The Tassili Cultural Park, a treasure trove of ancient art, remains one of the world’s best-kept secrets.
Although it is the largest national park in Africa, few tourists know of the existence of Tassili Cultural Park. Located in southeastern Algeria, the latter shelters the remains of a vast plateau mainly composed of Precambrian sandstone, and extends over 72,000 square kilometers in the central Sahara, on the border of Libya and Niger .
The region is a geological wonder rich in strange rock formations bordered by orange dunes. The eternity of erosion that this site has experienced has sharpened its sandstone into majestic peaks, carved openings through its high escarpments, and sculpted its outcrops into surreal and zoomorphic shapes. The park alone is said to contain more than 300 natural arches.
However, these expanses of rock only represent a small part of the history of this space. Indeed, the majesty of Tassili does not reside only in the visual splendor of its natural heritage but also in the traces that past generations have left in their wake.
A Prehistoric Art Museum
Tadrart Rouge is accessible thanks to 4×4 tours departing from the oasis town of Djanet, located a 2.5-hour flight from Algiers. It is one of the most beautiful regions of Tassili.
Since the guides who lead the excursions (who are always members of the nomadic Tuareg tribe) know the best places to stop, visitors often have the chance to discover the ancient engravings and paintings that decorate the rocks of the cultural park.
French archaeologist Henri Lhote, known for having documented much of Tassili’s 15,000 rock art works in the 1950s, work since seen as looting and degradation of the site in the context of the colonization of the Algeria, described the region as “the largest museum of prehistoric art in the world”.
These open-air galleries constitute an ethnological testimony to the passage of the numerous peoples who came to settle in the region over the millennia. Surprisingly, many of the largest and most successful petroglyphs depict large mammals more commonly associated with sub-Saharan Africa, such as elephants, giraffes, rhinos, and hippos, attesting to the green landscapes that the Tassili had at the time of their creation.
The Era Of The “Green Sahara”
The extent of this erosion, particularly in the deep ravines in the north of the region, indicates that watercourses once flowed through what became the arid Tassili wilderness.
According to paleoclimatologists, between 11.7 and 5.5 thousand years ago, changes in the Earth’s inclination and orbit relative to the Sun caused warming in the northern hemisphere. During this “African wet period,” summer monsoons, which were longer and more intense, filled geological basins with lakes and wetlands. Large rivers thus linked the Atlantic to the Mediterranean coast of the Maghreb, and large mammals roamed these immense meadows.
The Art Of Change
The rock art of Tassili bears witness to the climatic changes that followed, and as the region’s weather conditions changed over the millennia, human society also continued its own evolution.
Several overhangs feature detailed naturalistic illustrations of piebald (or bicolor) cattle, recalling the transition from hunting and gathering to mobile pastoralism. Most of the works that survive from this so-called “Bovidian” period are painted with carmine, a color obtained by mixing crushed stones and cow’s blood.
One exception, however, is among the region’s most famous works of art. On an isolated outcrop, near the road that today connects Djanet to the Libyan border, is a rock carving carved by a master craftsman, known as the Weeping Cow. The heads of the cows depicted are turned towards the viewer, and a large tear flows under one of the eyes of each of them.
Although this work has given rise to numerous interpretations, local legend has it that the herd represents the concern of breeders in the face of the drying up of rains and the decline of the Sahelian vegetation, which, for millennia, had allowed large mammals to prosper. In the region.
The crying cows constitute an ancient foretaste of the arid present that the Sahara now knows. This era of fertility having been replaced by an era of dust, the elegant glyphs subsequently gave way to camel scribbles, attesting to the passage of populations who now lived on the move.
In recent decades, instability in the region, notably in the form of civil conflicts in Libya and Niger, has prohibited access to much of the cultural park. Due to its immensity, the expanse of wilderness is beyond the reach of Algerian military patrols.
Although the Tadrart Rouge constitutes its own world in the middle of Algeria, a significant part of the rock art of Tassili and the astonishing landscapes that once sheltered it have disappeared over the millennia.
What There Is To Know
Tours organized in Tassili generally last between 5 and 7 days. Tuareg guides pick up visitors directly from Djanet airport, then take the road to Tadrart Rouge.
The teams are made up of a guide, a driver and a cook, and are equipped with camping equipment, food and water. The 7-day tour organized by Fancy Yellow costs around 700 euros per person, including domestic flights.
If you have more time, take the opportunity to combine your trip to Tassili with a visit to the other great wonder of the Algerian Sahara: the Ahaggar cultural park. The extraordinary volcanic reliefs that it shelters are accessible from the town of Tamanrasset, which is a 45-minute flight west of Djanet.
Mark