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Oued Djerat & Tadjelahine Plateau, Tassili N'Ajjer, South Algeria 11th November - 8th December, 2019 False colour images processed with DStretch, a freely available software developed by Jon Harman Quick link to the start of the second part (Tadjelahine) of the trip account |
Ever since our rushed four day visit in November 2014, I was planning a return to the Oued Djerat to traverse the entire length of the valley at a more relaxed pace, taking plenty of time to explore the thousands of engravings. Armed with copies of the Lhote tracings stored at the MNHN in Paris, I was also determined to find all the spectacular unpublished paintings, most of which we have missed on the previous visit. In the first part of our journey we made a leisurely two-week camel supported trek along the full length of the Oued Djerat, starting in the North, then ascending the Fadnoun Plateau we continued south until making a descent to meet our cars near Imirhou. In the second part of our trip we returned for a ten day trek on the Tadjelahine Plateau (central Tassili), again at a very relaxed pace with plenty of time to explore previously unvisited sites and areas. We finished our trip with a three day exploration of the Tin Hanakaten area, south of Djanet.
The photographs accompanying this account are primarily of sites visited for the first time. For detailed coverage of already visited sites, please see the November 2014 trip account for the Oued Djerat, the October 2012 and November 2014 trip accounts for the Tadjelahine Plateau, and the November 2018 trip account for the Tin Hanakaten area.
Day 0. – Algiers
With an early morning flight to Illizi, we all gathered in Algiers the day before, arriving from various corners of the world. It was a rather miserable rainy November day, spent mostly at the Ibis hotel near the airport, with just a quick outing for dinner to one of the nearby small local restaurants.
Day 1. – Algiers - Illizi - Oued Djerat
It was still pitch dark when we left the Ibis to catch the 7am Air Algerie flight to Illizi. The flight itself was uneventful, with only an hour's delay (on time by Air Algerie standards) and an interim stop at Ouargla, we landed at Illizi shortly before 11am. Salah of Essendilene Voyages was waiting for us, and after the obligatory but very courteous police registration we headed into town. A rater unpleasant wind arose by the time we reached the city, soon strengthening to a proper sandstorm. We made base at a new hotel, the Hadj Bouamama, with a comfortable lobby, good internet connection and an excellent lunch. The rest of our party stayed within the sheltering walls, while with Salah we made our rounds to purchase the necessary supplies at the local stores, while our permits were being processed. We were ready to depart by mid-afternoon, and despite the rather gloomy outlook we set out for our first camp in the desert at the entrance of the Oued Djerat, a mere 15 kilometres from the city. We quickly covered the distance, and at the beginning of the wadi we met our guide, Kli-Kli with three camel drivers and ten pack animals. After some discussion it turned out that Kli-Kli was also our guide in November 2014, apparently the most knowledgable when it comes to rock art in the Oued Djerat and the eastern part of the Fadnoun. We also had Youssef with us, Saleh's cousin working at the Illiz hospital, whose main task was to interpret if necessary as Kli-Kli only spoke some very broken French, and the camel drivers none. (In retrospect this turned out to be an unnecessary precaution, as Kli-Kli's French was better than my arabic, and with a mix of both we understood each other well most of the time. Regardless, Youssef was an extremely helpful and pleasant companion, trying to make our life easier at every opportunity.) The wind was a little less unpleasant among the large tamarisks filling the Oued bed, we made our camp and had an early dinner, everyone turning in early after two days of near continuous travel.
Day 2. – Oued Djerat (entrance to Tizararine)
Overnight the wind strengthened to a gale, rattling the tents, but miraculously it calmed down by dawn, and we awoke to a fine calm and clear morning. Inevitably the packing of our gear and having breakfast took quite some time on this first morning, finally we were ready to depart around half past eight. The camel drivers were still chasing the camels that went off in all directions overnight, but this was the normal routine. We said good bye to Salah and set off with Kli-Kli and Youssef, with the camels to catch up with us later in the day.
We did not have to walk far to reach the first rock art site. About two kilometres upstream of our campsite we passed a prominent vertical rock section along the west bank with a large panel of engravings. This site was for some reason not recorded by Henri Lhote in 1959 (Les Gravures Rupestres du l'Oued Djerat, CRAPE, Alger, 1975), however we did pass it in 2014. At the time we were near the very end of the trip so we did not pay that much attention, only noticing the fine cattle. However there are also several giraffe on the panel, including some that are depicted in a "sitting" position, a style of depiction also known from the Tibesti and the Ennedi, clearly superimposed over the earlier cattle.
We continued upstream along the first big bend of the Oued, passing a few undocumented minor sites along the way, plus Lhote's Station LXXII along the East side near the mouth of the small tributary, I-n-Tarik. Unfortunately the big flat rock was in a very bad light, the numerous figures were barely discernible. While we were moving from site to site the train of camels overtook us, going straight to the campsite which we were to reach only in the late afternoon.
The valley looked markedly different from our 2014 visit. The vegetation was lush green everywhere, with plenty of fresh growth and even a couple of Podaxis pistillaris mushrooms sprang from the silt at the junction of the tributary. There were several years of good rains, I have heard that around the same time the year before the river was in full flow, making it impossible to cross from one side to another.
The trail continued along the west side of the Oued, but we kept to the eastern side to see a scatter of engravings stretching for a good 700 metres along the riverbank on random boulders. This was Lhote's site LXX, which we bypassed on the previous visit. There are several fine panels, including one of the best representations of a hippopotamus in the Oued Djerat. As we moved upstream from panel to panel, we passed the first basin that still held water.
Near the pool we returned to the west side, to the site of our first night's camp on the previous trip, where a high rock wall with a shallow shelter offered a good shady spot for lunch. We could also visit the nearby panels of site LXXI, including the fine large cattle on the vertical wall of a boulder high above the valley.
After lunch and a short rest, we set out towards our camp which was still a good two kilometres upstream. After a kilometre with nothing on either sides of the valley, we reached a small shelter containing the first of numerous paintings dotting the length of the valley. While the Oued Djerat is best known for the prolific engravings, there are some splendid paintings along its entire length, especially in the upper sections which were not visited in 2014. While Lhote and his team recorded the paintings as well as the engravings during the 1959 expedition, only the latter were published in 1975. The paintings were supposed to be the subject of another publication which never materialised, and only a few details were published in later articles, the majority of the produced copies lingering in the stores of the Museé de l'Homme in Paris. Fortunately Lhote marked both paintings and engravings on the map of his 1975 volume, and one of our key objectives of this trip was to locate them all if possible. This first shelter was marked as Site LXVIII, but no copies were produced. It contains a single scene of an animal and some human (?) figures, partially covered with a hard to interpret red blob.
A short distance upstream we passed the first of a near continuous line of shallow lakes in the riverbed, the remnants of the copious late-summer rains (and the breeding ground of the mosquitoes which made sleeping out in the open a bit less pleasant). We again crossed to the eastern side to see Station LXVI, a single block with a nice donkey and other engravings (much farther north than marked on the Lhote map).
Crossing back to the other side, Kli-Kli showed us a small shelter at the entrance of the Chaaba Tizararine (a small western tributary) which we did not see five years earlier, Lhote's station LXVII. On first sight it only appeared to contain some recent camel depictions, but a close look revealed some very faint underlying paintings, a series of fine cattle.
After another half a kilometre along the western side of the Oued, near the entrance of another chaaba (small tributary) we reached the prominent shelter with an engraved chariot on the floor and some paintings along the rear wall, the first set of paintings which have been copied by the Lhote team (Station LXV, "Abri du char").
Our campsite was just a hundred metres beyond the shelter, at a perfect spot where a large sandy terrace occupies most of the riverbed just before where the oued makes a sharp turn to the east, still called Tizararine by Kli-Kli.
After making camp we still had an hour till sunset, this was a perfect opportunity to do some exploration. Lhote recorded a panel of paintings called "Abri des éléphants peints" on account of the two depicted elephants, which we have not seen in 2014. Confusingly the label on the MNHN copy says Station LI, a site further upstream with no paintings indicated. However the copy of the paintings in "Abdri du char" is also marked Station LI, so there was a good chance the two are close to each other, in the area of Station LXV where indeed two paintings are marked on the map. We scrambled in all directions, it was Els who came back at dusk with the news that she indeed found some paintings above the well known fine engravings near camp.
Day 3. – Oued Djerat (Tizararine to Affer)
After a quick breakfast at sunrise we started out early to beat the rising sun that would make photography in the shelter rather difficult. I don't know how we missed it five years earlier, as the prominent shelter is clearly visible from the engravings below. There is a rather faded and damaged panel of paintings on the ceiling, the two elephants and the flock of very fine Iheren style sheep are only visible properly with DStretch.
The main panels of engravings of Station LXV are just below the shelter, with the majority perfectly illuminated in the sharp low morning light.
Among the dozens of engravings there was one panel that was much older than all the rest. A strange and seemingly uninteligible mass of twisted lines turned out to be a slab with Cruziana trace fossils, tracks of trilobites from the Silurian, pre-dating the other engravings by some 400 million years.
Station LXV stretches for a good 100 metres along the western bank, in the middle of the sharp bend to the east. It is the first truly major site encountered as one enters the valley from the north, we spent a good hour scrambling among the blocks to find all the panels, and photograph them in the best light as the sun was slowly rising above the canyon rim.
Upstream of Station LXV the valley is oriented towards the north east, and after a kilometre makes a sharp turn again, returning to a southerly direction. On the southern side of this stretch there is only a single rock with some very faint engravings (Station LXIII).
Along the northern arc of the bend towards the south Lhote marked three sites with paintings (but apparently no copies were made) at Station LXII. We crossed the riverbed to the northern side, which was quite challenging with the high bank and the almost continuous long pools in the watercourse. We easily found the first site at the base of a large boulder in a shallow shelter, facing a panel of published engravings.
From this site two prominent shelters were visible further upstream. I have already looked at them in 2014, but then Kli-Kli dismissed them as being empty, and we were short on time so did not investigate. Now we approached the first, and did find an engraved therianthropic figure that was published by Lhote, but no paintings. Continuing to the second, larger shelter, we also found some (unpublished) camel engravings, but absolutely no trace of any paintings.
We returned to the well-trodden camel path of the far side of the valley, passing the small but exquisite panel of cattle at the start of Station LXI, where the valley turns south.
After another 5-6 hundred metres we reached the rounded boulder with a number of elephant engravings, still Station LXI.
Leaving the path, we again crossed over to the far side, to the junction of a small eastern tributary named Abezoz, where a number of huge blocks contain several engravings (Station LX), including a very fine elephant and an exceptional large ostrich.
Already from here we could distinctly make out on the west side of the Oued the large boulder with a prominent shelter, Station LIX ("abri camelin"), which features on three separate sheets of the Lhote copies. The majority of the paintings are indeed camel period, but there is a group of older human figures at the right corner of the shelter.
Our next stop was the finest depiction of a giant buffalo (Syncerus antiquus) in the Oued Djerat at Tirarmin (Station LVIII), superimposed by one of the strange spiral motifs that appear at a number of locations. Unfortunately we were just a tad too late for the best light, with all the time spent in the morning at the other sites and searching for the non-existent paintings it was already past noon, parts of the scene were already in partial shade, but with the reflector Bruno carried in his rucksack we could still take far better photos than what I could do in the dull afternoon light five years ago.
We continued south along the west bank of the valley for another kilometre or so, to the big blocks of Station LVII and LIII a few hundred metres further upstream, bordering the watercourse and filled with large scale engravings. Stations LVI-LIV are all along the East bank of the valley, with numerous but not very spectacular engravings. Just opposite LIII Lhote marked a site with paintings, we spent some time looking for it along the riverbank, but there were no obvious shelters in sight, and we soon gave up without finding anything.
We reached our campsite on a large sandy patch the junction of the Oued Affer by early afternoon. We had our lunch and a little rest in the shade of some trees before setting out to explore the hundreds of engravings along both sides of the main valley, as well as the tributary. We started out with the rocky slope along the east bank of the Oued Affer just where it joins the main valley (Station LII), with the fine elephants, giant buffalo and one of the largest giraffe engravings in the entire valley, almost impossible to photograph due to its size and position on a slanting exposed rock surface high above the valley.
Once we finished along the east bank, we crossed over to the far side of the main valley, to Station LI. Our camels, their job done for the day, were merrily grazing among the lush greenery along the main watercourse. Crossing proved to be more challenging than anticipated, with a labyrinth of steep-sided gullies, some with pools along their bottom, all created by the heavy flow of the river the year before.
It was mid-afternoon, the engravings of Station LI were in the best possible light, especially the large rhinoceros which is almost invisible with the sun facing it for most of the day.
We moved back again to the other side, to the cluster of engravings just east of the confluence (Station L). We found the sun to be too high for the majority, so we rounded the spur facing our camp, and continued south along the west bank of the Oued Affer which was already completely in the shade. After about 150 metres we reached a large panel of jumbled engravings (still Station L) along the smooth water-worn rock of the riverbed, with rhinoceros, a recognisable fish and several of the spiral motifs.
On the other side of the Oued Affer a large block with an engraved bull marks the southern end of Station LII.
A hundred metres to the north, within sight of our camp, another block contains a panel of very hard to see but unique engravings, a pair of large catfish.
By the time we made our round of the Oued Affer sites, the light became perfect at the fine rhinoceros panel just to the west of the confluence spur. Nearby a flat rock section is full of hardly visible engravings, including a large therianthrope with outstretched arms that only becomes properly visible in the low light just before the sun disappears below the western cliffs.
Day 4. – Oued Djerat (Affer to Toukrimine)
By our third morning in the Oued Djerat the morning routine was well established, rising at first light and packing our gear before breakfast, while the camel drivers set out to search for the animals which wandered off in all directions during the night, despite the tethered front legs, in search of good grazing. We did not have to wait for their return but set out, heading past the first of many large lakes in the riverbed to a series of fine engravings on a smooth rock section along the eastern side of the man valley a mere 300 metres from camp. In retrospect, it would have been better to see them during the previous afternoon in low sunlight, but we bypassed these in 2014 and I was not aware that they were so close.
