Home Click here to download the Media Kit
Reference: Français Español Deutsch    Online: عربي English
Country Profiles:
Afghanistan
Albania
Algeria
Azerbaijan
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Benin
Brunei
Burkina
Cameroon
Chad
Comoros
Cote d’Ivoire
Djibouti
Egypt
Emirates
Gabon
Gambia
Guinea
Guinea Bissau
Guyana
Indonesia
Iran
Iraq
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Kuwait
Kyrgyzstan
Lebanon
Libya
Malaysia
Maldives
Mali
Mauritania
Morocco
Mozambique
Niger
Nigeria
Oman
Pakistan
Palestine
Qatar
Saudi Arabia
Senegal
Sierra Leone
Somalia
Sudan
Suriname
Syria
Tajikistan
Togo
Tunisia
Turkey
Turkmenistan
Uganda
Uzbekistan
Yemen
Andorra
Angola
Antigua
Argentina
Armenia
Australia
Austria
Bahamas
Barbados
Belarus
Belgium
Belize
Bhutan
Bolivia
Bosnia
Botswana
Brazil
Bulgaria
Burundi
Cambodia
Canada
Cape Verde
Central Africa
Chile
China
Colombia
Congo
Congo Democ.
Costa Rica
Croatia
Cuba
Cyprus
Czech
Denmark
Dominica
Dominican Rep.
Ecuador
El Salvador
Eq. Guinea
Eritrea
Estonia
Ethiopia
Fiji
Finland
France
Georgia
Germany
Greece
Grenada
Guatemala
Haiti
Honduras
Hungary
Iceland
India
Ireland
Italy
Jamaica
Japan
Kenya
Kiribati
Laos
Latvia
Lesotho
Liberia
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Macedonia
Madagascar
Malawi
Malta
Marshall
Mauritius
Mexico
Micronesia
Moldova
Monaco
Mongolia
Myanmar
Namibia
Nauru
Nepal
Netherlands
New Guinea
New Zealand
Nicaragua
North Korea
Norway
Palau
Panama
Paraguay
Peru
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia
Rwanda
Saint Kitts
Saint Lucia
Saint Vincent
Samoa
San Marino
Sao Tome
Serbia & Mon.
Seychelles
Singapore
Slovakia
Slovenia
Solomon
South Africa
South Korea
Spain
Sri Lanka
Swaziland
Sweden
Switzerland
Tanzania
Thailand
Timor-Leste
Tonga
Trinidad
Tuvalu
Taiwan
Ukraine
UK
Uruguay
USA
Vanuatu
Vatican
Venezuela
Viet Nam
Zambia
Zimbabwe
Ghana

Libyan Rock Art: Few Studies Of Abundant Drawings


 

 

Islamic Tourism.   New drawings are being discovered from the Nile Valley to the east of the Western Sahara but little work has been done on the theoretical framework of this art form Dr  Tertia  Barnett of the University of Edinburgh told the London-based Society for Libyan.

 

In a lecture on 8,000 years of rock art in Libya, Dr Barnett said that Libyan rock art rivals that of France and Spain.  There are thousands of rock drawings in the Akakus mountains showing the phases in the development of this art form. The earliest drawings depict hunter gatherers. They are followed by  the  round head style which depicts humans and animals.  Then comes the pastoral  phase of depicting animals, 4,000 millenia BP. 3500 years BP the subject matter changed to riders and chariots indicative of the transition from pastoralism  to  farming. The camel phase is the most recent phase showing the domestication of animals 1500 to 2,000 years ago.

 

Rock art was produced in times of stress, internal change in society or climatic changes.

 

Several hundred engravings have been identified in Wadi al-Ajal, in the Fezzan region of south-west Libya. This rich concentration of rock-art spans the phase from at least 7 000 years ago until the present - a critical period of time which encompasses major transitions in human economy, culture and ideology from hunting and gathering to pastoralism, then to agriculture and more recently to industrialisation. The rock-art provides fascinating evidence of how human groups were living during this period, what their relationships with their environment were and what they considered of importance and value.

