Ancient site · Rock art
Tassili n'Ajjer rock art
A sandstone plateau in the Algerian Sahara holding thousands of rock paintings and engravings made over many millennia, when the Sahara was greener. The styles are grouped in a sequence: early wild animals, the 'Round Head' figures, scenes of cattle herders, and later pictures of horses, chariots and camels.
Together they show how life changed as the Sahara dried out. The site is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and national park.
- Dates
- c. 10,000 BCE (debated) to the early centuries CE
- Still standing
- Yes
- UNESCO World Heritage
- Yes
- Location
- 25.50° N, 9.00° E
How we know
The paintings are real, but they are very hard to date and scholars disagree by thousands of years about how old the earliest styles are.
Nearby sites
- Gobero c. 7700–6200 and 5200–2500 BCE
- Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum c. 4000–2500 BCE
- Carthage founded c. 814 BCE (traditional date); destroyed 146 BCE; Roman city to 698 CE
- Ġgantija temples c. 3600–2500 BCE
- Su Nuraxi di Barumini tower 17th–13th century BCE; village to the 6th century BCE
- El Argar c. 2200–1500 BCE