Moving upstream along the near-continuous engravings we soon reached a splendid elephant on a vertical rock wall marking the end of Station L. Here the valley makes a ninety degree turn towards the north-west, with the same long lake filling the riverbed.
Soon after the bend we reached a rock with a small shelter underneath on the scree bordering the southern bank, which contains a faint but very fine painted panel of a herd of giraffes. This panel was noted by Brenans during the first survey of the Oued Djerat in the nineteen thirties, however for some strange reason it was not recorded by the Lhote team (not only the paintings, but the few engravings just outside the shelter are also missing from the Lhote publication, and are not marked on the map).
While we were busy photographing the giraffes (Kli-Kli confirmed that the name of this section of the valley is Tidjessellin, as marked on the Lhote map), our camels passed us in a long swaying row, going straight to our evening campsite.
For the next one and a half kilometres the valley continued in a generally north-westerly direction, with only two minor sites. A small boulder with a pair of giant buffaloes that were not recorded by Lhote lies a few dozen metres upstream of the giraffe shelter, while the published Station XLIX is almost directly opposite on the far bank.
After another kilometre we reached the confluence of the Oued Assahor, a westerly tributary. Here the valley makes another ninety degree turn, now to the south west. Immediately opposite the mouth of the tributary a low shelter contains a few painted figures (Station XLVIII), marked on Lhote's map but not copied.
For the next two kilometres the broad valley continues in a south-westerly direction in an almost straight line. This stretch is referred to as Affer Amellal, with only two meaningful sites along its entire length, both on prominent isolated boulders. The first (Station XLVII) depicts a giant buffalo surrounded by several human figures, with a few other figures (including another fine buffalo) nearby. The second, a good kilometre further upstream (Station XLVI) is the famous depiction of a flock of birds, which Lhote considered to be pelicans but they are without doubt shoe-billed storks. With good timing, we reached both in perfect contour lighting.
Shortly after the panel of shoebills the valley enters another broad bend, taking a good kilometre to complete a ninety degree turn to the south-east. About halfway into the bend there is a small cluster of engravings on both sides (Tirikeouin), Station XLIV along the east side, and Station XLV just opposite along the west bank, with two fine but difficult to see rhinoceros. By this time it was past midday and rather hot, in the shade of some low trees along the east bank we took our lunch, and were surprised to find a large oriental hornet doing the same, devouring a caterpillar that it just caught.
After the short lunch break we continued along the east bank, passing a large smooth rock surface with some engravings, still a part of Station XLIV.
For the next three kilometres until our campsite at Toukrimine there were only three sites with paintings marked on Lhote's map along the west side both before and after the small tributary of I-n-Lellen (Station XLIII), nothing on the east side. Two of these we have already seen during our 2014 trip, but the third was unknown also to Kli-Kli. We soon stopped at the first, near where we camped in 2004, a small shallow shelter with just a single painted figure which was also copied by the Lhote team.
The second site, right at the mouth of I-n-Lellen is a bit more interesting, with a very fine giraffe and an indistinct scene that appears to be a human figure riding a cattle, a very rare depiction (on the copy of the scene Lhote professed to see a mounted elephant).
With only a rough idea of where the third site was supposed to be (and Lhote's positions often inaccurate) we moved slowly upstream along the west bank, but the search proved to be easy. Roughly a kilometre after the junction of I-n-Lellen we came upon a small shelter in a crevice, facing south and very easy to pass without noticing if one is coming from the north. On the right wall of the crevice we found a panel of paintings that seemed to depict the hunt of barbary sheep with dogs, but on closer look it is rather puzzling, as the curved tails and the body shapes of the two attacking animals appear to be felines rather than dogs. However there are several analogies, where clearly dogs are depicted. Another surprise was the finding of some very faint, barely recognisable Iheren style cattle underneath. A careful search of the entire surface yielded more Iheren style scenes, including an extremely faint elephant(s?), only visible with DStretch.
It was another kilometre and half until we reached our campsite at the small oasis of Toukrimine, where the first palm trees appear in the riverbed, indicating the presence of permanent water underground.
At Toukrimine (Station XLI) there are several sites with paintings and engravings along the east bank, all copied by the Lhote team. With plenty of time left till sunset we set out to visit them. The first is a large rock with a shelter underneath, featuring several engravings on the outside and a panel of pastoralist paintings inside.
The second shelter is just a small hollow under a rock, but it contains some one of the most intriguing paintings in the valley, a group of very elaborately dressed figures. We did see it in 2014 together with the previous one, but the otherwise perfect photos taken with the small compact Canon camera I bought at the time turned out to be useless for processing with DStretch, I was very happy to have a repeated opportunity.
There is a third shelter with paintings a little further south, also copied by the Lhote team, which was not known to Kli-Kli (nor us) at the time of our previous visit. Just one year earlier it was relocated by a French party also guided by Kli-Kli, so now it was straight forward to find it, a short distance past some fine rhinoceros engravings, in a small shelter quite far above the valley floor. It contains a lovely group of Iheren style antelopes (plus some other faint, barely recognisable paintings).
By the time we finished with all the photography, it was close to sunset, so we returned t camp to prepare the tents and bivouacs. As we had dinner, out lights attracted a number of visitors, including a very inquisitive small mantis (Elaea gestroi), and some very strange yellow creatures with alien-like round heads almost covered with the huge red eyes, first thought to be some fly but later I have found out that it was a species of water beetle (Callicorixa sp.?).
Day 5. – Oued Djerat (Toukrimine to Ti-n-Tihied)
At dawn we packed camp and after breakfast continued upstream along the east bank, stopping at a few engravings that still belonged to the Toukrimine area (Station XLI).
About a kilometre upstream of the oasis, in the area of Arafama we saw a long low shelter on the far bank. Kli-Kli asserted that it was empty, but here the valley was narrow and it did not take much effort to cross to the other side, so we checked it out anyway. My hunch was correct, as we did find some traces of red and white painted animal figures, but nothing to get overly excited about. We continued along the west bank towards the big meander before the Bartou guelta.
Reaching the start of the big bend we passed by a large flat rock on the west bank with a number of engraved cattle (Station XXXIX). Crossing here to the other side, we passed by the rock of I-n-Amageli (Station XXXVIII), a prominent boulder inside the watercourse with one side almost completely covered with engravings, unfortunately quite difficult to make out because of the orientation and the light conditions.
At this point the oued starts to make a wide 180 degree anticlockwise turn towards the south and then east. The southern bank along the first half of the turn is called Belouahine, and there is a site with paintings marked on Lhote's map. Confusingly, it appears that either the labeling was wrong, or two separate sites were found here by the Lhote team, as there are two copies attributed to Station XXXVII referred to as 'Abri de chévre blanc' and 'Abri des petites chévres' respectively. Kli-Kli did not recognise any of the paintings, so we set out to meticulously search the southern bank upstream of the I-n-Aageli rock. Very close to where Lhote marked the site, we did come upon a shelter about 15 metres above the level of the riverbank, where we did find several late pastoral paintings, but not the copied scenes.
Round the corner there are two further shelters with paintings which Kli-Kli did know about, both of which contain some faint pastoralist paintings (in the first DStretch revealed a fine but almost invisible Iheren style woman), but again none of the scenes copied by the Lhote team.
At this point a deep basin now filled with water blocked the track along the southern bank, which here cuts across to the far side, passing a solitary engraved human figure on a vertical rock face (Station XXXV), then crosses back to the other bank near a rock with engraved spirals and cattle (Station XXXIV). Our camels passed us just as we were moving between the two, going for the campsite which we too were to reach before midday.
Soon we were approaching the lush palm grove surrounding the Guelta Bartou, the first permanent water source in the valley. Here the riverbed cuts through an aquifier layer in the bedrock, enabling enough water to seep into the basin to counter evaporation. However now with the rains, the guelta was several metres higher. We camped here in 2014, this time we moved on to be closer to the engravings we were planning to visit in the afternoon.
A few hundred metres beyond the cluster of palms we passed a splendid series of engravings along the smooth rocks of the west bank, Station XXXIII. There are numerous figures here, the best are a pair of fine rhinoceros, which were in perfect light.
Not far beyond we reached the mouth of the small tributary, Ti-n-Tihed, with the enormous panel of giraffes on the smooth rocks at the confluence (Station LXXIII). Unfortunately with the high sun it was very difficult to make them out, we were hoping that later in the afternoon we might get a better light. Our camp was a little upstream in the small tributary, we had our lunch and a little rest in the shade of a couple of large boulders before continuing to see the nearby sites.
Station XXXII was just around the corner as we left Ti-n-Tihied and turned upstream along the southern bank, following the smoothly worn rocks along the riverbed. This site contains some of the finest animal engravings, including several unusual species, among them a splendid donkey (or wild ass ?), a large antelope (or ibex ?), a feline that could be a serval based on the body proportions, and many more figures.
Soon after Station XXXXII the valley makes a sharp turn to the right. Leaving the sites along the western side already in the shade for the following morning, we went a kilometre further upstream to the area of Abeoïr (Station XXXI), one of the largest concentrations of engravings in the entire valley along a good 100 metre stretch of smoothed rocks along the east bank of the river. The engravings here are rather shallow and hard to make out, the best time of the day is the low mid-afternoon side lighting. In 2014 we could make only a hurried visit in the late afternoon, now we had plenty of time to explore the hundreds of individual figures.
It was late afternoon by the time we returned to camp. Most of Station XXXII was already in the shade, though a few figures were in perfect contour light. We hurried to the panel of giraffes at the mouth of Ti-n-Tihed, they were just about on the sun, we had time for a few quick photos before the sun disappeared behind the western cliffs.
Day 6. – Oued Djerat (Ti-n-Tihied to Ti-n-Smad)
In the morning after packing and breakfast I took another look at the panel of giraffes, but in the shade they were hardly visible. It would have taken several hours for the late autumn sun to rise above the ridge bordering the small chaaba to the east, already at a high angle. Looking at the orientation of the panel and the main valley, there is probably a window of opportunity to see them in a good morning contour light a month after the spring equinox, when the rising sun shines directly down the main valley (or a month before the autumn equinox). Mid-april is not an inconceivable time for a visit, we departed camp on this mental note.
For a while we re-traced our route of the previous afternoon, checking out the numerous engravings along the western side of the valley (Station XXX) following the big bend towards the south.
As we slowly moved along the panels of engravings appearing almost continuously along the rocks of the west bank, both the sun and the camels caught up with us, creating some classic picture-book oasis photo opportunities as they passed the small palmerie of Abeoïr.
After about two kilometres we reached the end of Station XXX and crossed over to the other (now southern) side as the valley made another gentle turn towards the west. The rocks on both sides of the confluence of the small chaaba called Ti-n-Touloult (Station XXVIII) are covered with a dense cluster of fine engravings, among them one of the most frequently reproduced (though not very representative) panel of a rhinoceros surrounded by two triple spiral motifs. Save for a few other scattered examples, these strange and unexplained spirals are concentrated at this particular locality.
There is also a small shelter with paintings here, which Kli-Kli did not know about and was bypassed the last time. It is marked on Lhote's map, and a copy was made of a panel of very fine Iheren style cattle on the ceiling, with an indistinct superimposed pinkish animal. In reality these paintings are so faint that almost nothing is visible, no wonder our guide did not know about them. As we scrutinised the ceiling and rear wall, we spotted another area with some traces of paint, much to my surprise looking at the photos with DStretch a large ithyphallic figure emerged in exactly the same style and proportions as numerous engraved examples, a very rare case of practically identical figures executed in both painting and engraving. Not far beyond the shelter there is a large rock with some further engravings.
At this point there is a gap of about half a kilometre along the east side with no rock art, while the small chaaba of I-n-Terert joins the main valley on the far bank. Lhote marked a site with paintings in the chaaba, and it was deemed interesting enough to prepare a copy that showed three human figures. While the rest of the party continued along the east bank, with Bruno we made a quick dash to explore the side valley, but a quick search did not reveal the site, it was probably farther upstream than marked. A little disappointed we returned to the far bank, catching up with the others at Station XXVII, the farthest upstream point reached during our November 2014 trip.
With a gap of only a few dozen metres the series of engravings continue along the eastern bank as Station XXVI, along the smoothed rock bordering the riverbank. With the slope of the rock closely matching the mid-morning angle of the sun, they were in near-perfect light.
Near the southern end of the engravings a large block was sitting on the smooth bedrock, forming a small shelter that was very welcome in the now rater hot sun. Inside unexpectedly we found a painted human figure, later matching it to a Lhote copy. On the shaded smooth rock in front of the shelter we finally found one of the highlights of Station XXVI, the female figure wearing a strange hat, which we have been searching for all the time among the other engravings.
At this point we crossed over the western bank, to see the sparse engravings of Station XXV. Some of these were interesting, but nothing as spectacular as the ones we have seen at the previous two areas.
After about a kilometre we returned to the eastern bank, just before the valley was to make a sharp 90 degree turn towards the south east. On a low rock terrace adjacent to he riverbed there is a panel of jumbled and often superimposed engravings, among them several chariots (Station XXI). The engravings continue right up to the bend, and just around the corner the small oasis of Ti-n-Smad appeared, with our campsite in the shade of some larger palm trees.
After lunch we waited a little for the midday heat to pass before setting out again, this time only for a few hundred metres upstream of our camp, to visit a group of three shelters with paintings, all recorded by the Lhote mission on several sheets. The first one was along the western bank (Station XX), a low overhang hardly qualifying as a shelter under a large rock, but nevertheless filled with some very interesting paintings. On the lower wall there is a procession of cattle with what appears to be parts of huts or tents tied to the horn of the leading one, a common depiction in the central Tassili (hence Lhote named the shelter "Abri au boef porteur"). However looking at the scene with DStretch, this interpretation is not so straight forward, there are a number of later superimpositions complicating the picture. Higher up there is another pastoralist scene, which is painted over the remnants of two large earlier figures, of which only the legs remain faintly visible.
Immediately opposite the shelter with the cattle, on the far side (Station XIX) we saw a large prominent shelter. Intriguingly despite its size and well preserved ceiling there is only a single painting in the shelter, but a very fine one, a group of goats.
