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Ennedi Expedition, Chad 22nd January - 6th February, 2018 False colour images processed with DStretch, a freely available software developed by Jon Harman Site numbers by Gerard Bailloud (1995, roman numerals) and Simonis, Ravenna & Rossi (2017) |
Day 0. N'Djamena
The low oil prices had a direct effect on the flights to N'Djamena with a drop in oil industry and government traffic both Turkish and Air France reduced their frequencies to N'Djamena so it was not possible for everyone to arrive at the same time. Those of us on the Turkish flight did the grand African sight-seeing tour, flying first to Yaounde (Cameroon) before making the N'Djamena stop in the small hours of the morning on the return leg. We spent the day relaxing at the Ibis Hotel in N'Djamena (sharing the garden and pool with the Novotel) while the rest of our party our party arrived via Paris the same evening with Air France.
Day 1. N'Djamena - Camp before Bitkine
The necessary paperwork was completed quickly in the morning, by 9am Pier Paolo arrived with our four cars, and after the usual chaotic loading scene we were ready to roll. Nothing eventful happened until about two hours out of N'Djamena the engine of our car started to make an intermittent rattling noise. After a while the noise became more frequent, so we pulled to the side to investigate. Before we had a chance to stop the engine suddenly revved up on its own, the exhaust belching a thick white smoke. We immediately realized the symptoms of a run-away diesel engine, luckily Pier Paolo had the wits to stall the engine before it became unstoppable. The engine was consuming its own oil, I was convinced this was the last journey of this car and we needed a replacement from N'Djamena, fortunately still within reasonable range. We pushed the stricken car off the road, towards a cluster of trees offering shade. While Jonathan prepared lunch under the gazing eyes of a nearby cattle herd, our drivers set about to examine the car. After some troubleshooting the fault was traced to a leaky fuel pump (which was replaced on the car a week earlier), which enabled fuel to mix with the engine oil, and then be squeezed into the cylinders with each stroke. After the replacement of the seal and reassembly the engine was filled up again with oil, and remarkably the engine started and ran normally. The whole field repair lasted only two hours, much less than anticipated at the beginning.
Even though the repair, mostly attributable to the mechanical skills of Yaou was remarkably quick, we were still rather behind our planned schedule. We hoped to camp within sight of the granite hills near Bitkine, but as sunset approached we were a good 100 kilometres short. We turned off into the low acacia bush flanking the road and made camp at a spot with some good patches of sand suitable for the tents.
Day 2. Bitkine - Camp before Abéche
We were up at first light, quickly taking breakfast and packing camp to make up for the lost time of the day before. We continued non-stop till the cluster of spectacular granite hills, a perfect spot for stretching our legs and having the mid-morning coffee.
The rest of the day was spent with a rather dull drive past the chain of granite hills and small neat villages, stopping for fuel in Biltine and a short lunch among a cluster of trees by the road.
In a number of villages we passed mid-afternoon, we saw houses decorated with ostrich eggs, a custom prevalent in the Darfur.
At the end of the long day we made camp in an unexpectedly pleasant secluded spot at the foot of a low granite hillock just a short distance off the road before reaching Abéche.
Day 3. Abéche - Kalait
We could afford an unhurried breakfast at this lovely camping spot, as Abéche was close and there was no point in reaching it before the market opened where Jonathan, our cook needed to re-stock our supplies.
After packing up camp we covered the remaining half an hour to Abéche, first fueling then driving to the just stirring market. We did not linger long, as soon as Jonathan was ready we rolled out of the town, taking the gravel road towards the North.
We stopped for our morning coffee break less than an hour out of Abéche, at a spot where Pier Paolo found some engravings on granite boulders some years ago, the southernmost rock art known so far in Chad, guarded by numerous rainbow agamas basking in the morning sun.
The engravings were on a large granite block which also contained a number of small cupules ground into its upper surface. They consisted of various symbols, including several cross shapes with ovals on all four ends.
We spent a short time wandering about, and found several more panels of similar engravings on flat rocks at the base of a low hill.
After the break we continued the rather monotonous drive north towards Kalait, only pausing for a quick lunch among a grove of trees on the outskirts of Biltine.
We reached Kalait before sunset, only having enough time to drive to the far side of the town, where a cluster of eroding granite rocks provided a good campsite. We only found out after unloading and pitching our tents that the site was already occupied by a pair of Pharaoh eagle-owls, I only managed a silhouette but Gábor with a more capable camera was able to snap a reasonably good photo of the female despite the almost complete darkness.
Day 4. Kalait - Terkey
In the morning we packed up camp leaving the place for the owls again, and drove into the town to fuel the cars and the extra jerrycans before continuing to the Ennedi. Kalait underwent a major transformation since our last visit in 2016. In the name of progress and modernity the old shantytown along the single market street was demolished, and a new market of brick and concrete blocks was built at a new location. It is debatable whether the change improved the appearance of the town, but at least with the market and the main road now separate, the fueling stop was a less dusty affair.
Leaving Kalait, we continued towards the Ennedi across a series of wadis (dry riverbeds), stopping at some of the larger ones to enable Natalie to collect dust samples for her PhD thesis on the effects of Saharan dust on the Amazon rainforest (yes, Saharan dust does reach the Amazon with the trade winds...).
By midday we were approaching the rock towers of the Ennedi which started appearing on the horizon already a couple of hours earlier. We were aiming for Terkey-Kassala, the south-west corner of the Terkey massif where Bailloud reported a few paintings, and more recently Pier-Paolo found a fine new shelter (published in Sahara 24) some way up the rocky spur of the massif. We started out with this new site (TK 11) located at the base of a low natural arch capping a ridge not far from the sites recorded by Bailloud. The paintings are of the usual Ennedi pastoralist style, with an exceptionally large figure at the center of the fine panel.
On the far side of the ridge there is a very picturesque canyon, with another site, TK 12 at its end with some fine pastoralist paintings, also found by Pier Paolo some years ago.
Rounding the south western spur of the Terkey massif on our return towards the cars we passed another large shelter (TK 10), but this one only contained a few painted cattle.