Because rock-art is deliberately placed at specific locations in the landscape, a powerful relationship can often exist between rock-art sites and natural landscape features.

Extensive paintings and engravings of wild animals, domesticated cattle, sheep and goats, humans and abstract symbols are found in many areas of the Sahara. These images give a fascinating insight into a lost world that is geographically and archaeologically unexpected. They are found in remote, inhospitable regions of the desert so arid that any form of sustained human or animal existence is untenable today. They document prehistoric cultures that apparently thrived in these regions, hunting wild animals and herding domesticated cattle, that have subsequently vanished leaving little trace of their presence or of the richness of their cultures.

The rock-art  was created during at least the past 7,000 years against a backdrop of climatic instability and dramatic oscillations in rainfall and vegetation cover. Profound changes in the climate in North Africa over the last 12,000 years have had a massive impact on the environment and, consequently, on human occupation and subsistence. In particular, two 'wet' phases with increased rainfall and surface water enabled vegetation, animals and humans to flourish deep in the desert of today. These wet phases have been dated between about 12,000-8,000 years ago and 7,000-5 000

years ago.

Periods of increased aridity, one punctuating these two wet phases and the other beginning around 5,000 years ago and becoming more pronounced towards the present, produced an expansion of desert conditions and the abandonment of immense areas of the Sahara

The earliest rock-art, much of which represents large wild animals such as elephant, giraffe, rhinoceros and a species of buffalo that is now extinct, is believed to have been created by hunter-gatherers more than 7,000 years ago and possibly as early as 10,000 BP (before present).

 Domesticated cattle are thought to have been widespread across the Sahara by 6,000-7,000 BP, but were possibly present earlier in certain areas, and representations of them are thought to date to this time.

Subsequent styles of rock-art document the introduction of domesticated sheep and goats, horses and chariots (from around 3,000 BP), and camels (from around 2,000-2,500 BP).

More recently, inscriptions in the Tuareg script, tifinagh, have been engraved at many rock-art sites. Distinct regional differences in the rock-art styles across the Sahara may indicate regional cultural differences.

Back to main page
Swiss Airline: Libya Grounds Flight To Tripoli
Swiss Airline: Libya Grounds Flight To Tripoli

Libyan officials said the weekly flight was grounded for 'technical reasons'. (21/01/2009)

Showing 1 news articles
Back To Top

Libya

The news that published in Islamic Tourism Trade Media

    Show year 2009 (1)
    Show year 2008 (10)
    Show year 2007 (17)
    Show year 2006 (17)
    Show year 2005 (24)
    Show year 2004 (16)
    Show year 2003 (2)
    Show all (87)

The articles which appeared in Islamic Tourism magazine

Interiew: Tremendous potential for the development of Libyan tourism

  Issue 72

Benghazi: Venice of North Africa

  Issue 69

Code to ensure preservation of Tripoli’s old city

  Issue 68

Libya’s Green Mountain Project
Ambitious Plan for a sustainable future
  Issue 67

Tripoli and Benghazi: A New Future for the Past

  Issue 66

Libya's heritags under threat

  Issue 48

Libya
Optimism about the future of tourism
  Issue 11

Libya:
A Non-Western Syle Tourism
  Issue 10

World Travel Market
Libya polishes image and Central Asian Republics are optimistic
  Issue 9




Select Country News
Country:

Founded by Mr. A.S.Shakiry on 2011     -     Published by TCPH, London - U.K
TCPH Ltd
Islamic Tourism
Unit 2B, 2nd Floor
289 Cricklewood Broadway
London NW2 6NX, UK
ÇáÚæÏÉ Åáì ÇáÃÚáì
Copyright © A S Shakiry and TCPH Ltd.
Tel: +44 (0) 20 8452 5244
Fax: +44 (0) 20 8452 5388
post@islamictourism.com