Fifty metres downstream along the same bank we found the third shelter ("Abri camelin") which does contain several camel period paintings, but also several panels on earlier late pastoralist ones, including a large figure that appears to be sitting on a four legged stool.
We still had plenty of time till sunset, so we returned to the west bank and spent the remaining afternoon searching for the numerous small panels of engravings composing Station XX. There was supposedly also a forth shelter with paintings somewhere ("Abri Violet", copied but not marked on the map) which we failed to find, it may have been somewhere higher up the slope where we did not look.
In the evening as we were having our dinner, we had another visitor, this time a rather large and curious antlion (Myrmeleontidae) larva, out on its evening hunt.
Day 7. – Oued Djerat (Ti-n-Smad to Ahana)
Next morning we awoke to the first misty day, the have lingered well into the morning as we set out on our continued way upstream, passing the paintings we saw the previous afternoon. Soon after the valley took another ninety degree turn, this time towards the south west, and we encountered the first engravings of Station XVIII straight after the bend.
Continuing along the same bank, we soon reached a south facing deep shelter overlooking the smooth rocks of the riverbank, with a very fine series of late pastoralist paintings depicting several hunting scenes and a chariot, which was copied by the Lhote team in its entirety (Station XVII). On the rocks in front of the shelter there is a unique depiction of a school of fish. Unlike other known fish engravings these are not catfish, but appear to be some kind of Tilapia.
Moving upstream, the nature of rock art in the valley changed noticeably. While the previous day we were mostly passing large scale engravings covering almost every suitable surface along the riverbank, upstream of Ti-n-Smad these became scarce, and the few engravings became mostly smaller in scale, however paintings became far more numerous, practically in every suitable shelter. Opposite Station XVII on the eastern bank there were two prominent successive shelters (Station XV), both of which were copied by the Lhote team.
For a while we alternated between both sides to see the few engravings known to Kli-Kli, while our camels passed us. Interestingly in this part of the valley there were numerous remnants of a former eroded valley infill consisting of gravel cemented with carbonates, a feature which I have observed in several diverse areas of the Sahara, including the Tadrart and Jebel Uweinat. It is a mystery how these formed, but they appear to be freshwater carbonates from a period when there was a permanent standing body of water, clearly following the formation of the valley as the deposits are resting on the smoothly worn rocks of the valley floor.
We continued our way along the low cliff bordering the eastern bank, passing an interesting engraving of a pair of jackals or possibly wild dogs (lycaon) and some rhinoceros and elephants along the smooth rock at the foot of the cliff.
As we approached the corner of the Oasis of Nafeg Inferieur (lower Nafeg) we crossed again to the west bank, aiming for a prominent rock pillar at the junction of a major western tributary, the Oued Iouesse. The shelter under the pillar contains several faint paintings (Station XIII), overlooking a lovely clear pool of water at the foot of the palm trees, with water still trickling out of the pool.
As we continued along the south bank, which Kli-Kli referred to as Aftoun (Station XIII), we passed a rock with a small shelter with a single painting in it. It was hard to make out on the spot, but DStretch reveals a running figure holding a metal-tipped spear.
Near the upper end of Nafeg Inferieur we passed a large smooth rock face with several engravings including a fine large giraffe (still Aftoun/Station XIII), and below the panels Kli-Kli demonstrated that a large perched flat rock could have been a rock gong in antiquity. Just a little further upstream w found a few abandoned zeribas (roofless palm-leaf enclosures), the first sign of any human habitation in the valley.
Just above the zeribas there was a small shelter with some camel period paintings which was apparently not recorded by the Lhote mission. While we were busy taking photos, Koen managed to catch a nice big black fattail scorpion (Androctonus hoggarensis) among the huts.
Not far upstream we reached another shelter with paintings (Station X), this time marked and recorded by Lhote, with a much damaged but still delightful herd of gazelle or antelopes depicted on the ceiling. There are some other very faint traces not copied by the Lhote team, one turned out to be a flock of ostrich.
By mid-morning we reached the huge solitary rock of Ahana (Station VIII) sitting in the riverbed, with a perfect sandy campground surrounding it. Our camels were already unloaded and grazing somewhere, with our luggage neatly piled up beside the rock. We planned to spend two nights at this spot, a convenient base from which to explore the remaining paintings and engravings, and also to provide an opportunity for a rest before starting the long walk out of the valley towards the cars at Imirhou. The engravings on the rock, save for a few, were in very bad light, and we still had plenty of time till lunch, so without making camp we went out to the first of the cluster of the three most important paintings in the entire valley, all within shouting distance from camp.
The first site (Station VI, "Abri des 6 chars") is a large shelter above a high terrace bordering the valley along the west, with several stone structures on it, probably from a more recent date. At the foot of the slope leading up to the shelter there is a huge rock with numerous engraved vessels and other oval shapes, reminiscent of those in the Oued Beridj in the Tadrart.
The shelter is quite high up above the slope, and its size is deceptive from below. Once up, one can truly appreciate its extent, providing a comfortable shady resting place in the afternoon for a larger group of people. From the shelter there is a perfect view of the Délou shelter, right opposite on the east bank.
Unlike many other sites with a similar size, here the paintings present a homogenous unit, all in the typical late pastoralist style ("cabbaline" in French literature on account of the depicted horses and chariots, however clearly still cattle predominate). The paintings extend continuously for a width of good 12-15 metres, and aside the six horse-drawn chariots giving its name, there are a multitude of cattle and human figures, including a pair sitting on stools, similar to the larger figure seen at Station XIX. The state of preservation is excellent, practically all details can be made out without the need to enhance the photos.
Almost directly under the large shelter, below the lip of the terrace, there is a small shelter with fine giraffes and an ambiguous shape which was also recorded by the Lhote team. There is a third "small shelter" somewhere here by the terrace (all Station VI), but we failed to find that one.
After a lengthy photo session we returned to the Ahana rock for lunch and to prepare our camp. While we did this, the sun came around sufficiently to put the unique panel of ithyphallic therianthropes in various erotic positions into perfect contour lighting.
We were in no rush as the principal site with paintings, the Délou shelter on the east bank was fully in the sun throughout the afternoon until the sun set below the western cliffs, so we had time for some rest and to explore the east bank opposite camp (Station IX) with a few engravings and some camel period paintings.
Mid-afternoon we set out for the farthest of the three main shelters (Station V, Abri des chars à boeufs), which itself was just over 400 metres from camp, in a very similar position as the one we saw earlier, perched high above the valley with a good view over the bend leading to Nafeg oasis further upstream.
The depicted paintings are also late pastoralist (cabbaline), with several chariots depicted, but uniquely here all the chariots are drawn by oxen, not horses. There is also a lovely and also unique butchering scene in the lowest part of the rich panel.
We made our way back to the Délou shelter (Station VII), which was still fully exposed to the sun, but the shadows were creeping fast towards it, already reaching the pair of engraved warriors, each holding a spear and shield on a rock in the middle of the valley. The shelter itself is not really a true shelter, more a vertical cliff adjacent to the riverbed with a slight overhang, and a terrace in front. It provides good shade in the morning, but it is practically useless throughout the afternoon. While we waited for the sun to pass, we could examine the shelter and get a good idea of the various parts and panels, which depict a mix of styles from all the main rock art producing periods encountered in the Oued Djerat.
The left part of the shelter has the biggest overhang, and a high section of the wall is covered by a panel of very weathered Iheren style paintings depicting cattle, human figures and probably some huts. At the very top, there is a very fine rhinoceros executed in a dark colour, that appears to pre-date the superimposed Iheren style figures. A little further right there is another panel of pastoralist paintings.
At center right there is a large panel which on first look appears to consist of weathered camel period paintings, but a close scrutiny reveals some hardly visible late pastoralist paintings. DStretch reveals a multitude of small dark painings including a unique depiction of a well that has no known parallels among Saharan paintings. There is also a chariot drawn by oxen which appears to have solid rather than spoked wheels, another depiction not seen elsewhere. Giving full credit to the artists of the Lhote team, the prepared copies are faithful reproductions of the scenes.
Right of the well panel there is a deeper niche with paintings on all walls, including a very large unidentified animal, and a giraffe or antelope that seems to belong to the same older layer of paintings.
We spent the remainder of the afternoon photographing all the details, till it started to become dark and we could no longer make out the scenes in the viewfinder. It was a comforting feeling that we could return the next day for any scenes which we missed or needed re-doing after reviewing the photos in the evening.
Day 8. – Oued Djerat (Nafeg Supérieur & Nafeg Inférieur)
With our last full day in the valley, we planned a visit to the oasis of Nafeg, about a kilometre and a half upstream of our campsite, the largest cluster of permanent vegetation in the Oued Djerat. Without the need to pack camp we allowed ourselves a lazy breakfast before setting out upstream. Soon after Station V we crossed to the eastern side, visiting a few paintings and engravings recorded by Lhote (Station IV).
For the next half a kilometre there was not much to see, save for a small shelter with some very damaged paintings in the area of Station III that was apparently not recorded by the Lhote mission, as no paintings were marked on the map. While the map does show a dense cluster of engravings, in reality the majority were just some scratches and crude figures, nothing comparable to the wonders we have seen in the previous days.
A short distance further upstream we reached the more prominent shelter of Station II, marking the beginning of Nafeg (or Nafeg Supèrieur, as referred to on the Lhote map). The shelter is composed of two distinct parts, with the left side containing a single panel of very weathered paintings, and is separated from the remainder of the shelter by a vertical rock wall that contains a fine panel of engravings.
The upstream part of the shelter is longer and contains many more paintings, but they are in a rather sorry state of preservation. They are mostly from the late pastoralist and camel periods, based on the Lhote copies we expected something more exciting. The most interesting scene is a palm tree with a chariot depicted underneath, but both are hardly visible on the spot.
The oasis itself also presented a rather sorry state. The middle of the riverbed is filled with a dense grove of date palms, but sometime fairly recently a fire, set on purpose or by accident, burned down the majority of the palms in the center of the grove, which now present their blackened stumps as an eyesore. Station I runs along the western side of the river for the full length of the oasis, but despite the numerous markings on the Lhote map, just a few of the figures were worth stopping for. The only panel of engravings worth a special mention is a large rock near the southern end of the oasis, with a very impressive panel of engraved elephants.
A short distance beyond the rock with elephants, we found a shelter with paintings of ostriches (marked on the Lhote map but not copied), with a number of engravings on the flat rocks in front of it.
In all fairness Nafeg Supèrieur, one of the anticipated highlights of the Oued Djerat was a bit of a let-down, in retrospect not quite worth the extra day allocated for it. It was only 10am and we were pretty much done with all of the sights, and turned back towards camp, scrutinising both sides of the valley but not finding anything more worth mentioning. We made up for this by spending our newly found time at the Délou shelter and the other paintings, noting many details which we skipped the day earlier.
Lhote noted (and copied) a site with paintings, Station XIV along the eastern side if Nafeg Infèrieur about a kilometre downstream from our camp. With plenty of time on our hands some of us set out after lunch to find it (Kli-Kli did not know it), while others enjoyed the opportunity of a quiet rest in camp. Nafeg Infèrieur presented a much more appealing picture with lush green growth, even grapes and figs growing among the palm trees, with abundant life everywhere.
The eastern bank was densely overgrown, it was very difficult going between the cliff and the prickly vegetation, but we did find Station XIV at the expected spot, with the single much eroded scene that appeared the same as on the Lhote copy.
We continued back towards camp along the east bank, encountering a flock of Barbary partridges (Alectoris barbara) which fled up the cliffs with a noisy chatter on our sight.
Day 9. – Oued Djerat - Fadnoun Plateau
In the Oued Djerat Nafeg Supèrieur marks the end of the "known world". A trail passable for camels ascends the western plateau from Nafeg, and most visitors either arrive or leave by that means, taking the faster direct route on the flat plateau from/to the mouth of the valley. The Lhote mission too started at Nafeg, starting the numbering of the sites there and progressing downstream. There was nothing published upstream of Nafeg, but Kli-Kli assured us that we will pass a few more sites as we progressed south towards another pass, then trek across the top of the Fadnoun southwards for a good 25 kilometres before descending towards the Oued Imirhou to meet our cars. Our rendez-vous was agreed for midday on the 12th day, we had a good three days to cover the distance.
In the two days at Ahana our camels have wondered off in all directions, the drivers set out to find them, while we started on our way, passing Nafeg where the river makes a big S bend in a westerly direction, first a 180 to the north, immediately followed by a turn to the south. Straight after the first turn we encountered a large shallow shelter (Bruno and Hans, walking a little further upstream than the rest of us, already found it the previous day), with a fine painting of a chariot and another panel depicting a homestead and a herd of cattle.
Rounding the second bend, we passed a large rock at the edge of the watercourse with a huge therianthrope with a seemingly feline head engraved on the side, the farthest upstream engraving encountered in the valley.
A short distance upstream Kli-Kli showed us another shelter with some very damaged paintings. Later DStretch revealed a few nice details, including the remnants of a splendid Iheren style scene with cattle and a fine oryx.
After another hundred metres or so there was another shelter, this too contained some very weathered Iheren style paintings.
About two kilometres above Nafeg the valley bifurcated, with the main branch continuing west while a tributary led straight south. High above the confluence we spotted a prominent shelter. Kli-Kli did not know of any paintings here, but it was a perfect spot for a rest anyway, we scaled the slopes and found an interesting little battle scene on the ceiling.
After the rest we continued along the well trodden trail leading into the southern tributary. The floor of the valley here too was filled with the carbonate deposits which we have seen elsewhere earlier.
A kilometre into the tributary we passed a prominent shelter. In it we found a few red painted figures, the last rock art site of the Oued Djerat.
Our camels caught up with us just as we left the shelter, and we all paused at a small clear guelta to fill all the empty water containers, as we could not expect to find any water on the plateau for the next two days. We also had a big riding camel with us in case someone hurts a leg or is otherwise unable to continue the walk, from hereon we were to walk all together, so Marta who had plenty of experience riding camels (she did a long camel journey in the Sudan with Michael Asher) jumped at the opportunity, and was soon waving with a broad smile to the commoners scurrying about below. Soon we reached a little side-branch, where a zigzagging path led up to the plateau top. It was actually easier than it appeared, in little over half an hour we all reached the flat plateau.