While we were visiting the sites, our cars moved to the shade of the fine natural arch adjacent to the sites reported by Bailloud (Terkey-Kassala III). The arch is an opening in the wall of a narrow canyon with vertical walls, with a number of shelters containing paintings on both sides. We had our lunch break here, allowing for plenty of time to explore and photograph all the paintings.
The finest panels of paintings are in the immediate vicinity of the arch, both on the outer and inner sides, on several separate panels.
Probably lacking time, Bailloud did not copy any of the fine scenes by the arch, only photographed a small scene from a much larger panel of paintings in a large shelter located in the deepest part of the canyon depicting a number of women accompanied by cattle depicted in what he called the Gribi style.
In the outer part of the gorge (left of the arch) there is a small shelter with some unusual paintings. The figures of the cattle and horses are typical, but several are executed with uncommon black paint.
In the afternoon we drove to the far side of the Terkey massif, to Terkey-Bowdé, the site of the famed galloping horses also photographed by Bailloud. We made camp in the small sandy bay facing the entrance of the tunnel (with the exceptionally large painted cattle on the ceiling) leading over to the far side of the hill with the principal shelters.
The sit of Terkey-Bowdé III is a series of conjoined larger and smaller shelters at the base of a rock wall. Bailloud only presented a few photos of the galloping horses, the majority of the paintings were published in 2013 by Marie-Anne Civrac (Les Cahiers de l'AARS 16).
Above the path leading back to camp along a crevasse in the rocky massif we passed a shelter which I failed to see during our 2016 visit. It contained a panel of cattle, some executed in black paint.
Above our campsite there was another shallow shelter, Magdi checked it out and found several faint panels of paintings depicting mostly horses and humans. Later Pier-Paolo confirmed this to be site TK 01, the first of a row of sites he found in the vicinity, which we were due to visit the following morning.
With the sun setting behind the hill, we all converged on the camp to prepare for the night before darkness.
Day 5. Terkey-Bowdé - Archeï
We awoke to a beautiful clear and crisp morning, with the rising sun illuminating the rocks above camp.
After packing our personal gear we set out on foot for a couple hours' walk to see the nearby sites recorded by Pier-Paolo. The first, just a few hundred metres from camp in a south-leading valley, was the first of a series of small shelters along the hillside, collectively site TK 02, with some faint cattle and human figures.
The second shelter of the row looked bigger and more promising, but it only contained some very crude paintings.
Just a little further, a low and seemingly empty shelter contains a pair of figures wielding spears and one a shield, while the last shelter just beyond contains some more of the rather crude depictions.
While the paintings were not very exciting, the landscape was absolutely spectacular in the low morning light. We continued towards the end of the valley about one kilometre from camp, where Pier-Paolo found a shelter with several archaic paintings, our main objective for the morning.
Site TK 03 is a long low crevasse some distance up a rock face bordering the valley. The paintings are spread out along the ceiling of the crevasse and the outer wall. There are two faint figures in outline which appear to be archaic, plus a number of positive handprints and an enigmatic object which could be from any period.
Towards the right end of the site, following a bend a rock fall created a more spacious shelter, which has some perfectly preserved cattle on the ceiling.
The shelter continues along the rock face, but we found no further paintings and the path soon became rather precarious, with a nasty vertical drop. Below there were several round tumuli, and next of them once we scrambled down we could see the last panel of the site, a small shelter at ground level with some cattle and humans.
Site TK 04 was a short distance beyond, where Pier Paolo found a single cow on the rear wall of a comfortable shelter. Taking a second look with DStretch revealed another cow and human figures, probably there is more on the rear wall outside the photographed area. Just beyond, a large cemetery of circular tumuli filled the terrace above the valley. They were of the type seen everywhere in the Ennedi, the depressions in their centres indicating that all have been opened sometime in the near or distant past.
Opposite the cemetery on the far side of the valley we could see some shelters at the foot of a vertical rock wall, flanked by a low dune. Pier Paolo did not check these out, so we made a little detour to have a look. Most were empty except for a shallow section in he centre which contained a few faint figures of cattle and humans.
The valley led out to the western end of the Terkey-Bowdé massif, where the country opened up towards the broad valley leading back towards the main rock art sites.
We completed the walk around the massif in about two hours, we still had some time to pay another visit to Terkey-Bowdé III, checking out details missed before. In particular the small niche covered with the very faint Fada style figures proved much more revealing in the morning light than the evening before.
By the time we were finished the camp was packed and the cars ready. After a quick coffee we mounted our vehicles and started driving towards a well in Oued Archeï to replenish our water supplies before continuing. We found the well to be locked, surrounded by a large number of thirsty animals. After some searching our drivers suggested we go to an open well beyond Chiguéou about 8 kilometres away, enabling us to see the sites while one car goes to the well for water. We jumped at this chance opportunity, as Chiguéou II among a small cluster of rocks is one of the few sites in the south western Ennedi with large scale engravings of cattle. We found the first one, retouched with red paint under a small natural arch at the base of the prominent sandstone tower.
Another panel of large cattle was a few dozen metres away, on the adjacent rock island. They are very faint, barely visible, fortunately we were just at the right time of the day to have an almost perfect contour lighting with the sun above, bringing out some of the relief.
At the rear of the same rock there is a small shelter with some fine pastoralist paintings (no record remains whether this panel was noted by Bailloud, but Alessandro Menardi Noguera recorded them in 2014).
Chigéou was a lovely spot not only because of the rock art, but the amazing eroded rocky landscape surrounding it. We had almost an hour to explore before the well party returned with the full jerrycans and we could move on.
We re-traced our morning route back towards the Oued Archeï, then continued past the two prominent rocks marking the edge of the watercourse (stopping briefly at the larger one to check out the prominent but empty shelter at its base).
