Rock Art History: Paintings By Tassili N'ajjer, Algeria

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Rock Art: Paintings by Tassili n’Ajjer, Algeria
Tassili-n-Ajjer in Algeria is one of the richest rock-art in the world. The composition of this Park goes beyond the scopes of natural heritage diversities as one of the world heritage site dated in 1982 categorized as a protected area. It composes of biological diversity, archaeological importance, and geological formation and most importantly to this essay, the prehistoric rock art. Tassili-n-Ajjer National Park is located in the southeast of Algeria and borders other national parks such as the Ahaggar to the south of the Algerian map (Anderson, Helen, 287).
The topographical nature of Tassili-n-Ajjer is largely vast and sandstone tableland that depicts the nature of the Sahara desert standing in the controversial contract of life and the semi-arid desert it has become. The park hosts over 15,000 rock paintings and engravings in the gorges. The arts in the rocks comprise of pictures of wild and domestic animals, humans, geometric designs, and plants and tree. Additionally, large animals such as the giraffes, ostriches, lions are very evident in the Tassili-n-Ajjer Rock art (Dumont, Henri, pp. 4).
Categories of rock arts
The categorization of the Tassili-n-Ajjer rock arts differs from one researcher to another because there are no clear guidelines on various mechanisms of categorizing the art rocks (Froese, Gastón Guzmán, and Guzmán-Dávalos, pp. 107). However, the essay gives an elaborate chronological categorization based on dates the rocks were first obtained through the chronology adopted remains a subject to future amendments.
Large wild Fauna period
These arts comprised of the entire engravings occurring along a 30 Km and dated during 12,000BP – c 6000B. They cover much of the Sahara regions. The images on the rocks represent large animals that indicate naturalistically the animals that lived in fertile parts the Sahara region. Examples include Elephants, rhino, giraffe, Bubalus, aurochs, large antelopes, and few geometric designs.
Round figure arts
These categories consist of paintings in its entirety. They expose the oldest paintings in Africa. For instances, one human figure stands over five meters and another in three and a half. It explores the finest paintings in the Tassili-n-Ajjer that is located the east of Djanet. Evidently, these round paintings try to portray strange people with round features heads and formless bodies.
Pastoral period art
This category comprises both paintings and engravings that started in isolated areas and then spread rapidly through the Sahara desert during 9,500 BP - c 7,000 BP. Socially, these categories of arts depict different pictures to the ethereal world of round heads where humans became largely dependent on animal’s domestication for survival. The pastoral arts are evidently shown through pictures of herders and men hunting with bows. Additionally, the pastoral scenes of camp life with women and children goats and dogs are also an indicator of the pastoral art.
Horse period
These categories introduce the importance of men in the war by giving illustrations of horse paintings and horse-drawn ...