It was still mid-morning, we continued southwards without stopping over the pitch black shingle for another hour, finally stopping for lunch and a midday rest in the bed of a shallow oued where a few shrubs provided some grazing for the camels.
After the lunch break we continued for another three hours over the featureless plateau, stopping early to camp in a little sandy patch in a shallow oued where again there was some grazing for the camels.
Day 10. – Fadnoun plateau
Next morning it was thickly overcast, and much cooler than on previous days. On any other day we would not have been very pleased, but on this particular day it was very welcome with the long march ahead on the flat plain offering no shade anywhere. We set out early ahead of the camels, trotting along the path under rather gloomy dark skies.
About an hour after leving camp, we reached a low crest marking the Oued Djerat watershed. Beyond this the country drained to the south and east, eventually into the Oued Imirhou. Among the rocks on the crest we found a small shelter with a couple of white and red painted cattle and human figures
After another hour of walking along the black featureless plain, we passed a large keyhole monument, almost completely blending in with the surroundings in the contrastless light.
Well before midday we reached the edge of a deep valley, the Oued Aridj, a tributary of the Oued Imirhou, just as the camel train caught up with us. We started the winding descent, making a detour towards a prominent shelter while the camels went straight to the valley bottom for our midday resting place. The shelter was about half-way down the slope, and somewhat unexpectedly the paintings Kli-Kli promised us were not inside, but on the exposed rock face above the shelter lip. They were very unusual, and hard to make out except for the prominent cattle. In the oval above the cattle there are two animals which look like a cross between dogs and lions, hard to say what they are. The paintings further left are even stranger, with a white column with heads of cattle emerging on both sides, and some indecipherable traces to the left. There is also a dark partially obliterated animal that may have been a rhinoceros.
By noon we reached the camels in the riverbed, and halted for an hour and a half for lunch and some rest before setting out again. As we walked slower than the camels marched, they gave us a head start and only started following by the time we reached the top of the plateau again. It did not take long for them to catch up, and slowing their pace we marched together towards the still distant night stop as it slowly began to drizzle.
We continued along the monotonous plain for several hours, fortunately the drizzle stopped before we could get wet. The only excitement was when accidentally stumbling on a rock I found a large camel spider underneath.
Finally around five in the afternoon we reached a small rise, from where we could clearly see the cliffs bordering the far side of the Oued Imirhou, and much closer a steep drop into the side valley where we were to descend the next day. There was a sand filled small oued just ahead, our camp for the night. This was the longest march we had on the trip, we covered nearly 20 kilometres in a straight line, but probably several more as we zigzagged into and out of the oueds.
Day 11. – Fadnoun - Oued Teressak
The next morning the clouds were gone, it was a bright blue clear sky as we started out soon after sunrise. The terrain was deceptive, it appeared to be a plain ahead of us, but in a few hundred metres we descended into a first shallow, then rapidly deepening oued, following a well trodden camel path.
After crossing a number of cols and smaller oueds we reached a deeper rocky gorge that started out flat, then started descending rapidly, with the view on where we were heading still obscured by the scree slopes. The path did not follow the bottom of the steep watercourse, but took a more gentle gradient along the side of the scree slope, then making zigzagging descents in more suitable places.
It was clearly not the favorite terrain of the camels, they had to be led down with constant tugging as they halted at every bigger step. However they remained sure-footed, none slipped as they slowly made their way down, overtaking us mid-slope.
About half way down, just where the camels overtook us, the country ahead opened up, and we could finally see the bottom of the valley, still a good way below us. It took the whole morning to descend, we finally reached the bright green Salvadora persica shrubs with their pungent smell of ammonia around noon.
We took a good rest among the shrubs before setting out for the remainder of the day's distance. We descended into a northern tributary of the Oued Teressak, a good twelve kilometres west of the road in the Oued Imirhou. We still had several kilometres to go south until we could join the main oued leading east. There was no clear trail here, the recent rains having rearranged the floor of the valley, we followed the watercourse passing steep cliffs carved by the flowing water into the scree bordering the cliffs of the Fadnoun.
We reached the main valley by around four in the afternoon, and made camp on a pleasant terrace next to the watercourse with a number of shady trees, and a superb view over the cliffs.
Day 12. – Oued Teressak - Imirhou - Baidakoré
Before starting we took our group photo in the sharp morning light, then set out along the broad valley towards the road where our cars were waiting, at a distance of about 12 kilometres. It was an uneventful march, and now there were no clouds to shade the sun, by mid morning it started becoming rather hot. We have lost a good five hundred metres of altitude the previous day, which was clearly showing on the temperature.
We reached the rendez-vous point by the road around noon. We had our last lunch together, then said good-bye to Kli-Kli and the camel drivers who immediately set out for the return to Illizi along the Oued Imirhou. We loaded the cars and started in the opposite direction, stopping briefly in the small village of Imirhou with the first cell-phone tower to pass the news of our safe arrival to the outside world. We made another halt at the splendid paintings in the Oued Imirhou, which we have located on our November 2018 trip
We continued along the piste towards the main Illizi - Djanet highway. It was in a much better condition than a year earlier, when portions were swept away by the rains, now we could cover the sixty kilometre distance in a little over an hour, a vast improvement over the three hours required in 2018. We stopped at the junction to drop off Youssef who hitched a ride back to Illizi on a passing truck, then we continued to our campsite in the soft sands of the riverbed near the Baidakoré shelter.
Day 13. – Baidakoré - Iherir
We had a reserve day built in to our itinerary, which was still unused as we have accomplished everything to plan. We only needed to be in Iherir on the morning of the 14th day, so we had a full day to cherry pick from the rich sortiment of sites adjacent to the road. Our campsite was selected to be able to visit the huge Baidakoré shelter the first thing in the morning, only a few hundred metres away. While I have visited the shelter on several occasions (for a detailed description of the scenes see the November 2016 trip account), still there were many details I have missed earlier. I was particularly keen to capture the entirety of a very faint elephant hunt scene, of which I have only managed partial shots earlier.
While the paintings are rather damaged and faint, yet there are still hundreds of delightful Iheren style scenes, some of which I have not been able to photograph before, like the magnificent second oryx below the more visible first one, or the very faint rhinoceros which I did not spot before, now Bruno pointed it out to me.
By the time we returned to camp the cars were loaded, and we returned to the main road, heading towards Iherir. After a few kilometres we made the obligatory stop at the small but exquisite shelter of Tissebouk just beside the road (for a detailed description of the shelters and scenes see the November 2016 trip account).
We continued to the Tasset turnoff, and made the short off-road drive to the huge shelter of Tedart, a small way in among the foothills bordering the Oued Tasset. This is another shelter that requires several visits to fully appreciate all the details (for a detailed description of all the scenes, see the November 2016 trip account). While it is much damaged and covered with recent and historic Tifinagh inscriptions, there are a multitude of lovely Iheren style scenes emerging from under the superimpositions, if only one looks hard enough.
While the others took a long time photographing the scenes of the shelter, I took the opportunity to check out the adjacent shelters along the low cliff, but they were all empty. There was however a fine circular monument a hundred metres to the west, which I have never spotted before.
We returned to the main road and continued towards Iherir for a short distance, soon reaching the Oued Tikadouine turnoff. We hardly recognised the valley, it was completely overgrown with fresh vegetation, and the watercourse was completely rearranged, with all the sand washed away exposing large boulders. It was impossible to drive up the big painted shelter, we stopped at a huge boulder which now had a large, clear (and icy cold) guelta in its lee. We walked the last couple of hundred metres to the shelter among dense clusters of green vegetation (for a detailed description of the scenes in the shelter see the November 2016 trip account).
The blocked track had some unexpected consequences. As we could go no further with the cars, we had lunch at the big rock beside the guelta, and since it was becoming rather hot, we utilised the meager shade on the far side. Being a little above the valley floor, it just provided enough view above the edge of the wide terrace bordering the other side to spot a large shelter at the base of the cliff on the far side of the terrace, invisible from the track that normally follows the valley floor. It certainly looked something worth investigating, on scaling the scree slope we found a delightful little lion hunt scene on the rear wall. A good lesson that even the most well known and visited places may hold further surprises if only one looks a little further.
We had time for one more stop, at the "rock city" of Tabarakat just a few hundred metres north of the main road. Since our first visit in November 2018 the deep trench for the gas pipeline under construction has been filled, and now it was possible to drive right up to the rocks. Knowing what to expect, I had the long lens with me to take some good close-ups of the exquisite Iheren style figures at the top of the main panel, at an altitude of several metres.
We rolled into Iherir in the mid-afternoon, staying at the basic but neat government rest house in the middle of the village, maintained for visiting functionaries rather than for the almost non-existent tourist trade. It was early enough to make a quick visit to the Iherir guelta before settling in for the night.
Day 14. – Iherir - Tadjelahine plateau
The first part of our trip was over, Bruno, Els, Hans & Mado were to return to Djanet to take the night flight back to Algiers early the next morning, while Michael already arrived to Algiers the day before, and took the night flight to Djanet. With the drive to Djanet taking around two and a half hours, we agreed to have lunch together, then those leaving would depart, while the rest of us were to make the ascent of the pass to the Tadjelahine in the afternoon. This left the morning empty to explore the rock art sites of Iherir, something I wished to do for a long time, but never had the time to do it properly.
Though probably known for much longer, it was the Halliers who reported in 2002 a unique polychrome painting of a calf on a rock in the valley a couple of kilometres beyond Iherir, accompanied by a few engravings. We set out along the chain of lakes in the riverbed, with the still flowing stream posing some challenges until a suitable place was found to cross to the east bank with the rock art sites. The huge boulder with engravings was impossible to miss, with a panel of engraved cattle on the shady side.
The rock with the painted calf was just a few hundred metres beyond, a rather inconspicuous boulder in one did not know what to look for, the shallow shelter is facing the cliffs. The intricate decoration of the animal is unique. The Halliers considered it a calf on account of the apparent lack or horns (and the horns are indeed clearly absent), but the body proportions more suggest an adult cattle. On the other side of the rock there is a low shelter, we found some painted ostrich and other figures in it which were apparently not reported earlier.
We returned to Iherir via the ruins of the old, supposedly Ottoman-era fort, though I could find no secure reference on its history, nor its age. We continued past a series of small waterfalls and full gueltas, a very pretty ending to the first half of our trip.
Michael safely arrived shortly after midday, we had a quick lunch together at the Iherir guest house before setting out together in the cars to the end of the trail leading towards the Tadjelahine pass to meet Aicha, our guide, and the donkey drivers. After unloading we said our good-byes and the departing party left with the cars, leaving the remainder of us with the rather docile looking pack of donkeys. After the usual commotion, and repeated loading and unloading of the heavy bags, finally all the donkeys had their loads balanced, and mid-afternoon we set out together along the path towards the pass.
The donkeys stayed behind at one of the clear gueltas in the riverbed to fill the water cannisters, while we trodded on steadily up the winding pass. It did not take long for them to catch up again, and they soon passed us, we were about half-way up when they disappeared at the top of the pass, heading for camp. We too made it up to the top by sunset, and made it to the cluster of rocks a few hundred metres farther where the campfire was already going.
Day 15. – Tadjelahine (Tan Ahalakham - Issalamen - Oued Telmest)
On our 2012 and 2014 trips we only had six and four days respectively (with half of the first days taken up with the ascent), now we had a full nine days ahead of us on the plateau (with the descent on the tenth), enabling a much more relaxed pace, and also opportunities to visit some lesser sites some way out of the regular circuit. Our guide, Aicha was one of the old school guides who actually lived on the plateau in the past and knew of some sites away from the tourist trail, but I was also armed with the knowledge gained by Bruno on a visit a year earlier, who also visited several little known areas, and found several sites unknown to their guide. One such area was right next to the top of the pass, not far from our first campsite. It was the cluster of rocks known as Tan Ahalakham, an area I eyed with interest on both previous visits, but was unable to check them out due to lack of time. Aicha knew about some very faint paintings, but Bruno recorded a total of five sites there. We went straight to the easternmost, a large prominent shelter which alongside some more usual cattle and human figures contains some very strange, enigmatic paintings that appear archaic, but the shapes make little sense. Brigitte & Ulrich Hallier have published a single photo (Stonewatch 35, 2009) and considered the strange shape a "roundhead" painting without elaborating any further.
The second shelter, the one known to Aicha was just a short distance away along the edge of the rock cluster. This too contained very faint paintings, the best ones being a cluster of polychrome cattle.
The finest site of Tan Ahalakham was some distance inwards among the rocks, in a small inconspicuous shelter. On the ceiling and the rear wall there were two scenes with fine Iheren style human figures.
While these three sites were straight forward to find, the other two reported by Bruno proved elusive, we found nothing at the reported positions. After some futile search we decided to move on towards Issalamen, another larger cluster of rocks some 1.5 kilometres further west across firm flat country. We soon reached the first major site of the locality, where in 2012 I noted an elephant facing the three (four?) known Iheren style figures, changing the interpretation completely (see Cahiers de l'AARS, 19). At the time I only took a single photo, and in 2014 I brought along a newly bought Canon sub-compact camera, which sounded like a good idea at the time, but it turned out that the imaging algorithm rendered the taken (otherwise very good quality) photos useless for DStretch, now I finally had the opportunity to photograph the scene in full detail, including the entire elephant.
We slowly continued along the row of sites, stretching mostly along the northern edge of the rocks in numerous shelters. We had no time pressure, so we could spend as much time as needed to recognise and photograph all the faint finer details which are usually missed on a more hurried visit.
While the others in our party were busy photographing the numerous scenes, I made a quick venture to the south side of the rocks to re-photograph the little shelter found in 2014 with a very faint, barely visible scene with a number of Iheren style figures.
Aicha also showed us the most northerly of the sites a little removed from the others, with an intriguing but almost invisible scene of wrestling therianthropes, both with a ghost figure of itself behind. In 2012 I only did a point-blank partial shot, and only recognised the full extent of the scene later with DStretch. In 2014 I searched but could not find it, finally now I could take a photo that shows the complete scene.