Our objective was Manda Guili (Archeï 04), a very fine site with excellently preserved paintings of the characteristic Ennedi cameline style (Keymena style of Bailloud). There must have been a rock ledge providing access to the shelter when the paintings were made, but by now it has collapsed without a trace, leaving an unscalable vertical wall of about 4 metres in height. There is a crack in the rock where people with serious rock climbing skills (like Pier Paolo) can get up, but it was far beyond my abilities as we found our in 2016. This time we came prepared, with a fine collapsible aluminium ladder brought for this very purpose. However the attempt almost ended in failure, the ladder was about half a metre too short to reach the ledge. Natalie, who also did some rock climbing made it up, but for me the remaining ledge was too high. Fortunately Gábor came to the rescue, he found an abandoned steel box used by the Tibou to store their possessions in one of the adjacent shelters, which just provided the necessary increase in height for me to be able to pull myself up (leaving the problem of how to come down till after the photos were taken). The precarious climb was well worth it, one could see an amazing wealth of fine detail that cannot be discerned from below, even with a telephoto lens.
A particularly interesting detail was the group of small dark Hohou style figures partially covered by later cattle and camels, demonstrating a long sequence of paintings in this shelter.
While the rest of our party moved behind the hill to a shaded spot for lunch, with Michael we continued in the adjacent shelter (in fact a true cave) which at some time must have provided access to the main panel of paintings. There are numerous faint paintings scattered about, several of which I have failed to note on our previous visit, like the very fine camel rider on the south wall.
On the far side of the rock next to our lunch spot a narrow crevasse led up to a higher level that appeared to contain a terrace and perhaps a shelter. The chute leading up looked ascendable, in fact after tackling the first one metre difficult bit it was a fairly straight-forward way up. From the high terrace a tunnel led through to the far side of the rock, with a cool breeze that must have been very pleasant in the summer months. Not surprisingly there were several panels of paintings on the far end of the tunnel which, to our knowledge, have never been reported before.
Our afternoon plan was to visit the cluster of fine sites to the west of the "Grande Riparo" (Archeï 07) which we did not have time for in 2016. As we crossed the main Oued Youssef spotted a pair of Patas monkeys perched high on an acacia. We all gathered around the tree trying to get a better glimpse, but they were not too cooperative, all we could see were the brown patches and an occasional dangling tail.
Our first stop was site Archeï 11 about four kilometres west of "Grande Riparo". It is a large complex of shelters along the south side of a rock island, but the finest paintings (in the Fada style) are concentrated on the ceiling of a small cramped niche, just large enough for one person.
Archeï 10 was opposite Archeï 11 on a small rock island, with some more pastoralist paintings, but certainly less impressive than at the former large shelter.
Archeï 09 was a pair of elongated rock outcrops, mostly hidden by a large dune, about a kilometre back towards "Grande Riparo". The base of both rocks are covered by numerous paintings, however they are mostly in a poor state of preservation with only a few readily visible panels.
We finished the day at "Grande Riparo" (Archeï 07), keeping it to the last to improve the lighting conditions which are only ideal right after sunrise or just after sunset.
When we reached the shelter most of the rock face with the paintings was still exposed to the sun, except for the very left corner with the exceptional Niola Doa style paintings.
The fact that the main panel was exposed to the sun had its merits, the two fine engraved cattle stood out clearly amongst the multitude of paintings. The photographs reveal that one of them is not only engraved, but the neck, head and horns are painted.
We lingered at the huge site till the approaching sunset, marveling at both the paintings and the amazing view from the edge of the shelter.
As we drove to our campsite on the far side of the river, we passed several groups of mounted men in their finest robes, an important wedding was taking place, with the clans gathering for the ceremonies. This also explained the lack of attendants at the well earlier, everyone in the area was preoccupied with the festivities.
Day 6. Archeï - Ga Kourou
Our campsite was close to the start of the footpath leading to the lookout point above the Archeï guelta. In the morning after packing our gear and having a lazy breakfast we started out on foot, leaving the packing-up and the loading of the cars to our drivers. After a short walk across the dunes we reached the zigzagging camel path, and after a little over an hour we were perched on the narrow rock ledge above the guelta, with the camels just starting to arrive for water.
The upper pools where Els spotted one of the crocodiles two years ago were now completely dry, and at first we saw no movement in the water below. However Gábor climbed a little lower to take a direct peek into the shaded part of the guelta below, and much to our surprise and delight found one of the crocodiles floating in the water immediately below the look-out. They are the last surviving members of a relict population of West African Crocodile (Crocodylus suchus) which inhabited the lakes and larger gueltas of the Sahara up till the beginning of modern times. We watched it drift across the surface, with a grey heron causing some excitement as it landed on a log just next to the reptile, but apparently the latter was uninterested. After about half an hour it suddenly twitched, and disappeared under the water for good. In the meantime the camels arrived in great numbers, filling the valley with a cacophony of loud grunts and gurgling.
We spent a good hour on the ledge enjoying the sights and sounds (fortunately we were far enough to do so without also enjoying the smell) before taking the same way back to the waiting cars. As we approached the valley we noted a thick haze that completely veiled the big rock in the middle of the valley, a dust storm stirred while we were in the protected valley.
With the cars we drove into the Oued Archeï, parking under the last trees and continuing on foot to see the guelta from the other side.
On our way back to the cars we passed by the big cave of Archeï 01 with the fine but unfortunately much damaged paintings of the galloping camels and horses, one of the first sites to have been noted in the Ennedi region by Henri de Saint-Floris in 1932.
The cars were on the other side of the valley, just under the huge cave of Archeï 02. We crossed over for a quick lunch, then we made a dash up to see the remaining paintings.
The huge cave contains a number of pastoralist paintings along the base of both walls, but the most intriguing ones are several groups of almost invisible archaic paintings on the ceiling, well beyond reach today (the cave floor at that time must have been much higher), only discovered by Alessandro Menardi Noguera a few years ago. Now, with a better understanding of the figures and their layout I attempted to take some better photographs without cropping the invisible subjects, with a varying degree of success.
Leaving Archeï we drove west, stopping in a large playa along the watercourse for Natalie to gather some further dust samples before continuing to the massif of Deli, about half-way to our final destination of Ga Kourou. As we left the protected valley of Archeï the dusty haze became thicker, but fortunately did not quite reach dust storm conditions. Before seeing the principal site of Deli we made a small detour to the nearby spring of Guettara, located in a largish cave at the foot of the cliffs. The cave contains a single painted figure (Deli 07), but otherwise it is was a rather sorry place, full of mud churned by the animals coming to the meager water, fouled by a dead donkey for good measure.
