Rock Art of The Djelfa Region - Localities and Descriptions

Localities and Descriptions

Some of the engravings of the Djelfa region seem to have been known since the 1850s (El Idrissia). Among the best-known, those of Zaccar were discovered in 1907, and Flamand described in 1914 the station of Daïet es Stel. In the mid-1960s the active Djelfa Council of Initiatives undertook to record engravings and paintings, and Father F. de Villaret, who accompanied the visitors, thus made known works from some twenty new stations, notably those of Oued el Hesbaïa and Aïn Naga. In total more than 1,162 engravings have been discovered in the region.

Henri Lhote referred to these engravings in his major work, Les Gravures rupestres du Sud-oranais, which he published in 1970 in the series of the Mémoires du Centre de recherches anthropologiques préhistoriques et ethnographiques (CRAPE). For him they could not "be separated archaeologically from those of south Oran, because they show with some variations the same style, the same technical formulae, the same patinations and the same fauna"(p. 194). It may therefore be possible to analyse them making use of the hypotheses and the classification which he developed. The engravings of the Djelfa region appeared to him like "foreign works, which are a copying (always of inferior quality) from those of south Oran", (p. 193), a region which for the author was "the principal centre of the rock art of the pre-Saharan regions." Some belong to the earliest stage of the large-scale Hartebeest school, like "The Apollo of Ouled Naïl", others are more recent or indeed (stylistically) more decadent.

Regretting "the misreading of the importance of the south Algerian rock art" in the work of Lhote, P. Huard and L. Allard published in 1976 in Lybica (CRAPE, Algiers) an important study on Les figurations rupestres de la région de Djelfa, Sud Algérois. The authors therein recorded forty-three numbered sites or stations which are with some exceptions located near the interior or at the edges of a triangle formed on the north by the town of Djelfa, on the south-west by the village of Sidi Makhlouf and on the south-east by the town of Messaad.

• The region of Djelfa on Wikimapia.

Around the road from Djelfa to Laghouat (just south of Sidi Makhlouf) twenty-three stations are shown: no 28 (Zaccar), 38 (Ishak), 39 (Oued el Youhi), 40 (Guelt el Bidha), 30 (Hadjra Sidi Boubakeur), 31 (Sreissir), 32 (Ben Hallouane), 27 (El Gour), 26 (Ben Hadid), 25 (Kheneg Hilal), 24 (Theniet bou Mediouna II), 23 (Theniet bou Mediouna I), 22 (Theniet el Mzab), 21 (Daïet Geklil), 16 (Oued Mergueb), 20 (Djebel Doum), 19 (Safiet el Baroud), 18 (Morhoma), 33 (Oued Remeila), 34 (Rocher des Pigeons "Pigeon Rock"), 41 (Oued Cheguieg), 17 (Oued el Hesbaïa), 42 (Ntsila). Three stations are in addition mentioned to the east of Djelfa: no 1 (Feidjet Elleben), 2 (Sidi Abdallah ben Ahmed), 3 (Argoub Ezzemla). Three other sites are found to the west: n° 37 (Chouchet Esnober), 36 (Koreiker), 35 (El Idrissia).

Around the road from Djelfa to Messaad (by Moudjbara) twelve stations follow roughly from north to south: no 29 (Saouiet), 4 (Aïn Mouilha), 5 (Daïet es Stel), 6 (Hadjra Mokhotma north), 7 (Hadjara Mokhotma south), 10 (Safiet Bou Khenan)), 9 (Station de l'Autruche "Ostrich"), 8 (Daïet el Hamra), 11 (Bou Sekkin), 12 (Aïn Naga), 13(Atef el Ghorab), 14 (Oued Tamdit). To the east of Messad two final stations are named: no 43 (Oued el Bouir) and 15 (Amoura).

The engravings are located near dwelling sites, shown by the presence of worked flints and debitage, "stratified in various levels or at the foot of cliffs of reddish sandstone, the patina of which can become nearly black, which run along the djebels or stand at the edges of the oueds." They are "by-and-large arranged in little separate groups", the monumental friezes or very richly decorated murals like those of Oued el Hesbaïa or Aïn Naga being "exceptions".

Recognizing that the engravings of the Djelfa region are "similar to those of south Oran by subject and technique", P. Huard and L. Allard judge however that they have a rich cultural content of their own which, notably, show the ancient buffalo as bearers of attributes of the heads, and the fact that almost all the ovines (sheep) are endowed with classic spheroids or horns enclosed in a ring, which are a later stylization of the motif"(p. 67). According to these authors "The introduction in the most ancient stage of the south-Oranian of rams with spheroids can hardly tally with the south-Algerian material, where the most accomplished depictions are often associated with men in developed costume, whereas others, associated with cattle, are clearly of a pastoral epoch" (p. 71).

What is more "The 'bovidian' stage, which would come only in the fourth place in the sequence of the south-Oranian, where it shows a 'decadent' character, is much more developed in the south Algerian." Deducing that these evidences "show that in the two sectors, its origin must certainly be more ancient", Huard and Allard prefer to speak "of a pastoral stage of long duration, with cows and sheep"(p. 71).