It was still late morning by the time we finished with all the Issalamen sites, and were ready to continue towards Oued Telmest. Our donkeys with the luggage and supplies were probably already there, having started after us but taking a direct route, passing us as we were still at Tan Ahalakham. We had about five kilometres to cover on mostly flat ground, by lunchtime we reached a deeper oued with a prominent rock on the far side that offered a perfect shady lunch-spot. There was more to the rock, inside the shallow shelter under it Aicha showed us a large panel of red and white paintings, very faint but several features readily recognisable. Later with DStretch many more details were revealed, including a strange bodyless human head superimposed over some indistinct human figures, and a delightful little scene of a woman riding a cattle, accompanied by two children in the front and back, who were completely invisible on the spot.
After lunch and a lengthy photo session we continued towards the Oued Telmest. Passing a nearby rock, I found a single Iheren style figure on the ceiling of the low shelter underneath, and somewhat later Aicha showed us another site, with some faint late pastoralist paintings.
By mid-afternoon we reached the Oued Telmest, with the huge shelter with the Iheren style paintings overlooking the picturesque series of gueltas in the riverbed. Our campsite was just below the shelter, on a sandy terrace.
Bruno visited a rocky area called In Amhadj adjacent to the Oued Telmest about 3 kilometres upstream, with some fine paintings. We in fact passed not far from them in 2012 without knowing. Now while the others spent the afternoon photographing the Telmest shelter (and taking a bath in the gueltas), I started out towards In Amhadj, with just enough sunlight left to make it there and back with a quick visit there. Passing the large lake in the Oued Telmest I stirred up a gundi (Massoutiera mzabi), which uncharacteristically did not disappear immediately among the rocks, but stayed still long enough for a single reasonably good photo.
In the broad embayment which held our 2012 campsite, I passed one of the several keyhole monuments built on the low terraces bordering the main watercourse, then climbed the scree to the low surrounding plateau, from where the rocks of In Amhadj were clearly visible ahead.
The area contains five known sites, all along the northern edge of the rocks. Coming from the north-west, the first site encountered was a large prominent rock with several shelters underneath and to the right. While it looked promising, there were only traces of paintings inside, the most interesting a pair of dark elephants. Possibly they were a part of a larger composition, of which nothing remains now.
Less than a hundred metres to the east there was another large rock with a shallow shelter underneath, which contained several very fine but unfortunately fragmentary Iheren style scenes, and also some late pastoralist scenes, including a cattle rider and a remarkable pair of runners.
Towards the eastern end of the rocks there are three shelters in rapid succession, all within sight of each other around an flat embayment. The first two only contain a few late pastoralist figures, with one still in use by the local nomads, someone's belongings were hanging in front of the paintings from a supported beam in exactly the same manner as depicted on some of the ancient homestead scenes.
The last shelter again contained several damaged and very faint Iheren style scenes, including a fine depiction of a woman riding a cattle.
After hurriedly photographing all the sites I headed back to camp, with about an hour left till sunset, again passing the keyhole monuments in the valley. I just reached the Telmest shelter with the camp below as the sun disappeared among the rocks to the west.
Later in the evening, as I prepared to get into my sleeping bag, I found a large (~6cm) dark caterpillar crawling over my mattress. It is yet to be identified, but it was larger than anything I've seen before in the Sahara.
Day 16. – Tadjelahine (Oued Telmest - Tahon Tarokhet - Iherir)
As we set out in the morning towards Tahon Tarokhet, we passed our donkeys grazing merrily in the fresh grass growing in the valley. Koen noted that one of them had striking stripes on its legs like the African wild ass, which has long since been extinct in the central Sahara (there is a very small and critically endangered wild population remaining in the horn of Africa). Quite possibly some of its ancestors have inter-bred with wild ass, and it still carries these genes.
On his previous trip Bruno was shown three sites in the "rock city" to the north of Tahon Tarokhet proper, which were not known to Aicha. As they were not far from the pass where we ascended from the Ouer Telmest we passed by for completeness, as none were particularly exciting, with a few human figures and catte in each. The third one was a little out of the way, while the others made it straight towards our main objective I took the detour to find a very faint late pastoralist panel, half exposed to the sun and practically invisible.
Tahon Tarokhet proper is another elevated rock cluster, the rocks in the southern end have been connected with a stone wall at some point in time to form an enclosure, probably as an animal pen. There is a large mushroom shaped rock along the western side of the enclosure with a huge shelter underneath. As we arrived, something moved among the rock, and Koen thought (or rather wished) it might be a hedgehog. The two of us sat patiently for some time at the place where it disappeared, and after some time it did re-appear - not a hedgehog, but a gundi, of which finally I could take some perfects shots.
There is some ambiguity regarding the name of this locality. Lhote did report the place as Tahount Tohort in his article on the paintings in the region of Iherin in Lybica XX (1972), he even presented a sketch of the enclosure, but gave no detail on the paintings. In 2009 Brigitte and Ulrich Hallier published fine but very faint Iheren style paintings from the shelter of Tahoun Tarvat. When we visited in 2012 our guide Ibrahim called the region Tahon Tarokhet, saying that Tahoun Tarvat applies to the enclosure only. Aicha also knew the area as Tahon Tarokhet so for the time being I will also use this toponym.
The large shelter inside the enclosure contains a large but very faint panel of Iheren style paintings. They are so weathered that on the spot it is almost impossible to make out anything but a few figures. Based on photographs taken on previous trips I already had a better understanding of the layout and the scenes, so this time while the others went to visit the numerous better preserved paintings in the area, I could complete a systematic coverage of the entire panel that is a good 2 by 6 metres in dimension. Up till now I thought that this shelter was the same as the one published by the Halliers in 2009, however now having photographed it in its entirety, I could not match the published scenes to any of the photos. However the site is quite remarkable, aside the multitude of fine cattle there are several groups of apparently opposing archers, with both sides depicted in the same style and attire. This could possibly be interpreted as a cattle raid, and if so it would make it the only certain example of depicted inter-human violence in Iheren pastoralist art (another possibility is that it is in fact a hunting scene like at several other shelters, with the attacked prey in the middle having completely disappeared). In any case, it is a very fine example of Iheren style art, pity for its condition.
Not far, in a small shelter facing towards the exterior of the enclosure, I made another interesting discovery. While a number of red Iheren style figures were known in the shelter much disfigured by modern charcoal scribbles, under one such graffiti I noticed a very faint darker shape, almost invisible in natural lighting. Based on other such scenes it became clear that this was the focus of attention of the surrounding archers, not the larger figure below. I suspected the shape to be an elephant, but the taken photographs revealed a rhinoceros, which is completely invisible when using the DStretch LRE filter to enhance the reds and eliminate the black graffitti. The LDS filter enhances the blacks and reveals it (but unfortunately also the graffiti).
Yet another shallow niche a short distance away that did not even qualify as a shelter contained three faint Iheren style women, which we have not seen on any of the previous visits.
Through a little miscommunication Aicha planned our campsite not beside the main Iheren shelter, but at Iheren II. about thirty minutes away. As the donkeys (and our lunch) were already there, we had no choice but to go there before moving on to where we really intended to camp. As we walked along the northern edge of Tahon Tarohket towards the west, we passed a solitary rock with a prominent shelter underneath. Aicha did not know of any paintings there, but it looked too good to let it pass, I checked it out while the others moved on slowly, and indeed there were two figures there, plus the remnants of a very weathered giraffe. Catching up with the others, after a short while the prominent Iheren II shelter was visible on the southern side of the valley.
Our planned campsite was along the northern side of the valley, as we approached it instead of our donkeys and drivers we found a number of camels, it turned out that another party intended to camp at this same spot, and were now visiting the shelter on the far side of the valley. By a happy coincidence we have encountered a group of our AARS friends, whom I knew to be in the general area at this time, but with all the uncertainties we made no plans to meet. Our own donkeys were a little further away, we moved in among the rocks for lunch, and afterwards paid a surprise visit to our friends.
The unplanned detour provided another opportunity. On both previous visits to the Iheren II shelter I was eyeing the broken rocky country on the far side of the valley, which looked very promising, but Ibrahim insisted that there is nothing there. Aicha said the same, nevertheless we had time, so after lunch we set out in different directions to search the streets and avenues. On one corner I did find a small shelter with some polychrome sheep, but it was definitely eclipsed by Joana who explored a deep narrow crevasse nearby, not knowing that in such places one is not supposed to find rock art. Lo and behold, there was a splendid panel of Iheren style figures behind a large cattle on the wall of the crevasse that was so narrow, that it was practically impossible to properly photograph the entire scene even with an ultra-wide angle lens.
Spurred on by these finds we continued exploring the area, and found three more shelters. The first one contained some fine but common Iheren style figures, but the second was exceptional, with two rhinoceros superimposed on a very faint much larger one (or perhaps elephant ?). The third contained a small but very fine Iheren style scene.
Mid-afternoon we set out via the Iheren II shelter to our real camp near the main Iheren shelter. Iheren II was not in a good light, with some of the scenes exposed to the sun, we decided to return two days later as originally planned. It did not take long to reach the Iheren I shelter, as our donkeys were not yet in sight we decided to spend the remainder of the afternoon in the detached rocky area to the south that contains an unusual concentration of sites depicting therianthropes (visited in 2012 and 2014). I took the opportunity to re-photograph the only scene copied here by the 1971 Lhote mission, the fighting therianthropes with an ornate sheep. We also saw a site which I heard of from Bruno, a small shelter at the southern end of the rocks with a rather crude but interesting lion hunt scene. By the time we finished the rounds the donkeys arrived, and camp was set along the southern edge of the Iheren "rock city"
Day 17. – Tadjelahine (Iheren - Tin Abenhar - Akraren - Iheren)
With two nights spent at this campsite, we could afford a lazier morning, especially as it was distinctly chilly, we cuddled around the gas cooker warming our hands with the coffee mugs until the sun rose properly. After breakfast we set out to visit the famed sites of Tin Abenhar two kilometres away, at the far end of the same elongated "rock city". As we reached the area, Aicha showed us a small shelter with some paintings facing the plain to the west which we have not seen on any of the previous visits.
Tin Abenhar has the highest, and arguably (excluding the unique Iheren shelter) richest concentration of rock art on the Tadjelahine. In a roughly 100x300 metre rectangle of streets and avenues among the rocks, there are thirty six known shelters with paintings, the majority of them pastoralist, executed in the characteristic local Tin Abenhar style (but there are also a few Iheren style scenes, and a couple of archaic paintings). We spent the entire morning going from one shelter to another, noting in the process that Ibrahim did a thorough job on the previous visits, except for a few minor panels I have not seen anything I have missed before.
We finished at the large shelter along the northern edge of the rocks, facing the valley of the Oued Afen about two kilometres away. This shelter is the only one that appears to have some truly archaic paintings, but unfortunately they are so weathered that even with DStretch it is not possible to make much sense of them. There is certainly some large animal underneath the more recent layers, perhaps a giraffe, but that is by no means certain.
We had lunch at the shelter with archaic paintings, then the others returned with Aicha to Iheren to spend the afternoon at the main shelter, while I planned to make a dash to the site of Akraren, about three kilometres further to the west. This also provided an opportunity to explore the north eastern part of the Iheren-Tin Abenhar "rock city", which continues for another kilometre in a north easterly direction, towards the Oued Afen. Both Ibrahim on the previous trips and now Aicha confirmed that they know of no more sites in that area, but Bruno was shown two camel period sites near the northern end, so I planned to visit those before heading west towards Akraren.
The northern part of the Tin Abenhar "rock city" presents the same characteristics as the rest, with streets and avenues dividing the low rocks into a grid-like pattern, with shelters along the sides practically throughout. It did not take long to find some faint painted cattle in one shelter, but more interestingly there was a fine line engraving of an elephant scratched into the patinated rock of the same shelter.
Moving up along the streets and avenues in a zig-zag pattern, I have found another three sites, the finest one a procession with a cattle carrying tent or hut components (later I found out that this site was recorded by Pascal Lluch in 2004). In another there was a single scene of a faint white elephant followed by a human figure.
Heading towards the first of Bruno's reported sites, in the very close vicinity of the first I found another two, the first I mistook for a baboon but with DStretch it becomes clear that it is a running figure. The other was more interesting, I only noticed a faint torso with a face ahead, but there are another two faces without the rest of the head or body on the same panel.
I soon reached the two camel period shelters about two hundred metres apart reported by Bruno, in all fairness they were the least interesting of the lot.
Turning west towards Akraren, still a good two kilometres away, I crossed a small tributary of the Oued Afen which still had a large guelta in it. On the dry silt surrounding the pool I found several molted tadpole shrimp (Triops granarius) carapaces, indicating that they live(d) in the pool, though I have not seen any move about.
The site of Akraren is very similar to Tahon Tarokhet, it consists of a number of low rock outcrops interconnected with low dry stone walls, forming a nearly circular enclosure. The late pastoralist paintings are concentrated along a low shelter on one of the largest incorporated rock outcrops, with four depicted chariots, the biggest concentration outside Tamadjert and the Oued Djerat.
Mid-afternoon I started moving back in a straight line towards the Iheren camp, about four kilometres away. Not far from the Akraren enclosure I came upon a shallow valley with a large guelta, surrounded by a green meadow dotted with thousands of white flowers (Androcymbium gramineum), an absolutely wonderful sight in the middle of the desert.
The rock outcrop of Akraren extends for a good 3 kilometres parallel to the Iheren-Tin Abenhar outcrop, only 700-800 metres to the south west of the latter. The Akraren enclosure is near its north western end, Aicha said that he did not know of any sites between there and Iheren, but the rocks looked the same as everywhere else with rock art. While I did not have time to do any systematic search, I did check out the more prominent shelters that came into view as I moved along the rock outcrop, and in one shelter I did find a very fine painting of a donkey, a rather rare theme. It was only from the taken photographs that I realised that there was a second donkey, in a crudely drawn outline only, completely invisible in natural light.
It appears that the settlers of the area had a preference for such line drawings, as in another shelter some distance away I found a collared cattle drawn with a similar technique. A little further I found a very nice panel of a cattle herd faced by a figure with a plumed headdress.
