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Tassili N'Ajjer, Algeria 8th - 20th March, 2026 There is no published catalogue and accepted nomenclature of the Tassili sites, the provided site numbers are for convenience only, developed by myself utilising the topographical names used by the Lhote missions and others to be able to reference individual shelters. False colour images processed with DStretch, a software developed by Jon Harman

The artists of the four Lhote missions of 1956/57, 1959, 1960 and 1962 produced about 1000 hand-painted copies of the paintings in the shelters of the Tassili n'Ajjer plateau above Djanet. While most of the best known ones (the ones published in Lhote's book) are on the regular tourist circuits, a good half of them remained virtually unknown, lying rolled and inaccessible in the magazines of the Musée de l'Homme in Paris for over 50 years. Finally in the early 2010s, with the reorganisation and refurbishment of the museum the "relevés" were recovered and digitised, and made publicly available on the MNHN website (unfortunately now inaccessible after a major hacker attack). Reviewing the copies, about three quaters could be matched to photos taken in the field at known shelters, and some more were located in the following years. One of the most important objective for this trip was to locate as many as possible of the still missing Lhote relevés in the Tamrit - Timenzouzine - Tin Tazarift - Sefar areas, plus to visit the Adaba and In Kaokan regions, neither of which were visited by Lhote. They were shown to Annie Mouchet and Bernard Fouilleux by their guide Moussa Mechar in 2009-10, and remain mostly unknown to guides and specialists to this date. Our trip was an unexpected success, of the 221 relevés missing before the start of the trip we successfully located 49, and have found numerous previously undocumented sites, some right next to the most visited and well known shelters.

Day 0. – Algiers - Djanet

Arriving via Frankfurt and Istanbul we met up at Terminal 2 of Algiers airport in the late afternoon. It was Ramadan, things were very quiet with people sitting about in the hall patiently waiting for Iftar. Our flight to Djanet was on time at 10pm, we arrived soon after midnight and proceeded straight to the Essendilene house for a shortened night's sleep.

Day 1. – Djanet - camp at foot of plateau

We had a lazy day to recover a bit of after the flights. Mid-morning I went to shop for supplies at the local market, it was a quick affair as we were a small group going for a reatively short time, did not need much. After sorting and packing our supplies and some more doing nothing in the afternoon we drove to the foot of the Tafilalet pass. Our donkeys and crew were already there, busy with their own preparations, after making camp we had a nice quiet evening before the ascent.

Day 2. – Akba Tafilalet - Tamrit

We were up at daybreak, after packing and a quick breakfast we sarted in oder to make as much as possible of the ascent in the shade. On this day haste was not warranted however, thick leaden clouds covered the sky. It was an eerie feeling to make the first step of the pass in gloomy dark weather, exactly the kind we were hoping to leave behind. The lack of sun was very welcome, we made the first step in under an hour without any need to stop, something never achieved with other groups in recent memory.

All in our party were reasonably fit, we made the ascent of the Tafilalet in little over three hours. This time we did not take the way of the donkeys, but took the steep left side which is more difficult but cuts a good two kilometres from the journey. As we were in the middle of the last step, scrambling over the large rocks, rain started to fall in big drops, not much but enough to make the hand and footholds uncomfortably slippery.

To be continued...

Fllowing up on the success of this trip, we plan to return to the Adjefou - Ozaneare - Jabbaren areas of the Tassili n'Ajjer again in October 2026, and to the nothern regions in March 2027, to spend more time looking for remaining "lost" sites. Please check the News page periodically or "like" the FJ Expeditions FaceBook page to receive notices of news and updates.