Rock engravings of Oued Djerat

After having raised the paintings of Tassili in 1956–1957, Henri Lhote, encouraged by the General de Gaulle and several ministers,[3] undertakes in 1959, at the head of a team of five people to which several Tuareg collaborators are added, to make an inventory of the engravings of Oued Djerat (which he will see again in 1969 and 1970).

The research carried out at the foot of the engravings gave no clues as to the polishing process and the tools used, which, given the diversity of the widths and depths of the gutters, must not have been of a single type.

In sixteen cases the diocular formula (eyes placed one above the other) is used, as in certain engravings of the South Oranese: one can suppose according to the author that they reflect "what there is of more ancient in Djerat".

[9] The varieties of styles that remain difficult to place in chronological order "seem to correspond to a very long duration of the bubaline period during which changes in lifestyle must have occurred," writes Lhote.

Most of them feature bovids with stenciled outlines, of a lower quality than the previous works, but also some giraffes, elephants, ostriches, and rare rhinoceroses.

"The bovid engravers seem to have made only brief intrusions into Wadi Djerat, whose torrential nature was not conducive to the stay of cattle," concludes the author.

[13] The Caballine populations, who frequented the region much more than the cattle herders, left more traces of their passage, at least 420 engravings (as well as paintings) of small dimensions.

The second, particular to the Djerat wadi, would be composed of slender human figurations, mainly masculine ithyphallic, with a European profile, wearing feathers and a pointed beard.

Made by direct percussion, without the use of an intermediate tool, their contours are very irregular and the subjects (characters, camels, ostriches, horses, oxen) are small.

According to Lhote "the interest of the rock paintings of Wadi Djerat lies especially in the engravings of the period of the Bubal (...) both by their quantity and their quality and the problems they raise".

If some of them appear unfinished or in their "failed" malformations, testifying to the existence of poorly skilled engravers, others, true figurations of imaginary beasts with a composite structure, seem to be pure fantasy.

The natural profiles, of men and women, with medium and pointed noses, thin lips and slightly protruding chins, are for 24 of them, clearly europoid.

The Caballine period also presents numerous ithyphallic figures (notably at stations IV, VI, VII, XIII, XVIII, XXXIV, XXXIX).

At station VIII (Ahana Rock), a bell-shaped head (about 70 cm high) is surmounted by a bun, tight at the base, from which a sort of tuft in the form of two small opposing horns emerges.

"These relationships, unnatural in our eyes, could they not evoke certain myths in honor among African populations where animals play an essential role in the history of the creation of the world?

And the human-animal relationships would not be at the origin of the most beautiful legends, illustrated today by the use of masks in non-Islamic black societies living south of the Sahara?".

Five figurations show, contrary to what the first authors of the classifications thought, that the men of this period used the bow (stations XX, XXVII, XXXII), just like in the South Oranese or Fezzan.

The position of the hunters' arms shows that they used a short bow, of the simple type, holding it in front of their bodies, without using the eye to aim.

The hunting scenes (ostrich, rhinoceros, sheep or gazelle) show that this activity remained essential for the populations of Oued Djerat.

Although the ancient Neolithic populations of the central Sahara, in all likelihood, did not know agriculture per se, it is permissible, according to the author, to assume, from engravings located in other stations, that the harvesting of wild grasses was one of their activities.

For Henri Lhote, the documents concerning the Bubaline period, in the South Oranese, Oued Djerat and Fezzan, are the oldest of the cave art of North Africa and the Sahara.

The human representations show in both regions an identity for the zoomorphic heads, the same presence of sexual scenes, an analogy in the posture of women with spread legs.

[27] Comparing according to the same criteria the bubaline engravings of Oued Djerat and those of the South Oranese, the author reaches the same conclusions, the absence of the hippopotamus and the giraffe among the figurations of the Saharan Atlas being able to be explained by hydrographic and geographical causes.

In the decadent phase it is male crouching figures that we meet in the South Oranese, in Oued Djerat or Fezzan it is women, while in Constantinois both sexes are represented in this posture.

In the South Oranese, the lithic industry deposit of the "Méandre", near Brezina, has been dated to 3900 years B.C., without it being possible to relate it to one of the categories of engravings on the wall, some of which are certainly more recent, while others may be older.

[29] Raymond Vaufrey had issued in 1955 the hypothesis that the bubaline engravings of Tassili, South Oranese and Fezzan were related to the Neolithic of Capsian tradition whose origin is located in the region of Tebessa-Gafsa.

[29] At Safiet Bou Rhénane, in the Djelfa region, the dates obtained are 5020 and 5270 years B.C., for an industry that does not correspond to the Neolithic of the Capsian tradition but to a Mediterranean facies.