The sun was getting rather low, and while our campsite was in sight, it was still two kilometres away. It was time to make a straight line for it, but just as I started, a long prominent shelter came into view along the eastern edge of the rocks, it looked too promising to miss. Sure enough, there were several panels of paintings, including a very large incomplete bovid in outline (and a human figure behind in a similar style, unfortunately I missed it on the spot so the photo is incomplete) superimposed by later cattle.
When I reached the camp, the others were just returning from the Iheren shelter after several hours of photography. There was still enough daylight left for me to make a quick dash to the site, to complete some unfinished homework. In 2009 Jean-Loïc LeQuellec published (Cahiers de l'AARS 13) a copy of the Iheren shelter prepared by the Lhote team in 1971 showing a number of frogs in a stream from which a cow is drinking. Jean-Loïc also published digitally enhanced photos of the scene, which is practically impossible to see on the spot, it is so faint. I have missed it on the previous visits, this time I was determined to find it. It was not easy, but after several point blank shots at various parts of the blank section of the shelter wall I was finally lucky, I found the scene not far below the wonderful group of drinking cattle, one of the finest depictions in the shelter. The frogs themselves are unique, I am not aware of any other such depiction anywhere in the Sahara.
Later, as we were finishing our dinner, we were presented with another amazing sight, the mere thread of a crescent new moon just before it disappeared below the horizon, accompanied by the very bright pair of Jupiter and Saturn.
Day 18. – Tadjelahine (Iheren - Aheir - Oued Afen - Tin Todouft)
In the morning after packing camp we set out to re-visit the Iheren II shelter, which is the best in the early morning with a low sun from the east, leaving the very faint paintings and their foreground in the shade (later in the day the strong glare makes them practically invisible). I could finally take good photographs of the two elephants charging at the hunters, the presence of which was only realised in 2014. This time I also managed to photograph the second lion, a little to the right and above the better visible first, of which only the tail was spotted on some of the 2012 photographs after processing with DStretch (both were discussed in my 2017 paper in Cahiers de l'AARS 19).
Our next objective was the rocky outcrop of Aheir, about a kilometre towards the north. The Halliers have published a very interesting scene with a hippopotamus in 2009 (Sahara 20), from somewhere in the general Iheren region, but the precise location was lost. Fortunately in early 2018 Bruno had re-located the site (which was unknown to Aicha) and we could go straight to it without the need for a lengthy search. The scene itself is surprisingly small, located in a shallow niche rather than a proper shelter, and is rather bizarre with unclear stylistic affinities. The Halliers proposed a "culture of Ancient Hunters" pre-dating the pastoralist scenes, responsible for all the sexually explicit engravings (and paintings) of the Tassili region, however the engravings are demonstrably pastoralist (or later), likely these paintings are too (there are some possible analogies with some ithyphallic therianthropes that seem attributable to the Iheren style).
Right opposite the hippo scene there is another shallow shelter, in which we found some very faint figures. DStretch reveals a group of opposing archers, apparently of Tin Abenhar style.
On a higher level among the same cluster of rocks, there is a large spacious shelter that contains paintings at several spots along its length, including a very fine giraffe and some other pastoralist (and possible archaic) scenes, some of which are rather difficult to make out.
After Aheir we continued to our campsite in the Oued Afen, adjacent to the prominent large and very old Tamarisk adjacent to the watercourse. We reached the campsite before noon, beating the donkeys which only arrived with our luggage (and our lunch...) after a fairly long wait.
After lunch we set out towards the paintings of Tin Todouft, in a "rock city" on the low plateau to the north of the Oued Afen, about three kilometres from camp. Not far from the top of the ascent from the valley to the plateau top, Aicha showed us a little shelter that contained some very weathered paintings of two cattle and an interesting human figure holding a curved object.
We walked uninterrupted till Tin Todouft on the flat plateau, going straight to the site of the magnificent pair of life-sized hippopotami which were first reported by the Halliers in 2000 (Sahara 12), and more completely in the above quoted 2009 article. These paintings are truly unique, there is nothing comparable in the Tassili or the broader central Sahara, thus they are really hard to assign to any style or period.
It was becoming rather late, and we still had the three kilometres to walk back to camp before sunset, so we made a hurried visit of the principal other sites of Tin Todouft, mostly common Tin Abenhar style pastoralist scenes.
We reached camp just before sunset, and as dusk set in we were treated to another superb spectacle, with the crescent moon just in-between Jupiter and Saturn on the western sky.
Day 19. – Tadjelahine (Oued Afen - Ti-Yaraghnin - Imihi - Oued Afen)
With another two nights here at the Oued Afen camp, we were planning a day-trip to the off-the-beaten-trail site of Ti-Yaraghnin (Tiaranéen), about four kilometres to the north of our camp on the low plateau. These sites were apparently unknown until Pascal Lluch and party were led to these sites by their guide in 2004. In 2006 Suzanne and Gérard Lachaud organised a trip to the area with several other AARS members, and presented them at the 2007 AARS conference in Pinerolo. Subsequently tracings made from the Lachaud's photos were published by Francois Soleihavoup ( Sahara 19, 2008), then actual photos accompanied by tracings in a response by Yves Gauthier (Cahiers de l'AARS 13, 2009) and the Halliers (Stonewatch 35, 2009). The published photos showed some very interesting large human figures, assigned by all the authors to the Roundhead style. Fortunately Bruno visited the sites with his guide in 2018, so we had precise information, as Aicha knew of the general location, but was not aware of the actual paintings. We started out after breakfast, mounting the plateau and heading almost straight due north on mostly flat ground offering good going.
We trodded on for a good hour and a half, passing several outcrops and ancient tumuli, until we reached a large basin surrounded by a number of rock outcrops which was the general area.
The site of Ti-Yaraghnin turned out to be a very compact rocky area overlooking the basin, with only two parallel streets connected by a single narrow crevasse. There are shelters on both sides of the streets, the main shelter with the three large figures is located along the south side of the northern street. It is quite difficult to say anything about them, there is nothing really comparable. Soleilhavoup and the Halliers profess to see "Roundhead" figures, however this attribution is problematic to say the least. Gauthier is a bit more cautious, presenting that the rightmost figure is superimposed over a bichrome cattle. While the latter with new better photos is revealed to be actually a dog chasing a hare (and indeed underlies the figure), there is a separate red cattle figure and some adjacent very faint pastoralist figures, which are apparently superimposed by the large human figures, which also seem to have a better overall state of preservation than the pastoralist paintings. Also the large horned animal to the right of the three figures is superimposed on a herd of very weathered cattle. Further to the right there is a fine painting of a hippopotamus, and some strange (and indeed archaic looking) fanged animal.
There is another long shelter along the northern side of the south street, with several archaic looking antelopes and a very fine flock of Iheren style ostrich confronted by two men with throwing knives. This shelter too was published by both Gauthier and the Halliers.
There are another two shelters in the southern street which were not mentioned in any of the publications, which were focusing on the "Roundhead" paintings. One is a small little niche barely qualifying as a shelter with an extremely faint Iheren style panel, the other one is one of the finest depictions of a woman riding a bull, apparently superimposed over some very faint earlier cattle.
There is a unique painting of a horned (and eared?) serpent (very reminiscent of the "eared serpents" of the Brandberg in Namibia) at Imihi, about two kilometres further north from Ti-Yaraghnin. Half of our party returned to camp with Aicha, while the rest of us set out with Ibrahim, the head of the donkey drivers, to find the serpent. This site too was known to be first visited by Pascal Lluch, but Suzanne Lachaud published it first in 2007 (Cahiers de l'AARS 12, erroneously referring to it as being at Ti-Yaraghnin). The site is located in a small rock outcrop with several good shelters, but only this single inconspicuous one contains this sole painting.
After lunch and a pleasant long rest at Imihi, we started back for the long uneventful walk to camp. The only object of interest along the way was a curious pattern found in the rock not far from the start of the descent into the Oued Afen. They appeared like petrified raindrops, which is not altogether inconceivable, in places gentle tidal ripples are clearly preserved in the bedding planes of the sandstone.
In the evening we were once again treated to the spectacle of the aligned moon and planets, though the show was now ending with the moon ever higher and brighter in the evening sky.
Day 20. – Tadjelahine (Oued Afen - Tin Amarasouzi - Tadrast)
In the morning after breakfast we packed camp to move to the next location, again for two nights, which allows a much more relaxed pace than if one needs to break camp each morning. We basked in the morning sun while the drivers loaded the donkeys, a much longer and tedious process than with camels, as these smaller animals are much more sensitive to any load imbalance.
We started out well before the donkeys were ready, but they overtook us around half way along the six kilometre walk on the flat plateau bordering the Oued Afen to the big guelta of Tin Amarasauzi downstream in the same riverbed, with the adjacent campsite. The guelta was full, offering the opportunity for an icy bath.
With the early start we reached Tin Amarasauzi mid-morning. While the rest of our party stayed at camp for a bath or various housekeeping chores, I set out to find one of the last remaining major "lost sites" of the Tadjelahine in the "rock city" bordering the riverbed to the east. In 2009 Brigitte Hallier published a very interesting shelter with a group of "warriors" in the Wadi Oumashi (Sahara 20). The Wadi Oumashi is supposedly the tributary of the Oued Afen joining a little upstream from Tin Amarasauzi, however neither Ibrahim on the previous trips, nor Aicha recognised this name. The precise location was lost, however from memory Ulrich Hallier could recall an approximate location in relation to the Tin Amarasauzi shelter (with the elephant hunt scene), so after looking at the topography on Google Earth I had fairly good idea where to look. I also had the advantage of knowing the areas Bruno searched the year before in the same "rock city", so the likely area was fairly well identified. Luck was with me, as after searching two "streets" without finding anything, I arrived straight at the small shelter at the beginning of the third. This shelter too was visited by Pascal Lluch in 2004, but it appears that after the visit by the Halliers a couple of years later it faded from memory as only one or two guides knew about it, and jealously guarded the information from others.
The site itself is just a small niche at the side of the rock street, with some very faint, barely perceptible human figures and some other shapes. One really needs DStretch to make any sense of what is happening, but then an amazing scene is revealed. One can only compliment Brigitte Hallier for making a remarkably accurate tracing when no such tool was available. The only discrepancy I could spot was that the supposed hippopotamus head in the upper area of the panel is in fact the outlines of the backs of several cattle. As Brigitte observed, the figures while showing some affinities do not clearly match either the Iheren or Tin Abenhar styles, though the associated sheep appear to be of the Iheren style, so I'd lean towards categorising them as such.
With the lucky find I still had some time before heading back to camp for lunch to check out the sites Bruno found while searching for the "Oumashi warrors". The first one was a long shelter along the side of a street not far from the main Tin Amarasauzi shelter, with an interesting group of opposing Tin Abenhar style archers, superimposed over an archaic animal figure. The second one in a low triangular shelter nearby contained some more common pastoralist scenes.
Before camp I also made brief stop at the Tin Amarasauzi shelter, which was in a very bad light, with full sun on the elephant panel. However in under these different light conditions (we visited in the morning on previous trips) I spotted a detail I have not seen before. On the panel with the three women facing a male figure, there is another very faint yellow human figure, lying on its back with up-sticking arms and legs, who seems to be the focus of attention for both the women and the man on the right. There are also the traces of footprints I noticed before, which could well belong to the lying person, not the standing man. This completely changes the dynamics of the scene, but I would be hesitant to offer any interpretation.
After lunch we set out to visit the nearby sites of Tadrast (Tadghast) which were first reported by Gauthier & Lionnet in 2005 (Sahara 16), including the unique trio of facing figures and many other fine pastoralist scenes.
At the northern end of the area with paintings (at least according to Aicha and Ibrahim, I suspect that a thorough survey of the northern part of the "rock city" would reveal many more sites, something to keep in mind for a future visit) we finished at the faint but delightful sites that can only be appreciated with DStretch, with the head shaving scene and the group of Iheren style figures apparently in deep discussion (first reported by Maestrucci & Giannelli together with the Tin Amarasauzi shelter in Cahiers de l'AARS 12 in 2008).
In the latter shelter I also made a new observation. On the very weathered wall I noticed a darker patch, and some traces of red paint to the left, below an already known kneeling figure. Processing with DStretch revealed a herd of faint but distinct dark elephants (at least four, though there may be more to the right off the photo frame), faced by a group of figures, including one holding a pair of throwing knives with outstretched arms above the heads, echoing the much better preserved scene at Tin Amarasauzi.
There was still a good hour and a half left till sunset, allowing for some exploration of the rocks a couple of hundred metres to the east of the edge of the Tadrast "rock city". My hunch proved correct, as in a shelter under a mushroom-shaped rock I found a faint scene of Tin Abenhar style figures.
Now sunset was rapidly approaching, so I only had time for a very brief visit to two more sites found by Bruno among the confused mass of rocks above our campsite. The first one was truly unique, I cannot readily think of any analogies from the Tassili region. It consists of two rows of tiny human figures, my hand provides a good scale to grasp their dimension. The other site contained several pastoralist scenes, plus a clear hunting scene, though the prey is not very clear (it could be some antelope).
In the evening Ibrahim prepared the traditional desert bread, and while we were sitting around the campfire I spotted some movement, a rather large camel spider (Solipugae sp.) was doing its hunting rounds near the edge of the flickering circle of light.
Day 21. – Tajdelahine (Imerda)
Our camp was a perfect location for a day-trip to the sites of Imerda, the region between Ti-Yaraghnin and Tin Amarasauzi on the plateau to the north of the Oued Afen. There are many rock outcrops in this area but they do not have individual names like those to the south, the whole area is just referred to by this name. Gauthier & Lionnet (Sahara 16, 2005) presented two sites from the area, and last year Bruno set out to find them. While the search proved unsuccessful, their guide led them to another nine sites. As they did a long trek that day, there was no time for any search other than what their guide knew. Our plan was to visit Bruno's sites at a relaxed pace, to allow time to search areas left unvisited. Aicha also said that he knew of one good site, it was yet to be seen whether any of the known ones or a new one. The most distant site was about 3.5 kilometres from camp, so allowing for wandering about and detours, we could expect to cover about 8-10 kilometres, something comfortably doable in a day.
