naturally, does not take into account the numerous styles present in every major phase) is, unfortunately, not completely matched by an " absolute" chronology. Today we are inclined to believe that the origin of Saharan art does not go back to the Paleolithic Era; but even iif this - with necessary reservations can be accepted, we still find ourselves talking in terms of thousands of years in a period when centuries already being to count. Many theories have been advanced, some too hastily, and based, indeed, on quite subjective inductions. They foster preconceptions which cannot stand up against the conclusions to be drawn from laboratory tests, founded on facts of much greater tangibility.

We still have far to go to reach an exact series of dated; the digs now in progress in the Acacus, which continue to bring to light anthropozoic deposits and paintings in unsuspected quantities, have shown clear traces of domestic cattle in the deposits at Uan Muhuggiag, from the middle and lower layers of which the dates 4000 and 5500 B.C. have been obtained. The osteological material found - including a well-persevered bovine frontal with a small part of the cranial vault - fall
Morphologically within the classification of B. brachyceros of European or Iberian type. The pottery collected in situ is always impressed with a very restricted series of designs which have also been found in other deposits, among which those of Fozzigiaren, where the lowest and topmost parts have been dated circa 6000 B.C. the work goes on. Each year new facts are verified to add to those already obtains. If it is not yet possible to establish the appurtenance of the earliest deposits ( Fozzigiaren ) to the same cycle as those of Uan Muguggiag and hence to the relative pastoral phase, it is possible, nevertheless, to abandon the reserve that I myself imposed regarding the validity of a relation between the dates obtained and the paintings of the pastoral phase.

Some absolutely new and important data were, in fact, brought to light during the last excavations in Uan Muhuggiag.
The absolute chronology of the middle phase of Saharan rock art, for which direct stratigraphical references have been found in the deposits located and studied recently in the Acacus, can be today considered as correct. The dates established by the radio-carbon method, together with the results of digs, make up an ensemble of concordant data of remarkable clarity. The principal ones, obtained from samples, were collected during the last campaigns:

Uan Tel ocat deposit ( Wadi Imha ) 6754 ( ± 175 ) B.P. = circa 4800 B.C.

This determination of age has been obtained from charcoal belonging to the deposit against the inner part of the black wall of the shelter. On the surface, at present freed seem to belong - from the patina and type of pigment - to the final period of the round head phase. A close-up photograph ( 4 cms) was taken of part of a sketch of a figure, the better to show up the dark red color of the pigment.
A trail stratigraphical dig was made which produced lithic industry, engraved pottery and samples for pollen analyses.
From a preliminary examination of such material it is possible to correlate it to the pastoral deposit of Uan Muhuggiag.
Fozziigiaren deposit: 8072 ( ± 100) B.P. = 6100 B.C.
Samples of charcoal from a hearth coming from the basic level of the deposit. During the trail dig, fragments of engraved pottery and three garments of a mill-stone with distinct traces of yellow and red pigment were collected.

Uan Muhuggiag deposit: 7438 ( ± 220) = circa 5500 B.C.
Determination of age obtained from charcoal from a hearth belonging to the basic level of the deposit (1959).
5405 ( ± 180) B.P. = circa 3500 B.C.
Samples of animal skin wrapping the child-mummy found in the same layer ( 1959 ).
4730 ( ± 310) B.P. = circa 2800 B.C.
Charcoal from a hearth belonging to the level immediately above a boulder forming a part of a large mass, detached from the back wall of the shelter by thermoplastic phenomena and fallen obliquely on to the base of the same shelter and covered by successive sediment. The lower surface of the boulder, at the time of excavation, was underneath; upon it, when the mass was turned over, two clear figures of bulls were discovered, painted in the last style of the pastoral phase. Such figures were obviously painted before the collapse, when the mass - attached to the back wall and adhering to the roof of the shelter - presented the surface in question facing outwards and in vertical position. At the same time another important chronological position was established for the paintings found on the surface of the wall from which the mass had fallen among numerous works of poor style and technique, evidently contemporaneous with and following the horse phase, it is possible to find some figures of long-limbed herdsmen, painted in the most typical Ti-n-lalan style.

