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Laas Geel and Somali rock art: the first herders' paintings, about 5,000 years old
Laas Geel, a granite outcrop near the Hargeisa–Berbera road, holds around ten rock shelters painted with decorated cows, people with raised arms, dogs and a giraffe. A French team recorded it in December 2002 and attributes the paintings to the period of early cattle herding in the Horn, usually dated to the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC. More than 70 rock art sites have been reported across the north, including Dhambalin, Karin Heegan, Dhagah Kure and Dhagah Nabi Gallay, and they hold the earliest pictures of herding in the Somali lands.
In short
The oldest pictures made by people in the Somali lands are painted and carved on rocks in the northern highlands. They show cattle, sheep, goats, dogs and wild animals, often with people beside them. Archaeologists read them as the art of the first herders of the Horn of Africa.
The best known site is Laas Geel near Hargeisa. Sada Mire, the first head of Somaliland's Department of Archaeology, wrote in 2015 that over 70 rock art sites had been reported to the department, and mapped about 30 of them (Mire 2015, "Mapping the Archaeology of Somaliland", African Archaeological Review 32).
Laas Geel: how it was recorded
A French team led by Xavier Gutherz of the University of Montpellier was surveying for rock shelters with buried layers from the time "when production economy appeared in this part of the Horn of Africa (circa 5th and 2nd millennia B.C.)". On 4 December 2002, on the way back to Hargeisa, "we were informed of the site by an inhabitant of Daarbudhuq, a small village on the national road between Hargeisa and Berbera; he then proceeded to take us there" (Gutherz, Cros and Lesur, Journal of African Archaeology 1(2), 2003, pp. 227–228).
The team thanks Osman Ali Bile, then Somaliland's Minister of Culture and Tourism, and Mohamed Omar Ismaël and Mohamed Abdi Ali "for their precious help in the field" (same source, p. 228, note 4). People living nearby had known the paintings long before 2002.
The name. The authors write that the rock stands where two wadis meet, with seasonal pools and a water table close to the surface, and that "the Somali name means: 'The dromedaries' waterhole'". They kept the spelling Las Geel on the advice of their Somali guides (same source, p. 228).
What the paintings show
- Where. The granite massif lies 4 km west of the road from Hargeisa to Berbera. It has about 20 small shelters. The paintings are only on the eastern side, in about ten shelters on three levels. The largest are about 5 m deep and 10 m wide (Gutherz et al. 2003, p. 228).
- Colours. "In order of frequency, red ochre, white, yellow ochre and, more seldom, black." Most figures are polychrome (same source).
- Cows. The cattle "are cows with the udder and the four teats clearly drawn". They are "all humpless cows", with long horns, mostly claw-shaped or lyre-shaped, often white with reddish-brown tips. Their necks carry a painted panel that the authors call a "plastron", which "could represent a piece of fabric or leather resting on the neck of the animals during special ceremonies" (same source, pp. 228, 234).
- People. "Stocky human figures with spindle-shape legs and raised arms" stand beside the cows (same source, abstract).
- Other animals. Dogs or other canids beside the people, "a single giraffe and some antelopes" (same source, abstract).
- Layers. In places one painting covers an older one, which the authors take as a sign that the site was painted more than once (same source, p. 234).
The authors call Laas Geel, for "the abundance of its paintings, their quality, the originality of the type of representation of bovines and human figures", one of "the major Holocene sites of rock art in this region of Africa" (same source, abstract).
How old are the paintings?
- The regional style. The Laas Geel paintings belong to "a pan-regional style that is usually dated from the IIIrd and IInd millennia BC, the period of the outbreak and development of cattle breeding in the Horn of Africa" (Gutherz et al. 2003, p. 234).
- The excavated shelter. Sada Mire notes that the dating rests on "small fragments of pigment found in layers believed to date to 3500–2500 BCE" in Shelter 7, the only excavated shelter, where no pottery at all was found (Mire 2015).