The sites known to Bruno were clustered in four distinct areas, all the typical low "rock cities" of the Tadjelahine. We started at the south eastern one, where only one site was reported. It proved to be a fairly high jumbled mass of rocks, I climbed up to the top to find the site with a single cattle.
While I climbed up, the others searched the base of the outcrop, and found two sites along the western edge. The first was not particularly exciting, but the second one had some fine giraffes. To aid in labeling, I have numbered Bruno's sites 1-9, with our finds starting from 10 in order of finding.
We continued towards Bruno's site 8 in the south-central cluster about a kilometre to the north east without finding anything more, though there were numerous shelters to check out. Site 8 proved to be a truly splendid one, a long shelter along the side of a street with numerous Iheren (and other) style panels, including a superb herd of dama gazelle, a flock of sheep, several mounted cattle, and the finest of them all, another splendid elephant hunt scene. We took a long time to photograph all the scenes, and kept finding new details even as we thought it was complete. This site certainly counts among the finest Iheren style shelters of the Tadjelahine.
While we took turns to access the small panels at site 8, we had plenty of time to search the surrounding streets and avenues. In the same street just opposite and to the west of site 8 we found another two minor sites, and there was a third in the next street to the north, with some very curious outline figures.
We found another four sites among the rocks a few dozen metres to the east of site 8. Most contained just cattle, but one displayed a splendid large yellow giraffe. In the fourth shelter there was a very interesting scene, not for the content but because of the preservation. A vivid, perfectly preserved late pastoralist cattle is superimposed on an extremely weathered, almost invisible herd of Tin Abenhar style cattle. Either this conveys a considerable temporal distance, or alternately the late pastoralist painters washed the wall to efface or at least fade the earlier paintings.
Another two of Bruno's sites was just two streets away to the north, less than 100 metres away. The first contained a fine herd of robust cattle, and almost directly opposite on the far side of the street we found another shelter with a herd of white Iheren style sheep, apparently shepherded by two dogs.
Moving further east along the street we found the other of Bruno's sites, a very curious scene with what looks like nine figures (maybe children ?) riding on the same cattle. Just a few dozen metres further another site contained a single cattle with a rider.
Bruno's north-central cluster with two sites was 300 metres to the north, we found nothing in-between. The first contained a bizarre large-headed, baby like figure of a kind I have not seen anywhere else.
The other shelter a short distance away had a fine group of camel period figures, unfortunately partially on the sun.
The north-central cluster was among rocks that overlooked the main valley traversing the region. We found nothing more among the rocks, but Aicha said the site he knows is just across the valley, in a low triangular shelter which we could see from afar. The small shelter contained a very interesting group of figures, of an unclear affinity. They were certainly not Iheren style, but did not resemble any other I knew in the area. Once we finished taking photos, we climbed up to the rocks on the northern side of the valley, with the usual grid of streets and avenues, looking for a good shady spot for lunch, and aside the perfect spot we found a shallow shelter with a single human figure.
The west cluster was a little over a kilometre from our lunch spot on good flat ground, we could clearly see the likely location of the sites. The majority opted for a siesta in the shade, so it was the three of us with Jacques and Mike who set out to see the last sites. We quickly found the first of Bruno's two sites, with a herd of cattle, however there was nothing at or about the second position, and the description did not match any of the other sites we found.
However a little back along the same street we did find another site with some faint but interesting scenes, including an archaic group of round-headed human figures overlain by a white animal, plus some fairly crudely executed Iheren style scenes.
In the adjacent street we found a shelter with a single, rather uninteresting looking faded cattle. However much to my surprise when looking at the scene with DStretch two fighting therianthropes and a fine sheep was revealed superimposed on the darker cattle.
Moving up the same street there was another large shelter, which on first look only contained a pair of very faint animals, one with a striped coat, but nothing more could be seen on the spot. A close scrutiny revealed some more dark spots of paint, and the taken photos showed a wide array of scenes, including a fine elephant.
There were many more suitable looking shelters along the edge of the "rock city", but we only found one more site, a good 200 metres north of the others along the side of a huge mushroom shaped rock. The more visible paintings were late pastoralist, but there were some extremely faint Iheren style scenes, including a few therianthropes.
On the return to the others at the lunch-spot we took a slightly different route, and passed by a large guelta in the shallow oued in the middle of the intervening plain. This time I was delighted to find live tadpole shrimp (Triops granarius) in the pool, after some struggle I could catch one to photograph. This was the first time since October 2011 that I have noted any live ones.
We found the rest of the party merrily dozing off in the pleasant shade, it took some effort to get our little group moving again back to camp. We made no more searches, but continued straight along the valley towards Tin Amarasauzi following the easiest path.
By around half past three we were within sight of the Tin Amarasauzi guelta and our camp on the far side. We could see a large caravan of nomads pass by on the far bank, towards some good pastures that sprang up after the rains. It still took another half an hour to get down and cross the riverbed to the far side.
With an hour of sunlight left, I set out again among the rocks above the campsite to find the lovely crouching giraffe engraving near a tumulus packed into a narrow street among the rock ridges which we found in 2012. I did not properly mark the position, and in 2014 with Ibrahim we had a rather frustrating time searching for it, which I wished to avoid the following morning. Fortunately my memory worked better this time, I soon found the tumulus and the nearby shelter. On the return to camp I stirred up a large flock of rock pigeons (Columba livia), a cosmopolitan species, but still it was surprising to see them in the central Sahara.
The results of the day surpassed all expectations. While we did not find the two sites of Lionet (now I know that they are a good kilometre to the south of the last sites we saw), we found all but one of the ones seen by Bruno, including the stunning site 8, and we found another 17 unreported shelters, some with rather nice paintings. This day was yet another proof that a good systematic survey of the lesser known areas of the Tassili is very likely to produce further sites.
Day 22. – Tadjelahine (Tin Amarasauzi - Tahilahi)
In the morning we packed camp to move to our last camp on the Tadjelahine near the Tahilahi shelter for another two nights. Leaving the drivers to load the donkeys, we went to visit and photograph the nearby Tin Amarasauzi shelter which was now in perfect light. Afterwards we climbed up to the "rock city" above to see the crouching giraffe which I re-located the evening before, then continued south along the streets and avenues towards the site of the "Wadi Oumashi warriors".
We spent a fairly long time at the "warriors" site, allowing everyone to take their photos in turn at the fairly small niche. This also provided an opportunity for me and Aicha to systematically check all the shelters in this and the adjacent streets, but we found nothing. Aicha was very pleased to learn of the site, he was not aware of it and in his opinion there are no other guides alive who would know it.
We returned to the main donkey trail leading to the pass down to Iherir, and continued to the big shelter of Tasakarot about two and a half kilometres away. Tasakarot is a perfect study in the local rock art styles, as it contains a bit of everything, from Iheren style laden cattle to horse drawn chariots. I have found one little detail that till now has completely eluded me (and most others, as I have never seen any references to it): among a group of late pastoralist cattle, there is a small but distinct milking scene, of which there are only a handful of unambiguous examples among the tens of thousands of cattle depictions across the Sahara.
As we moved on towards Tahilahi, in a small oued crossing the trail we found a bright green, flowering and fruiting myrtle bush (Myrtus nivellei). The Touaregs use it to treat fever and as a pain killer (it actually contains salicylic acid, a component of aspirin), Aicha immediately harvested a big bundle that was later shared with all the donkey drivers.
By noon we arrived to the Tahilahi campsite, and after setting up camp and having lunch, we immediately set out for one of the trip highlights, the amazing Tahilahi shelter.
As the shelter is very small, only two people could take photos at the time, so we spent the time waiting for the turns by visiting the few sites scattered among the rocks behind the shelter. While they are nowhere near as spectacular, there are many fine details, including a group of Iheren style figures which I only now recognised for what they were.
In his 1972 article in Lybica XX Lhote listed the sites known in the region of Iherir. Site 5 is described to be in the region of "Essalamene", 10 minutes to the N.E. of the Tahilahi shelter. While this seems to be at odds with the true location of Issalamen, which is to the south of Tahilahi, Lhote himself gave the answer that Tahilahi is a general name used for the broader region, and the place with paintings should be callet "Essalamene". Now the guides only refer to the concentration of sites to the south as Issalamen, and Tahilahi is firmly understood to refer only to the shelter and its immediate vicinity. Lhote reported a shelter with "roundhead" paintings among the rocks to the north east, in the previous year Bruno set out to explore the cluster of rocks and did find a large shelter, plus several other sites. With still plenty of daylight left, I too set out to see these sites while the rest of our party continued with taking photos at Tahilahi.
Approaching from Tahilahi there is indeed a very prominent shelter at a distance of about 800 metres, and there are some extremely faint paintings on the rear wall, almost impossible to make out on the spot (which probably prompted Lhote to call them Roundhead). In reality there is a multitude of Iheren style paintings, revealing them is an excellent demonstration of the capabilities of DStretch, with different filters revealing completely different details on the same photo.
In the streets and avenues adjacent to the large shelter Bruno found a further three sites, the first just a shallow shelter with a single depicted cattle.
The second was a shallow shelter with a very fine panel of camel period paintings depicting homesteads, fairly common in the Tassili du Tamrit, but quite unusual for the Tadjelahine where I cannot readily think of any other example.
A little further west an embayment between the rocks was walled off and used as an animal pen till recently by local nomads. Bruno supposedly found a nice Iheren style scene in a niche on the walls somewhere, but with all the looking I could only find a very faint giraffe.
About 300 metres to the north among a low cluster of rocks Bruno's guide knew of two other sites, but with very weathered camel period paintings. The first one had some curious horse depictions, which very closely resembled those of the most recent period of paintings in the Ennedi. The second had some very faint earlier paintings under the camel depictions, but too far weathered to make out any meaningful scenes.
From the top of the rocks there was a splendid view over the edge of the Fadnoun plateau towards the north, and the numerous rock outcrops ahead which were the target of our exploration the following day.
Day 23. – Tadjelahine (Afala n'Ghmar - Tilazen)
Our last full day on the Tadjelahine presented us with an absolutely gorgeous sunrise, with a clear view over the flat plateau towards the East. Our plan for the day was to visit some rarely seen sites to the North of Tadjelahine, in the areas of Afala n'Ghmar and Tilazen, at a distance of three and four kilometres respectively. These sites were shown to Bruno when they made their descent via a different route, down a pass in the big bend of the oued a few kilometres downstream of Iherir.
With two nights at the Tahilahi camp we did not need to pack, we could afford a lazy morning warming in the sun after a fairly cold night. We set out after breakfast towards the three distinct and rather disorganised cluster of rocks along the rapidly deepening oued that starts at Tahilahi and continues North until meeting the Oued Imirhou.
In the southern cluster of rocks Bruno was only shown a single camel period painting, while the others continued to the main site at the locality, I made a quick dash to photograph it. I did find the motif reported by Bruno, plus some of the barest traces of paint nearby which, much to my surprise, turned out to be the heads of three very fine Iheren style giraffe.
I continued to the main site of the area under a huge boulder. The others were not yet there, so I did a quick search of the area and found the remains of a wooden bowl near the shelter, probably from more recent times.
As I knew that there will be a lengthy photography session at this site, I went ahead to see the other lesser sites to the north. The third cluster of Afala n'Ghmar, perched high above the oued with a superb view of the surrounding terrain, also contains a single site, with a few recognisable human figures and some incomprehensible traces. One of these indistinct blobs revealed another big surprise: a fine giant buffalo (Syncerus antiquus) of an unclear stylistic affinity, but apparently some archaic painting. It is clear from the photo that there is more to the scene than what I captured in the single frame, what exactly will only be revealed on a future visit.
Less than a kilometre to the north, the area of Tilazen is more organised, with a grid of eroded streets and avenues. Bruno reported a total of nine sites from here, but about half of them only contain a few very weathered paintings, there is really only one site in the middle of the "rock city" that is an important one, with a fine herd of giraffe, several Iheren style scenes, and some of the best late pastoralist Tin Anneouin style panels I'm aware of on the Tadjelahine, including a unique lion hunt scene.
Among the numerous shelters in the "streets" surrounding the first site there were only six that contained any paintings, but only four worth any mention, most of them the usual paintings of cattle and human figures, but one contained a strange, not readily identifiable (animal ?) figure that could be older than the common pastoralist scenes.
Along the northern end of Tilazen there were another two shelters that contained a bit more interesting paintings, the first one a group of opposing archers clearly superimposed on some earlier cattle, and in the second a strange animal figure with a zigzagged outline, of the same type that exists in a shelter behind the main Tahilahi shelter, but this time with some late pastoralist (cabbaline) cattle superimposed.
Returning to the Afala n'Ghmar main site, I was rather surprised not to find the rest of our party there, but I heard them calling from higher up among the rock. Climbing up, I found them in a broad opening on the hilltop, with a large shelter along its sides full of Iheren style scenes. It emerged that Aicha knew this site (which apparently was not known to Bruno's guide) as "le grand site", not the one below (another lesson learned on how easy it is to miscommunicate with guides, even the most knowledgeable ones like Aicha, with no clear universal understanding of the names of places and sites). The shelter was indeed spectacular, with some very fine scenes, including an absolutely superb woman and child riding a cattle (one interesting observation with the many examples now seen is that the mounted animals are invariably bulls).
There were another two smaller shelters in the same large open area among the rocks, both containing some fine though rather faint Iheren style scenes.
After lunch we moved down to the "other main site", the one seen by Bruno (site 5). While the panel of paintings is much smaller than the one we have just seen, it is a true little gem, with an exquisite scene of cattle, sheep and a curious reclining human figure attended by a much smaller one (child?). It is one of the masterpieces of the Iheren artists, ranking on par with the Tahilahi and Iheren shelters.
Once I have reviewed all the photos back home, I have realised that some snippets from both of the main sites of Afala n'Ghmar were published by Christian Dupuy & Bernard Denis in 2011 (Cahiers de l'AARS 15), referring to the place as Afara Neghmegh (and also incorrectly as Tasakarot for images of the upper site), but providing no context of the selected examples illustrating the article on the variation of the hide pattern of depicted cattle.