The Deli area has a number of sites, now we only had time to make a brief stop at the best known one, Deli 06 on the side of the Keleo massif, with the row of Niola Doa style heads and the two ostriches.
Not far from the main panel there is a row of low shelters hidden by a small dune. These too contain a few paintings, though nowhere near as interesting as the main panel.
After the brief stop we continued to the massif of Ga Kourou, a fairly large area of rocky hills and sand filled valleys. Our goal was to find the elusive "Rhinoceros Shelter" (GA 01) that was signaled by Choppy et. al. in 1998 (Les Cahiers de l'AARS, No. 5"). We already looked for it in 2016, but without any location information it was just a stab in the dark. Now we had first hand information from Adriana Scarpa-Falce, one of the original discoverers, however as the find was made in pre-GPS days it was still rather imprecise, with Adriana providing two possible places about two kilometres apart. We drove straight to the first spot, a small side valley which I checked out only to find a shelter with a few unimpressive paintings and a dead-end as a dune blocked the valley. We drove to near the second spot, where a number of small inselbergs emerged from a large sandy area, expecting to find the shelter at the predicted spot, but again there was nothing. As it was already past sunset when we returned to the waiting cars, we made a quick camp along the side of a large valley, leaving further exploration for the next day.
Day 7. Ga Kourou - Keymena
It was a beautiful clear morning, all the haze of the previous day was gone, perfect for some exploration. Our plan was to survey the valley to the West of our camp in the morning, then if nothing found move back towards the first indicated spot and search that area. We had the full day for the task, determined to find this major site that had not been visited since the original discovery in 1998. We agreed on the various zones and our paty split up to make the search the most efficient, agreeing to meet again at camp in two hours. The landscape was beautiful, with towering rocks and golden sand everywhere, but despite a very thorough search of the area there was no rock art.
Jonathan was the only one with some luck, not far from the camp in a small crevasse (much smaller than the large shelter we were looking for) he found some faint paintings of the late pastoral period.
We had marginally more success with wildlife. While I could only photograph the fresh traces of the Patas monkeys which visited the camp while we were away, when we started packing up Michael found a very nice beetle (Anthia sexmaculata) under his tent, and a large commotion signaled a yellow scorpion under the large mat used by our drivers to sleep on. There was a serious debate on whether it should be allowed to live or not, however the issue was solved by a wheatear which swooped down on the scorpion as it was attempting a getaway, making quick breakfast of it before any of us had the chance to grab the cameras.
We drove back to the little side valley, with no obvious place to search along the way. We went back to double check, and much to my embarrassment what appeared to be a dead-end from a distance of ten metres actually had a clear passage at the base of the rock, and just after the next bend a mere fifty metres away we were facing the huge shelter we were looking for the whole morning.
The paintings are in the deep interior of the shelter, on the rear right wall, and are very difficult to see in the oblique natural lighting. As the majority of the figures are white, even DStretch has difficulty revealing all the details. Nevertheless our present photos offer far better resolution than what could be discerned on slides taken 20 years ago. Of the two large panels, the left one is the better preserved (or at least more discernible), with a number of white figures overlain by some yellow ones, which are finally capped by figures in red outline, including the rhinoceros giving the site the name. All appear to be of the archaic (to be understood as pre-pastoralist) periods of Ennedi rock art.
The right panel has many more figures, but they are much less distinguishable. The superpositions show the same sequence and styles as on the left panel.
There are two outlying groups of paintings to the left and right of the main right panel. The left one is a group of figures in red, surrounding two curious tethered animals. The right one is an apparent animal hunt scene, with the animal possibly a lion or other large feline.
Returning to the cars we passed by the small shelter that I saw the evening before. On closer scrutiny it revealed not only the cattle noted earlier, but some other faint and possibly archaic paintings.
While we were photographing the site, Jonathan prepared lunch in a pleasant shaded cove on the far side of the rock. This too had some rock art on the rear wall of the cove, a panel of faint pastoralist paintings.
With our quest at Ga Kourou completed, we still had time to visit another fine site in the area, GA 07 at the base of a large natural arch found a few years ago by some German arch hunters. The paintings are located on the right wall of the arch, and contain two striking large white cattle that resemble the engraved cattle associated with the Niola Doa figures. Some small figures around the cattle also appear to be of the same style.
To the left of the main panel there is a smaller one with a flock of red sheep (many thanks to Alessandro Menardi-Noguera for identifying them, I took them for cattle), and a difficult to discern dark figure underneath. DStretch reveals this to be a classic Niola Doa type figure, complete with the stick across the shoulder.
On the sand dune adjacent to the arch I spotted a late stage nymph of the characteristic yellow spotted Poekilocerus bufonius ssp. hieroglyphicus grasshopper, also known from the Tassili. Not far I have photographed another nymph of a different grasshopper species, which turned out to be Tenuitarsus angustus (identified by Alain Louveaux, MNHN via the kind assistance of Annie Garcin).
Leaving Ga Kourou we continued on a zigzag course among the rocks and valleys of Béchiké, traversing some of the most beautiful landscapes of the Ennedi.
By late afternoon we reached the Ovayké well, where we replenished our water supplies before moving on towards our campsite among the rock towers of Keymena about four kilometres further East.
Day 8. Keymena - Sosola - Soro Kezenanga
As this was to be our camp for two nights, we could afford a slower start than on other days, enjoying the morning sun and the fact that we did not need to pack up. Pluche took the opportunity to show us the delightful little ink drawings she made on pebbles, the best one depicting the drinking camels at Archeï
Our plan was to search for the 'lost' site of Soro Kezenanga I, with the beautiful running figures depicted on the cover of Bailloud's book, not seen since the late nineteen fifties. We knew from some other sites found by Pier Paolo that it had to be somewhere in the close vicinity of our campsite. We planned to search on foot, first going to the known sites and exploring the country systematically in-between. We stared out at Sosola I, a site reported by Bailloud about one and a half kilometres south of our camp, where Pier Paolo found some faint archaic paintings close to the known ones.
A little to the left there is the low shelter containing the camel period scenes which were copied by Bailloud, but we could not find anywhere the "labyrinth" photographed by Bailloud somewhere at this site.