- Older stone tools. The deeper layers of Shelter 7 held stone tools with Middle Stone Age traits, including the Levallois technique, mixed with Late Stone Age blades. This matches an industry first named the "Hargeisan" by the archaeologist J. Desmond Clark in 1954, from the end of the last Ice Age (Gutherz et al., "The Hargeisan revisited", Quaternary International 343, 2014).
- No pottery. The 2003 team found no pottery at Laas Geel or at other dwelling sites they saw. "If we give a Neolithic or Protohistoric age, we must admit that these pastoral groups lived in the area without using pottery" (Gutherz et al. 2003, p. 234).
Other rock art sites
- Karin Heegan (Karinhegane). Studied by Steven Brandt and Nanny Carder in the 1980s. It has painted cows with the same decorated neck as Laas Geel. Brandt dated charcoal from a test pit at its entrance to 1600 and 2100 years before present, which Gutherz's team thinks may date a later occupation rather than the paintings (Brandt and Carder, "Pastoral rock art in the Horn of Africa", World Archaeology 19, 1987; Gutherz et al. 2003, p. 234).
- Dhambalin, Saaxil. A sandstone rock shelter in the Saaxil region, recorded by Sada Mire in 2007. Mire calls it "the first and only site in Somali territory that depicts sheep and goats unambiguously". It shows hunters with bows and dogs, giraffes, antelopes and decorated sheep, goats and cattle (Mire, "The Discovery of Dhambalin Rock Art Site, Somaliland", African Archaeological Review 25, 2008; Mire 2015).
- Dhagah Kure and Dhagah Nabi Gallay. Two more sites with cattle paintings in the same style. Both also carry Sabaean and Himyarite writing from South Arabia, which in places appears to have been added on top of the paintings later (Mire 2015).
- Haadh and Jilib Rihin, Togdheer. Cattle paintings in the Laas Geel style, recorded by Mire in 2007 (Mire 2015).
- Dhagah Maroodi. A petroglyph site, where the cattle are carved into the rock rather than painted. Mire calls it "unique" for this reason (Mire 2015).
- Sabeeno Furte, near Ceerigaabo, Sanaag. Pecked figures 4 to 5 m up a smoothed cliff above a spring, showing mounted horses, standing men, and camels carrying loads "caravan style" (Mire 2015). A similar cave, God Hardhane near Ceel Afweyn, was described by I. M. Lewis in 1958 (cited in Mire 2015).
- Dacawale, Dhaymoole. Paintings that Mire describes as "what appear to be lunar calendars, depicting a 28-day calendar, and crescents and full moons", with geometric designs and animals (Mire 2015).
What the rock art tells us
Mire writes that the rock art indicates that between the third and second millennia BCE, "herding humpless cows… sheep and goats… as well as hunting antelopes, giraffes and other wild animals, was the basis for the subsistence economy". The hunting scenes "suggest a mixed economy and much greener environment than the region offers today". Most sites lie in an east–west belt of granite and limestone shelters across the middle of Somaliland (Mire 2015).
Threats
Mire lists wind and rain erosion, wasps' nests, baboons that damage the walls, graffiti, deliberate vandalism, the use of painted rocks as building stone, and above all looting and the illegal antiquities trade (Mire 2015).
Related pages
Sources
- Mire 2015, "Mapping the Archaeology of Somaliland", African Archaeological Review 32 · link.springer.com
- Gutherz, Cros and Lesur, Journal of African Archaeology 1(2), 2003, pp. 227–228 · hal.science
- Gutherz et al., "The Hargeisan revisited", Quaternary International 343, 2014 · doi.org
- Brandt and Carder, "Pastoral rock art in the Horn of Africa", World Archaeology 19, 1987 · doi.org
- Mire, "The Discovery of Dhambalin Rock Art Site, Somaliland", African Archaeological Review 25, 2008 · doi.org
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