The determination of age obtained provides a post quem date for this remarkable ensemble of paintings, works of the last herdsmen to frequent this region, now a desert.
They were followed by the peoples of the horse and chariot, with a chronological order revealed by the clear superpositions found.
From what has been shown, the importance of the series of dates obtained and particularly of those of the Telocat deposit (6754 B.P. and circa 8000 from that of Fozzigiaren) becomes evident.
For the first of these it remains open the problem of the quantum should be added to the date established in order to determine with greater exactitude the absolute chronology of roundhead phase and its various times. In any case, from the numerous indications obtained and by the possibilities of study it presents, the hypothesis can already formulated that the break in continuity between it and the pastoral phase was neither brief nor culturally irrelevant.
The date of the Uan Telocat deposit, in fact, should be linked with the pastoral cycle, to which other determinations of age also belong. The oldest of these are around the middle of the VI millenium B.C, and it seems natural, for the moment, to antedate to such an epoch the beginning of the culture of the cattle-raiser in this part of Sahara.
The VI millennium can, therefore, be taken as the dividing line between the two phases that do not seem to have been in any way present contemporaneously in the zone.

As regards the phase which must have preceded the great ensemble of the roundhead works, it can only be said that some superpositions and other signs that merit profound study have been discovered. It would, however, no longer be astonishing if, through future work, it were recognized and established that Saharan rock-art developed through a long process, the origins of which went back further than had been considered reasonable.
The cultural cycle of the cattle-raisers begins to disappear about the IV millennium B.C., according to pollen analysis. Leaving apart the problem of possible contacts between the Sahara and pre-dynastic Egypt, we might say that there were probably alternate movements, during several thousands of years, of human groups of different types and that mountainous zone of the Sahara contined to be the junction of the two geographically opposite and climatically different areas: the Mediterranean basin and the regions south of the Ghad.

The advent of the horse maybe considered the end of Saharan pre-history. Linked with it are the Mediterranean peoples in close contact with better-known proto-historical cultures. During this phase, on the other hand, the artistic tradition of past millenniums becomes more and more barren, and ends completely with the appearance of the camel.
This latter is also a sign, and a definite one, of the increasing climatic aridity - a process that had begun some millenniums earlier.
In regard to the meanings of Saharan rock-art and possible ethnical cycles or superpositions, I would say that the initial phase in this part of the Libyan desert is represented by almost life-sized graffiti of mammals of the big wild fauna which were among the first of disappear from the Saharan regions. Almost always isolated, only rarely depicated with human figures, these massive animals seem to represent the fear they must have inspired in the inhabitants of the region; propitiatory magic must have played a great part iin the conception of these large works. If we are incapable of stating precisely its limits we are, however, able too understand that the rhinoceros, the elephant and the firaffe represent the object of an exhausting and often fruitless hunt for which prehistoric man could not consider his own force or the use of stone weapons adequate. The situation itself of the incisions - very often found in well - defined zones - leads one to think that sites were chosen were the magical value of the images would be preserved and accentuated.

The concept changes considerably in the next phase of the round-heads. The painting in this period become much more numerous than the graffiti; the human figure acquires.
An importance easily divined by the large number of examples seen. It is reproduced in a multiplicity of attitudes, in scenes of worship or of tribal life, in a multitude of representations not easy to place in order. The phase in which the human figure is portrayed with a round or rounish head, without features designed either in profile or full-face, is characterized by a strong magico- religious spirit; the figures of the first phases, alone or in groups, are followed by a great number of scenes in which the most diverse subjects seems still united by this common factor. The scenes of dancing are treated with abundant detail and on a vast scale; the dancers are often depicated in suggestive attitudes and adorned with masks and false tails; near them large animals are sometimes reproduced in the same style and on the same broad lines, to illustrate the need of hunting in which a great part of the life of the times was founded.

At a certain point in these phases, which precede the appearance of the herdsmen and the great herds of cattle, an ensemble of more evaluative works are seen which, to their imposing size, new and quite distinctive characteristics are added.
The human figure is more and more often accompanied by anthropomorphic begins that, always with something abnormal, are distinguished from the normal individuals by their more important size and attitudes; dead or mythical, they must certainly have been awe-inspiring personages in the iconography of the period. Among similar pictures of a magico-religious type must be placed to complex and interesting painting of Uan muhuggiag, with a series of human figures in the act of worship, surrounding what is presumably a symbolic " boat." The impression of something mystic is given by the grave of the individuals and by the style of hair-dressing - that accentuate their grades of importance - by their positions of adoration - bodies prone or arms raised - and by the representation of statues in the form of serpents. The spirit of ensemble which it emits can certainly induce more than one observer to draw an immediate comparison with a certain pre-dynastic Egyptian iconography; but if in this one the boat of Hierakonpolis is recalled, it will be nooted that the comparison - under the dual aspects of form and substance - is all in favor of the expressive Saharan picture.