Following the contour we found another shelter with some very faint paintings on the ceiling. DStretch showed them to be galloping camels with riders, subsequently one was matched to a tracing of Bailloud labeled Sosola II.
From Sosola we turned back towards the prominent rock castle just East of our camp, the likely location of the site we were looking for.
At the Eastern end of the rock maze Pier Paolo found a small seemingly unremarkable site showing humans with spears and shields. This scene matched an unpublished tracing of Bailloud (housed in the MNHN, Paris) identifying the site as Soro Kezenanga IV, thus the other principal site also had to be in this area.
A systematic search of the nearby 'streets' and 'avenues' produced numerous stone structures and many traces of prehistoric inhabitants, but no rock art.
Finally after descending a steep chute, along the northern edge of the rock castle facing the broad valley, I did find a small site with a few paintings.
Following the edge of the rocks I did find a conspicuous rock tower that had a few cattle engraved on its base, and nearby there was a shelter which contained some paintings of cattle on the ceiling, matching the description of Bailloud's Soro Kezenanga III (of which no copies remain).
It was well past noon by now, with the midday heat properly turned on, everyone converged on camp for lunch and a rest. Crossing the centre of the rock maze to camp we noted that a large central plaza was full of the remains of iron smelting kilns.
The site of Keymena was within sight of camp and the cars, a low arch with paintings on the ceiling just beyond the two conspicuous rock pillars. After lunch we set out to see it to alleviate the lack of any significant finds during the morning. The round headed camel period people were referred to as the Keymena style by Bailloud after this site, but there is also a fine group of earlier Hohou style figures.
The afternoon heat and the lack of any meaningful finds substantially dampened the enthusiasm of our party, I set out alone to explore the remaining Western part of the rock maze. At the western tip I did find a low shelter with some camel paintings, but still not the main site.
Continuing back along the northern edge of the massif I spotted a large promising shelter high up among the rocks. It turned out to be false alarm, while indeed it was large and comfortable, it was totally empty. On descending I did come across another large shelter formed by an enormous fallen boulder, this time there was some success. There were a few barely visible paintings on the rear wall, but more importantly an excavated square in the middle identified it as Soro Kezenanga II, one of only two sites where Bailloud did any archaeological sounding. According to his diary, this shelter was "just a few metres above" Soro Kezenanga I, the site we were seeking. I did not find anything below, so I quickly returned to camp to fetch the others so we could do a systematic search.
By this time the sun was getting rather low, we only had about an hour of daylight left to search. Fortunately it did not take that long, a few minutes after walking back in the direction I came from earlier that afternoon, right to the base of the rocks we came upon a prominent triangular shelter in a short section which I failed to search, climbing up to the empty shelter above instead. Naturally this was the site we were looking for the whole day, finally found just as the day was coming to the end. The entrance of the shelter is conspicuously marked a short distance away by a large Leptadenia pyrotechnica shrub growing in the sand. As Ali explained, the name of the shrub is kezenanga in Bideyat, Soro Kezenanga is literally "the place where kezenanga grows".
It may have taken a long effort to find the site, but the result was worth every minute. The little running figures were there at the centre of the ceiling, in a perfect state of preservation, no wonder Bailloud chose this scene for the cover of his book.
The paintings only cover a smaller fraction of the shelter ceiling with two very distinct layers. The earlier Fada style figures (including the runners) with the animal-like heads, in some places superimposed by Keymena style camel riders, including one hunting an ostrich. Curiously there is one large Fada style figure holding a spear that appears to have a metal point, suggesting a rather late age for these paintings. Bailloud did a thorough job at this shelter, copying all the scenes on multiple sheets.
It was a very happy and content party reaching the camp by sunset. Over the past two days we have succeeded in locating both of the 'lost' sites adorning the covers of the only two books ever published on Ennedi rock art.
Day 9. Keymena - Fada - Beijoua
In the morning we packed camp and set out towards Faya, about 20 kilometres distant. Around half way we stopped at Egme China, a massif where Bailloud recorded three smaller sites. More recently Pier Paolo fond a much larger site complex at the Western end of the massif (EC 01), with numerous fine panels of paintings in a row of shelters arranged in a horseshoe-shaped narrow valley. Most of the finer paintings are in the Fada style, like at Soro Kezenanga.
Continuing along the row of low shelters along the left of the valley there were several more fine scenes, including a group of Fada style running figures, holding the same "ice-cream cones" (whatever they are) as those observed at Soro Kezenanga I.
There are some more shallow shelters with paintings along the right side of the valley, but they are much fewer in number and less well preserved than the rich panels facing them.
The sites of Bailloud were about a kilometre further East, but we did not have time to see them as there were more important sites ahead for the day. We continued to Fada where we registered at the Préfecture, took on fuel and supplies and most importantly picked up Ali Djimi, a good friend of Pier Paolo, who was to be our guide for the next four days.
As soon as everything was ready we moved out of town (the whole stop lasted under an hour), halting at the rock outcrop where we had our campsite two years earlier. We were unaware at the time, but the small rock art site of Koko II was perched high on the rock right behind our campsite (we searched for it on ground level). The paintings copied by Bailloud need some scrambling effort to get up to, and are rather difficult to see and photograph in the low interior of the shelter. This site gave the name to the Koko style, with the characteristic huts, seated women and people depicted in full face with prominent eyes (but otherwise closely resembling the Fada style).
Without any further stops we continued to Beijoua, a large valley about 15 kilometres East of Fada, where a few years ago Ali showed Pier-Paolo a large unknown shelter with some very unusual paintings. The shelter is located high up a hillside (prominently visible from a distance), we decided to have lunch in the shade of a few meager shrubs and wait for the midday heat to dissipate a bit before making the climb. I used this time to walk back to a row of prominent shelters we passed with the cars minutes earlier. They were ideal south-facing shelters along a terrace, but only one of the four contained any rock art, a single cow (though a very fine one, site BE 02).
After lunch we set out for the half-hour climb up to the principal shelter (BE 01), which was known to the brother of Ali from his childhood while tending goats in the valley. Only as one approaches does the true size of the shelter become evident.
