[5] According to the stories told in the region, Tin Hinan was a "fugitive princess" who lived some time in the fourth century AD.

Driven from the northern parts of the Sahara, she and her caravan of followers, so the stories go, nearly perished in the wilderness until they stumbled upon grain in desert anthills.

By the early twentieth century, the story of Tin Hinan had long been told, and many believed that it was simply a legend or a myth.

The tomb of Tin Hinan was opened by Byron Khun de Prorok with support from the French army in 1925, and archaeologists made a more thorough investigation in 1933.

It was found to contain the skeleton of a woman (probably buried in the fourth century AD) on a wooden litter, lying on her back with her head facing east.