Such representations would be scarcely indicative if found isolated in the midst of crude or more recent works, but the appearance of a certain number of them in the same period greatly enhances their importance by throwing into relief the fact that the presence of subjects with a magico-religious basis is closely allied to the more elevated production. It would be vain to seek for anything similar in the last phase of the herdsmen on in the period of the horse; in these the art has already undergone a considerable transformation and the technique itself is a great deal poorer.
The phase that preceded the appearance in the pantings of the great herds of cattle seems, therefore, to reveal a complex of well-establish rites and beliefs that, side by side or outside the animal world, are perhaps more religious than magical. We are confronted by a spiritual world full of anthropomorphic things, whether they be demons, real divinities or heroes whose memory it was wished to prolong after death as, for example, the painting of a wrapped body around which some strange beings appear. All are probably connected with a negroid population, the morphology of which is evident enough from the mysterious and possibly sacrificial or initiatory scene of Uan Tamauat, in which two men (magicians or priests) wearing horned head-dresses, are pushing a young girl towards a woman seated in hieratic position.

At a certain moment animal domestication - a local or imported phenomenon - must have occurred to modify profoundly the social order of the inhabitants of these regions, at the same time modifying the style and motifs of the paintings. The anthropomorphic figures of a mythical type are no longer reproduced; the introduction of new themes- such as castle-breeding, nomadising on cattle- back, the milking of cows and the multiform activities of tribal life, humanize the ensemble of the paintings. The human figure itself, reduced in size, is portrayed on the rock with absolute fidelity and with the profile completely delineated; the most salient traits are thrown into relief, and they become so clear as to permit conjectures of an anthropological character to relate them to a white Mediterranean group. Cultural and conceptional motives must have brought about such and so many other mutations; if these are not yet well definable, it seems possible to perceive a more narrative than magical purpose in the phase of the typical pastoral production. Magic certainly persisted for a long time in the zone but, in the same group of works, signs are found that seem to point to a dissociation of the two principles. If, in fact, sometimes isolated animals or hunting scenes can still follow the thread of the pure magic motif, if the sexual graffiti of Ti-n-lalan clearly indicate the persistence of well defined rituals- extremely important with fertility in view - other scenes show a new spirit which is no longer that of the image or groups of images with a ritual object. A supposition of this kind can, perhaps, he made about some of the most important of the Acacus walls: the logical sequence of the scenes composed of numerous human figures, sometimes linked by a common theme, as a battle or a duel, gives the feeling of story or record of events of some importance. Together with such a narrative conception, some of these figures seem to acquire a well-defined individuality.

The conception behind the isolated figures of cattle - some of which are painted with uncommon ability - could be based on the same principles: the recollection of domestication certainly had for these peoples, and its influence on the social life of the groups, must not be forgotten. This authentic Neolithic revolution must also have had a great influence on the complex world of beliefs and cultural values. In the epoch not long after beginnings of domestication, such as depicted in the pastoral paintings, the bull must have represented an entity of primary importance. The prosperity, even the survival of the people was bound up with him; in the most potent and healthy individuals lay the hopes for the continuation and improvement of the breeds. A great part of human life depended on this animal that is more and more often represented on the rocks of the massif. There is nothing strange then in thinking that isolated figures of bulls were portrayed in memory of particularly important specimens, with a view to selective breeding, and that the largest herds were reproduced in order to extol their uncommon characteristics with the magical purpose, also, of seeing them projected and preserved in the future. The herdsman-artist (for he must certainly be called that) was himself the medium through which such faithful representation of herds or isolated figures could emerge; the arguments already put forward concerning this are continually being confirmed.

it must be recognized that only the continual close intimacy with the subject, the perfect knowledge of its every anatomical detail, would allow the painter to reveal the smallest particularities of great importance regarding breed.
In the period following the pastoral phase the relative groups of painted works undergo a decided change. There still persists, in the phase of the bi-triangular style, the sense of the most important of the ritualistic manifestations. They are accompanied by death or other tribal events, but the iconography seems no longer to have that underlying mystery and "pathos" that were impressive in the archaic epochs. And everything is now permeated by a more human and open spirit: chariots with galloping horses, hunting the uaddan or the giraffe.
Little by little, as we approach the period when the camel makes its appearance in north Africa - re introduced from neighboring Asia after the Pleistocene - rock-art continues to decline; to this the progressive and definite extension of the desert zone can certainly not have been extraneous.