Aicha knew of no other sites, so with our mission completed we headed back towards Tahilahi, making use of the good afternoon light for our second group photo.
On the way back we stopped to see a small delightful panel of dama gazelle just north of the campsite which Koen found the previous afternoon. Aicha was not aware of them, as they are in a "blind spot" bypassed by the main trail as the donkey caravans arrive from Tasakarot, and continue past Tahilahi. Scrutinizing the walls this time we also found some very faint Iheren style figures. Based on analogies the composition appears to be a hunting scene, but the subject of the hunt to the right of the figures (if it ever existed) had completely weathered away, even DStretch could not reveal any traces.
The same rock ledge continues as a long shallow shelter for another forty metres, with several faint and difficult to decypher remains of multiple layers of paintings at several spots.
There were still a couple of hours of daylight left, providing a perfect opportunity to explore the surroundings of the Tahilahi shelter, where already a number of lesser sites were known, but the terrain looked promising for some further finds. The location is dominated by a large guelta that keeps water for a long time, no doubt one of the reasons for the prolific paintings in the Tahilahi shelter. Now the guelta was full, with many of the pink variety of the common Androcymbium gramineum blooming around it.
Searching the rocks around the guelta I found a panel of white paintings in a shelter near the other known lesser sites which I did not notice before. The left figure is clearly a cattle, but on the right side there is a strange shape that appears to be the remnants of a very eroded group of Hippotragus.
Making a wide loop behind the main shelter, I found another two minor sites among the maze of rocks, the first with a large group of small figures, the other with a few cattle.
Heading back to camp I stopped by a site found in November 2014, where I could only make out the very faint outlines of an elephant. Now the photos taken with a much better camera revealed not one but three elephants, and a surrounding group of hunters. This was yet another Iheren style elephant hunt scene, unfortunately in a very weathered condition.
Day 24. – Tadjelahine - Iherir - Dider Plain - Djanet
In the rather cold and cloudy morning we had a quick breakfast, then packed camp and loaded the donkeys for the way back to Iherir.
On our way back to the pass we passed the little known shelter with the delightful fairly recent ostrich hunt scene, and also found some previously unseen paintings in a large conspicuous shelter nearby.
We reached the top of the pass around nine thirty, and started our long winding way down to the bottom. It took about two hours to reach the pools and the flowing water in the valley below at the start of the pass, and in another half an hour we met our waiting cars at the end of the drivable track at the outskirts of Illizi.
After saying good-bye to Aicha, Ibrahim and the other donkey drivers (and our remarkably well behaved donkeys, they caused no trouble whatsoever on the trip), we loaded into the two cars and drove out of Iherir to the lookout over the old village of Idaren for a quick lunch, before continuing back towards Djanet.
We had enough time to make the short detour to the engravings of Tin Terirt on the edge of the Dider Plain. We were lucky as the thick overcast of the morning dissipated, and between the thin clouds we had bursts of the low afternoon sun brightly illuminating the engravings. Previously I have always visited in the morning or in overcast, this light revealed numerous details which I have never seen before except in Lhote's 1970 publication.
Day 25. – Djanet - Tin Aressou
The previous evening we said good bye to Koen, who had some family commitments and took the overnight flight back to Algiers, while the rest of us had a lazy morning at the Essendilene premises while our paperwork was being prepared for the last part of our trip, an exploration of the Tin Hanakaten region. In November 2018 we only made a brief half-day visit to the principal sites on our return from the Tadrart to Djanet. I noted with interest that there was a large ancient looking semicircuar stone enclosure in front of at least two of the principal shelters with paintings. Subsequently on Google Earth I spotted several more of these stone enclosures, presumably in the foreground of shelters. Now we planned a two-day exploration of the region to check out these sites, plus any other shelters which we may encounter in the little explored area. Once the paperwork was ready, we set out with the same two cars, stopping briefly at the Djanet market for some shopping before heading south along the surfaced road towards the Tadrart (and the border with Libya near Ghat). We reached the valley of Tin Aressou by midday, allowing for an afternoon of exploration after lunch.
On satellite imagery I spotted a terrace bordered by a horseshoe shaped cliff on the top of the hill along the big bend of the small oued passing the Tn Aressou campsite. From below it is invisible, but it looked like a promising lace to look, so with Joana we made the climb on the steep scree while the others encouraged us on, welcoming the opportunity for a post-lunch nap. Reaching the top, we saw a near continuous but rather shallow shelter along the eastern side of the terrace. It did not appear to be a comfortable dwelling place, however we did find a fine solitary bull and a small group of human figures painted on the vertical walls at two separate locations.
As we scrambled down the terrace towards the camp along a different way, we encountered a large family of hyraxes among the rocks on the slope. Uncharacteristically they did not disappear in an instant, but posed patiently while I fumbled with the camera.
Rejoining the others, we set out towards the little shelter a few hundred metres upstream of the camp that was found by Koen when we were first here in March 2017 (from other sources I later learned that it was known for some time, just not published anywhere). While nothing exceptional, it contains a panel of fine cattle, including a few drawn in the curious local style only found here and at the nearby main shelter of Tin Aressou.
From the small shelter we continued along the high northern bank of the oued towards the terrace to the north of the campsite, checking out a few shelters along the way without finding anything. We soon reached the big double shelter in the cliffs above the terrace, the main shelter of Tin Aressou. In the right shelter there are just a few but very fine Iheren style figures, now I finally managed to take a good close-up photo of the dog behind the woman with the pot, which I only noticed on photographs with DStretch. The shelter was not deserted, it was inhabited by a large fan-footed gecko (Ptyodactylus ragazzii), that disappeared into a crevasse on our approach.
The low left part of the main shelter contains a multitude of paintings on the ceiling, we spent all the time remaining till sunset photographing them. This time I noticed that the splendid lion hunt scene is in fact painted over a couple of earlier red figures.
On the way back to camp, in one spot we found an interesting geological feature - a vein of hydrothermal hematite deposits filling a crevasse in the sandstone. Such a deposit would have made perfect raw material for iron smelting, however in the Tassili there is no evidence for such activity, as opposed to the Ennedi in Chad where the remnants of rudimentary smelters are omnipresent.
Day 27. – Tin Aressou - Tin Akaham - Tin Hanakaten
Now knowing the way, in the morning we quickly covered the 20 kilometres towards the south to the huge shelter of Tin Akaham, with the curious and hard to assign (probably relatively late) panel of giraffe paintings, and the nearby small shelter with the splendid aurochs (?) bull, apparently interacting in some way with a group of women in front of it.
A few kilometres to the south there is a relatively isolated rocky hill, with dark shadows marking a cliff or shelter along its western side on satellite imagery. While there was no semicircle of stones, there was a good chance there might be some paintings there. The hunch proved correct, in a very low shelter at the base of the cliffs we did find a rather weathered panel depicting cattle and human figures.
Another couple of kilometres to the south east I have spotted on Google Earth the tell-tale double semicircular row of stones in front of a large shadow indicating a deep shelter. It was quite far from the plain up among low hills following a steep rocky ravine, with Joana we pressed forward while the others stayed with the cars awaiting the news. Indeed we did find the expected shelter behind the double encircling walls, with a row of archaic looking human figures painted on the rear wall, with at least one wearing sheep horns on the head. Joana explored further, and high up above the left entrance of the shelter she spotted a large panel of cattle paintings. Apparently part of the ledge broke off at some time, leaving the paintings completely inaccessible. I made a feeble attempt to get up, but there were no good footholds and a rather nasty five metre drop below, so I had to console myself with photos of the part of paintings visible from a distance.
A few kilometres eastwards a small valley descended from the low hills bordering the edge of the low plateau. There was a shelter with a stone enclosure at its mouth, but it was found empty. There was another spotted enclosure further upstream, along the way we unexpectedly found a deep shelter with a fine pair of painted cattle, and also a stone wall blocking the valley that was not seen on the satellite imagery.
The shelter behind the enclosure on the far side of the hill, our original target turned out much smaller, there were a few very indistinct painted cattle figures in it.
So far the method of pinpointing likely rock art locations on Google Earth proved its merit, we found three sites at four potential locations (plus one unexpected one). Even this method takes quite an effort on the terrain as the couple of hundred metres of walks from the cars quickly add up, it was well past midday when we returned to the cars. We had our lunch in the shade of a rather meager tree at the valley entrance, then continued exploring. However it seemed our luck was up, the next three or four shelters visited (plus a few spotted from a distance along the way) all proved empty, we only saw some lizards and fresh gazelle tracks.
Mid-afternoon we reached a rocky outcrop at the entrance of the Tin Hanakaten valley, which had a prominent shelter high up (and a semicircular enclosure on the far side, known from Google Earth). Checking it out we found a tunnel completely traversing the hill, with a few faint cattle in the upper level, and the large enclosure on the sandy plain at the entrance at the rear of the hill. The sandy plain behind made a perfect campsite, so we settled down to spend the rest of the afternoon exploring the environs on foot.
With Jacques we set out to see a likely shelter at the base of a low cliff about a kilometre from our camp. Along the way, we came across some fresh looking tracks of a very large lizard, much larger than the tracks of the largest spiny-tailed lizard I have ever seen. We followed them for a while, but then they disapperared on rocky ground, we did not find out what made them, but the only thing I can think of that is large enough and lives in the area is a Desert Monitor (Varanus griseus)
Reaching the low cliff at the likely spot we again found a shelter with some paintings, though not particularly exciting, some very weathered cattle.
Getting back to camp we still had time to explore the enclosure at the entrance of the tunnel-like shelter, which was littered with ceramic sherds and crude lithic debitage, a potential bonanza for future archaeologists.
Day 28. – Tin Hanakaten
In the morning we drove straight to the large double shelter of Tin Hanakaten. Ginette Aumassip conducted the only excavations with a reasonably well documented stratigraphy anywhere in the Tassili in the nineteen seventies. For some unfathomable reason (probably she was not interested) the extensive rock art found in both shelters is hardly mentioned in the reports, with only a few rather poorly presented photographs. Until recently I have completely missed the half-sentence referring to a lion hunt in the large shelter, and was completely surprised to find a beautiful Iheren style lion hunt scene right above the main excavation trench, one of the finest such scenes in existence, bearing a remarkable resemblance to the similar scene at Tin Aressou (subsequently I learned that Michel Tauveron presented this scene in 2003 in a very obscure publication). Inexplicably we have completely missed this scene during our November 2018 visit. On the right wall I also found a scene depicting a tree with objects and utensils hanging from it, another detail I missed the previous time.
In the adjacent smaller shelter with the depiction of the horse-drawn chariot I found a very nice giraffe, which was also missed on the previous visit.
Aumassip mentioned in passing that there are other shelters with paintings in the immediate vicinity (aside the spectacular "Abri du Taureau"), but left no further clues. We spent some time walking around both the inselberg of the double shelter and the adjacent one, but other than a spectacular natural arch we found nothing more of interest.
On the far side of the main valley, in a small lateral inlet satellite imagery revealed another enclosure, the likely location for a shelter. Walking there, this indeed was the case, and in it we found some fairly nice cattle paintings, no doubt one of the shelters referred to by Aumassip.
There were several more likely spots identified on Google Earth in the zone to the east of the main shelter of Tin Hanakaten. With a deep valley cutting the hills, this required a fairly large detour with the cars. The first site was just three kilometres away, but it required more than ten kilometres of driving along rather bad bumpy terrain to reach the end of the drivable way. We had lunch in the meager shade of a few small trees in the valley, then set out to explore, but only found another natural arch over a watercourse at the expected location, no rock art. A cursory search of some accessible nearby shelters also yielded nothing of interest.
We moved another couple of kilometres east, towards a very prominent enclosure located downstream in a deepening valley leading down to the plain below the plateau. We drove as far as we could and made camp in the upper reaches of the valley, and set out on foot towards our target. Not far, we passed a huge natural arch alongside the riverbed, the finest yet to be seen.
At the marked spot we found a huge shelter with a very prominent semicircular wall in front of it, and inside there were numerous paintings of cattle and human figures. Certainly this was our finest find, though there was no information on whether this shelter was known before or not. There were car tracks in the valley by the arch, so at least that is known and visited, it is rather unlikely that nobody saw the nearby shelter (possibly this too is included among Aumassip's "other" sites, it is reasonably close to the Tin Hanakaten shelter).
Exploring a little further downstream along the oued, we found another small shelter with paintings at the base of the cliff high above the valley floor.
By the time we walked back to camp it was approaching sunset, with deep shadows over the arch behind camp. For this last evening in the desert the sunset put up a truly spectacular show, with the last rays of the sun reflecting from thin high altitude clouds.
Day 29. – Tin Hanakaten - Djanet
We spent the first part of the morning checking out a few more shelters and potential sites without finding anything. Then, leaving the best to the last, we paid a visit to the spectacular "Abri du Taureau" (shelter of the bull), which shows an unique (save for the scene at Tin Akaham) scene of a procession of women and a group of male figures surrounding a bull, likely an aurochs. Here too there is a prominent double enclosure in front of the shelter.
Not being in a particular hurry as we wanted to reach Djanet by the late afternoon to have the famous "crying cows" in the best possible light, we spent some time to the north of Tin Akaham checking out shelters (where the resolution of Google Earth is not yet good enough to pinpoint any sites), but found nothing. We continued back towards the road, stopping for lunch under a fine large acacia.
Shortly after reaching the road we made another stop at the basalt outcrop of Tanaout, with the blocks covered with engravings. This is the first time I saw them in afternoon light, which revealed several details which I did not spot before.
Our one month long trip (the longest continuous expedition we ever made to date) ended at the usual spot, at the "crying cows" of Terarart near Djanet airport, this time perfectly illuminated by the low late afternoon sun.
We reached the Essendilene premises around sunset, with the opportunity for a warm shower and some sleep before the early morning flight back to Algiers, then everyone on to their final destination the following morning.
We plan to return to the Tassili n'Ajjer again in October 2021, if possible for a trek to visit to the classic Lhote sites on the plateau above Djanet, combined with a visit to the Algerian Tadrart and the central part of the Tassili, with an exact itinerary to be decided as departure time draws closer Please check the News page periodically or "like" the FJ Expeditions FaceBook page to receive notices of news and updates.