Inside the shelter practically all suitable smooth surfaces are covered with paintings. Some depict cattle and humans in the well known Ennedi styles, but some others depict wild fauna and are absolutely unique, both in style and topic. There are a number of large horned antelopes for which the closest analogy one may think of are kudus (The Greater Kudu, Tragelaphus strepsiceros does occur in Chad and Western Sudan, so its ancient range could have included the Ennedi). Some other animals appear to be striped hyenas, a species still occurring in the area.
We still had the remainder of the afternoon to explore the vicinity of the large shelter, which was never properly surveyed before. We started by making the precarious scramble along a narrow rubble-filled ledge to another large shelter about 200 metres to the right, with a deep vertical drop underneath. The shelter had a superb view over the valley, but inside the walls proved to be empty despite the many stone tools and potsherds littering the ground.
We split up to explore various parts of the upper terraces and the valley below, but soon started converging on the campsite at a nice sandy patch in the valley floor as all the suitable looking shelters in the vicinity lacked any paintings.
Day 10. Beijoua - Elikéo - Tarchia
Ali Djimi is probably the most knowledgeable guide in the area, and one of the few who knows the old Bideyat place names (used by the guides of Bailloud) which now all have a different Tibu name. Together with Pier Paolo they have re-located many of Bailloud's sites which were lost for decades as the Bideyat moved to the eastern side of the Ennedi and the Tibu from Gouro and Ounianga moved in to the created void. Sensing our interest he was keen to show us more unreported sites which he was aware of in the area, so after packing camp we set out to a side valley, where after some searching Ali hit on the low ridge with a shelter along its side (BE 03), which he last visited many years ago.
There was another smaller site of the far side of the valley (BE 04), nothing comparable to the wonders we have seen before but an unrecorded one nevertheless.
Ali knew of no other sites in the area so we started moving out of the valley towards our next destination, Elikéo. As we drove past a hillock a large shelter appeared along its hidden side. Stopping to investigate, we did find a pastoralist panel (BE 05) on the rear wall.
We continued without any further interruptions to Elikéo, some 20 kilometres away. We started at the small site of Elikéo II a little to the left of the entrance of the big horseshoe shaped valley, which we missed in 2016.
We continued along the row of sites, stating with Elikéo III and the well known archaic paintings, the main attraction of the area.
This time with more time on our hands we also identified Elikéo IV, a large shelter with a natural arch at the entrance with some paintings on the arch and on the inner walls which we also missed in 2016. It takes some scrambling to reach the site, and as no tracings were made by Bailloud the identification is circumstantial, but no other site exists between Elikéo III and V.
Next in line was Elikéo V with the fine Tamada style scenes and the best known harp player, all of which I managed to photograph extensively two years ago.
Having arrived later, the lovely flock of ostrich and the separate panel in the right part of the site was now in much better light conditions than on our previous visit.
Continuing towards Elikéo VI on the far side of the horseshoe, with Magdi we came upon a small niche with a few paintings, a site neither Ali nor Pier Paolo were familiar with.
At Elikéo VI we only had a hurried visit last time, now we could look through all the curious panels at a leisurely pace, noticing many more details including a strange figure that appears to be fishing (?).
Having completed the round of sites recorded by Bailloud, we had a last look around the valley of Elikéo before following our cars, which went off to the far side of the rocks to the West for some shade and a suitable lunch spot.
The shaded lunch stop provided easy access to some sites that have been found by Ali & Pier Paolo along the sides of this broad valley. Site EL 03 was two hundred metres beyond our lunch spot, a small shelter in the hillside with two separate niches, both containing paintings of fine Tamada style figures.
Continuing a few hundred metres (with the prominent shelter EL 02 visible on the far side) we reached the small site EL 04, with a few damaged paintings around the entrance of a very small tunnel-like shelter. (EL 02 contains a single camel, only Gábor went that far to check it out).
In the other direction, within sight of our lunch spot there was a terrace with some shelters on a higher level. Though they have been checked in the past without finding anything, I went up for the view, and indeed the large right shelter was empty but much to my surprise I found a fairly large panel of paintings in the left shelter (possibly identical to Bailloud's Elikéo I, but for now designated EL 05).
Having thoroughly covered Elikéo without any time pressure, we were ready to move on to our next main objective mid-afternoon. We wanted to reach the general area of Tarchia, only around 3-4 kilometres to the North of Elikéo as the crow flies, but due to the topography a good 20 kilometres with the cars via the Oued Eo. Along the way we stopped at the main shelter of Guili Dweli to see the white figures inside (Guili Dweli VIII). On arrival we found the shelter to be occupied by a friendly family of nomads with their animals, it was a surreal experience to see the shelter as it must have appeared thousands of years ago at the time of the ancient pastoralists.
On the wall outside and below the main shelter Pier Paolo showed us a strange engraving that appears to be some inscription, but in an unrecognisable script. Just around the corner there was another site (GD 01) with some pastoralist paintings, including cattle with artificially deformed horns, a practice still done in Ethiopia and other parts of Africa.
Reaching the Oued Eo Ali steered us towards a large isolated rock pillar, as he recalled there was a shelter in its side. He did not remember any paintings, but as it was just off our track it was worth checking out, and indeed we did find a series of large (but rather damaged) panels of paintings inside the surprisingly small space.
Reaching the fork to the Eastern branch of the valley we continued upstream in the increasingly more difficult sandy watercourse, until we reached a very pleasant sand-filled basin with several large trees. The cars could go no further, we made this our campsite in order to explore the country beyond on foot.
Day 11. Tarchia - Eo Boul
Our campsite was not quite at Tarchia, Ali Djimi understood this name to refer to the part of the valley further upstream. It was a broad V shaped valley narrowing to a point some 3 kilometres above our camp. We started at the Khobar guelta along the Northern side a kilometre from our camp, then the plan was to follow the North side of the valley till the end, and return via the South side, covering all possible locations for the fine sites recorded by Bailloud (unknown to us at the time, Yves Gauthier with Suzanne and Gérard Lachaud have visited these sites two years earlier).
We reached the Khobar guelta in about twenty minutes and did find the paintings known by Ali, but the guelta itself was more interesting. The tiny pool of water has a frog in it (turned out to be an Egyptian toad, Sclerophrys regularis) which posed patiently for the camera.
Leaving the guelta we continued along the northern side of the valley looking for potential shelters along the way. As we crossed a rocky plain Marta tripped and fell, resulting in a nasty gash on her forehead. While she felt fine we thought it were better to go back to camp with her and Pascale (the doctor in our party) while the rest continued the quest. Back in camp Pascale produced a veritable field hospital from her bag and patched Marta up in no time. Making a direct line towards the center we caught up with the rest of the party just as they approached the narrower part of the valley, not finding anything along the way.
Entering the valley we spotted a terrace ending in a vertical wall along the south side, with the base of the cliff hidden from view. Natalie & Gábor climbed up to investigate, and soon a delighted squeal coming from above indicated that Natalie found her first ever rock art site. It turned out to be Bailloud's Tarchia II site, with the row of small black archers, plus several other interesting scenes (which Bailloud did not copy), including a group of strange animals which were definitely not cattle.
From our vantage point a series of shelters were clearly visible on the far side of the valley, some of our party crossed over to investigate, while the rest of us continued along the south wall.
A few hundred metres to the east of Tarchia II we came upon a shelter located some way up the vertical cliff, with a barely manageable way up. It contained several panels of pastoralist paintings, including one depicting a giraffe, but it was not the fine giraffe panel of Bailloud which we were seeking.
Just a little beyond we reached what at first only appeared to be a shallow shelter, but as we neared it became obvious that its dimensions were huge, and traces of red paint were visible all along its length. This was Tarchia III, and we soon found the panel of giraffe tucked away in the left corner.
Tarchia III is one of the largest and finest of the Ennedi pastoralist sites, with excellently preserved paintings throughout the roughly 50 metre width of the shelter. Bailloud only copied a fraction of the paintings (the giraffe scene), the vast majority remain unpublished. At the time we believed that we were the first to locate this site after Bailloud, however later I have found out that Yves Gauthier with Suzanne and Gérard Lachaud have been here two years earlier. The biggest concentration of paintings is in the left (deepest) part, with numerous superpositions of the various phases of pastoralist art of the Ennedi
Being short on time towards the end of his stay at the Ennedi, Bailloud could only copy the scene of three giraffe and the running figures below. Taken out of context, the copy does no justice to the multitude of other fine (or even finer) surrounding figures.
Above and to the right of the giraffe scene there are several camel period scenes, including a pair of very fine ostrich hunt scenes (a photo of one was reproduced in Bailloud's book), as well as a group of dama gazelle, a quite rare and unusual depiction.
Continuing to the right the density of the figures reduce, but they remain equally fine, mostly representing scenes from the various Ennedi cattle pastoralist styles.
While we were busy taking photographs the other members of our party arrived from the far side of the valley. They found the row of white figures copied by Bailloud in the large shelter to the left, confirming it to be Tarchia IV. They also saw some paintings in the series of four shelters further to the right, which were not reported by Bailloud (Tarchia 05). Once we all finished at Tarchia III most of the group started back towards the camp, while the remainder made a quick dash across the valley, starting at the right shelters. We found most of the finer paintings in the rightmost of the four (Tarchia 05/D), with the rest containing only a few, mostly damaged figures.
The large shelter of Tarchia IV was a few hundred metres away, with the row of white figures copied by Bailloud on the rear wall, quite unlike any of the other paintings found in the Ennedi. While Bailloud considered them to be archaic (that is pre-pastoralist), in absence of superpositions there is no clear evidence for this, white paint tends to weather fast and even relatively younger ones can be very faint.
Walking back towards the camp, a short distance beyond Tarchia II we passed another small shelter that contained a very fine panel of pastoralist paintings. By inference this must have been Tarchia I, however Bailloud made no copies at this site.
Reaching camp we were much relieved to see Marta well on the mend, the cut looked scary but fortunately it appeared she did not hit hard. Jonathan was awaiting us with a late lunch, after which we packed up our camp which we left standing to save time in the morning. As Jonathan did the washing-up large yellow wasps arrived to drink from the moist sand, later identified as Delta lepeleterii, a mason wasp species responsible for the mud nests deposited over many rock art sites.
Mid-afternoon we set out in the valley towards Fada, fortunately avoiding any of the cars becoming stuck in the soft sand, making our next camp at Eo Boul, a tributary of the main valley.
Day 12. Eo Boul - Sakila - Manda China - Sivré - Gaora Hallagana
The previous evening the inquisitive Youssef explored a canyon not far from our camp and came back reporting a large shelter with some faint white paintings in it. In the morning while the cars were being loaded we made a quick dash to see the site, which far surpassed what we were expecting. The rear left of the shelter was covered with white archaic figures, while in the center there were a group of faint but recognisable Hohou style figures with an exceptional headdress not seen anywhere else. At the extreme right of the shelter there are the remains of a large Elikéo style figure, and one of the strange tree-like objects with hanging utensils, the only two previously known examples being at Sivré and Elikéo.
We continued West along the Oued Eo, stopping at the outcrop of Djerta a few kilometres before Fada to see site DJ03 where Pier Paolo found some intriguing and hard to classify paintings a few years ago in a shallow shelter high up on a rock face.
To the right of DJ03 a barely passable tunnel leads over to the other side of the rock spur, into another spacious shelter with several panels of paintings (DJ03/B), practically inaccessible from the proper entrance due to the vertical drop.
To the left of DJ03, about a hundred metres away there is a further site, DJ04 with a large panel of late camel period paintings. Not far beyond, in a shelter first appearing completely empty, we found a few faint ancient-looking figures tucked away into a corner.
The last site of Djerta was a further kilometre towards Fada. Here at DJ05 Pier Paolo found a panel with archaic paintings (clearly superimposed by cattle), unfortunately the scene is very damaged and the full nature of the archaic figures is impossible to make out.
We continued to Fada to drop off Ali Djimy at his house (which was one of the nicest in town, with a large well kept garden hidden behind the mudbrick walls), then drove to the market for fuel while Jonathan topped-up our supplies with whatever was available.
We had enough time left from the late morning to leave town and drive for lunch till the outcrop of Sakila about 25 kilometres to the East, the site of a panel copied by Bailloud. Unfortunately the location under a conspcuous natural arch was also used as a sentry point during the Libyan wars, and the panel is now defaced with graffiti of Libyan soldiers.
The shelter adjacent to the arch contained a panel of late camel period paintings and symbols. Much to our surprise at the far end of the rock, under another natural arch we found the 'labyrinth' symbol which Bailloud photographed and miscaptioned Sosola I, where we looked for it in vain the week before.
After lunch we continued to the south of the broad valley flanking the track leading west from Fada, to the very impressive shelter of Manda China, a site we did not have the time to visit in 2016. The large shallow shelter contains several fine scenes in the Tamada style, plus a very large (1.5m) cow towards its precarious left side.
Our last stop of the day was the huge rock of Sivré a further ten kilometres to the southwest. We started at the shelter of Sivré I along the southern side of the rock, where Bailloud copied a number of scenes, and where Els found the huge headless beast on the ceiling in 2016.
With the sun rather low, we only had a short time to visit the Western tip of the rock, with the well known pair of figures (Sivré III). I was surprised to find a number of pastoralist paintings on the ceilings of a row of smaller shelters to the left, which we completely missed on our previous visit two years earlier.
With the sun almost down, with Pascale we made a quick dash to a terrace higher up, where two years earlier with Alessandro Menardi Noguera they have found the panel of archaic paintings (Sivré IV) referred to (but not copied) by Bailloud.
We returned to the others busy photographing the elephant at Sivré IV, and made a hasty retreat to the cars waiting below.
We just beat the sun as we reached our campsite adjacent to the hills of Gaora Hallagana, selected so that we may visit the surrounding sites on foot in the morning while the camp was being readied for departure.
Day 13. Gaora Hallagana - Kalait
We were up at sunrise to make the most of our final day in the Ennedi. After packing our gear we set out on foot towards the more than dozen shelters on all sides of the cluster of rocks. We started at GH10 and the archaic paintings of GHXIV, both of which are located in the western part of Gaora Hallagana.
Site GH05 at the rear of the South west hill of Gaora Hallagana has a rock ledge with some excellent paintings on the upper level. Two years earlier we could not access these paintings, but now with the help of the ladder brought along for this purpose I could take excellent close-up photos of these perfectly preserved scenes.
We re-visited the adjacent Gaora Hallagana VII, where Bailloud only copied a row of Tamada style figures, but the shelter has a wealth of other representations, mostly in the Fada style. We continued to the huge open roofed GH03 shelter, which on first sight looks mostly empty save for a few meager engravings along its left side, but some years ago Pier Paolo found a very interesting (and probably archaic) panel of paintings, apparently representing fishes and a long tailed quadruped high up on the right wall.
Most of us finished at the huge north facing Gaora Hallagana IV shelter, the richest site in the cluster, with the very fine Fada style scenes (including a harpist at the rear cluster). On the low rocks in the middle of a shelter I spotted a faint scene which we walked past without noticing on the previous visit.
While we did our rounds of the sites our drivers packed camp, and the cars moved to the shade of the hill adjacent to GH03. While Jonathan served lunch, with Michael we made a quick sortie to the northernmost site of the group, GH13, which I did not have the time to visit in 2016. Pier Paolo told us to expect only a few cattle figures at the extreme left, so we were rather surprised when on the low ceiling of the middle section (hidden from view unless bending down) we found a very nice row of running figures not reported before, soon joined by Pier Paolo lured by the flash of our cameras pointed where there was supposedly nothing.
After lunch we took some time to take our group photo in front of the GH03 shelter, then drove to a small rock cluster about a kilometre away where Pier Paolo found some engravings under a natural arch (GH15), including a giraffe and several grooves and other vague figures.
The engravings were the last site to be visited in the Ennedi, we needed to start our 3.5 day return journey to N'Djamena. In the afternoon we covered the roughly 150 kilometres to Kalait in about three hours, with enough time left to fuel all cars and leave the town before sunset. We made camp beside a small granite knoll about 20 kilometres east of the town.
Day 14. Kalait - Bahr el Ghazal
We chose a different route for the return journey, going direct via the Bahr el Ghazal rather than re-tracing the asphalt road via Abéche. Time-wise the two are about the same, the shorter direct distance countered by the faster going on the asphalt. By now we were back in cattle country, as we packed in the morning a fine herd of cattle strolled by lazily, probably going to the nearby well.
We progressed on an almost Esterly course, on a flat and at first grass covered plain. By mid-morning the grass gave way to sand, which was picked up by a strong wind, soon reaching proper sandstorm proportions by the time we reached a well where we replenished our water stock. We drove pretty much all day, only stopping in the lee of a tree for a quick lunch.
By mid afternoon we reached the track along the Bahr el Ghazal, and continued to the South west, making camp in the dry riverbed before the town of Salal.
Day 15. Bahr el Ghazal (Salal - Moussoro)
Fortunately overnight the wind subsided and we had a peaceful morning, entertained by the ravens picking up any edible looking scrap that was left unattended.
This was another day spent in the cars, driving along the bumpy and dusty track in the middle of the Bahr el Ghazal from Salal to Mussoro, stopping for lunch about 50 kilometres before the latter.
We reached Moussoro mid-afternoon, and after fueling and replenishing supplies we drove out of town to look for a good early campsite, in order to allow everyone to sort out and re-pack everything before reaching N'Djamena and the flights home.
Day 16. Moussoro - N'Djamena
With only a short 250 kilometres to go (2/3 on asphalt) we could afford a lazy morning start, packing everything before starting out on the last leg of the journey, with a few hopeful vultures circling above.
We reached N'Djamena by mid-afternoon, and settled into the lobby of the Ibis Hotel, taking turns to shower before a dinner at the Coté du Jardin restaurant then taking the overnight flights back home.
While this trip provided a very good in-depth overview of the rock art sites of the Fada region, there is plenty left to explore on future visits. Many of the sites recorded by Gérard Bailloud in the nineteen fifties have still not been re-located. Another expedition is planned to the Ennedi for November 2020, also including the amazing engravings of Niola Doa on the itinerary. Please visit the planned itinerary page for more details (or "like" the FJ Expeditions FaceBook page to receive notices of news and updates).