To my numerous Sudanese friends from the Third Cataraetwho warmly weleomed, helped and aeeompanied me

in my field researeh (1979-1985)

NILE-SAHARADIALOGUES OF THE ROCKS

1I1-INNOVATIVE PEOPLES

THE HORSE, IRON AND THE CAMEL

This document is the English version ofan essay entitledLE CHEVAL, LE FER ET LE CHAMEAU

SUR LE NIL ET AU SAHARA

published in French in ETUDES SCIENTIFIQUES, Le Caire, 1985

BYthe same author

NIL-SAHARA, DIALOGUES RUPESTRES1 - LES CHASSEURS

NILE-SAHARA, DIALOGUES OF THE ROCKSTHE HUNTERS, 1993

NIL-SAHARA, DIALOGUES RUPESTRESII - L'HOMME INNOVATEUR, 2000

NILE-SAHARA, DIALOGUES OF THE ROCKSIl -INNOVATIVE PEOPLES, 2008

(English, text only version of "II - L'HOMME INOVATEUR", 2000,reference to which should be made for the illustrations)

With Paul Huard, in Etudes Scientifiques, Le Caire:

LES PEINTURES RUPESTRES DU SAHARA ET DU NIL, 1978

LES GRAVURES RUPESTRES DU SAHARA ET DU NILI. Les Chasseurs, 1981II. L'ère pastorale, 1983

LE CHEVAL, LE FER ET LE CHAMEAU SUR LE NIL ET AU SAHARA, 1985

LA FEMME AU SAHARA AVANT LE DESERT, 1986

Léone Allard-Huard also contributed to Memoirs XXIX du C.R.A.P.E.

"LA CULTURE DES CHASSEURS DU NIL ET DU SAHARA"Algiers, 1980 (2 volumes) by General Paul Huard and Professor Jean Leclant.

The above publications are ail available from the author at this address:

Léone ALLARD-HUARDMoulin de Lambres

26400 DIVAJEUFrance

NILE-SAHARADIALOGUES OF THE ROCKS

lII-lNNOVATIVE PEOPLES

THE HORSE, IRON AND THE CAMEL

Privately published

Léone ALLARD-HUARD

"Moulin de Lambres"26400 DlVAJEU

Franceleone.allard. huard@ gmai J.com

Contents

INTRODUCTION p. 9

Three acting factors

1. THE HORSE p. Il

THE HORSE IN THE NILE VALLEY p. IlThe breeds of horses

HARNESSING AND EQUITATION p. 15Equitation in the Nile ValleyMilitary equitationAstarté riding

CHARIOTRY p. 23The Egyptian chariot

SOME HISTORICAL DATA p. 25The "Peoples of the Sea"The Libyan Dynasty of EgyptThe Kushite power

ROCK ART CHARIOTS IN NUBIA p. 29Horses

SAHARAN CHARIOTS p. 35

A historical account of the researchThe group of chariots in a "flying gallop"

Hm'sesThe use of chariots

EQUIDIAN SOCIETY p.47Cultural features of the EquidiansHypotheses on the origin of the EquidiansEngraved chariots from FezzanExternal influences upon the Tassili-n-AjjerA global interpretationAfter the "flying gallop"

2. IRON p.61

A - MEDITERRANEAN IRON IN AFRICA p.61

B - IRON IN THE NILE VALLEY p. 65The Iron Age in KushIn the Western SudanIn the Chadian Sahara

3. THE CAMEL p. 77

DIFFUSION OF THE CAMEL TOWARDS THE MAGHREB p. 79

THE CAMEL IN NUBIA p. 83

IN THE CHADIAN SAHARA p. 85

CONCLUSION p. 88

Bibliography p. 90

Table of mapsMap 1. The horse in the Nile Valley p. 8Map 2. Chariots in a "f1ying gallop"of the Central Sahara and schematic chariots

engraved in Fezzan p. 34Map 3. Iron in the Sudan and the Chadian Sahara p.70

Gerf Hussein.Nubie

TômasNag Kolorodn ._

Abou Simbel- -Korosko

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Map 1. The horse in the Nile Valley.

8

INTRODUCTION

To continue and complement our study devoted to "Innovative Peoples" we will nowdevelop in our following work "III - Innovative Peoples", the great accompanying roleplayed, and progress made, by three "acting factors", the horse, iron and the camel, asannounced in the appendix of "II - Innovative Peoples".

These great developments of civilisation of differing values according to the periodswhen, and the sectors where, they occurred, have taken place in the area of the Nile, theSaharan sub-continent and in North Africa. They have resulted in historical, zootechnical andcultural contributions, which are still now Ilot always well understood.

The horse, had come chiej~y from Asia Minor, had been introduced to Egypt in theSecond millennium, to the Sudan during the First, and from diverse sources to northem andcentral Sahara a little earlier.

The iron weapons and metal work, known in the Nile Delta in the Vllth century B.C.through Greek mercenaries, reached Sudanese Nubia with them, where at Meroë theconditions were right for the development of their industry, the production of which spreadtowards Chad, at the same time as the practice of riding horses. Another CUITent of ironworkstarted from the Mediterranean coast and reached the Central Sahara.

The domesticated comel, came from Asia Minor into Egypt in 677 B.C., and reached,on one hand, the Central Sahara and the Maghreb around the beginning of the Christian era,and on the other hand Meroë and the Chadian Sahara during the local Iron Age.

In complement to the theories about the Saharan chariots discussed at the Sénanqueconference in 1981, we deal in this present work with subjects that remained in thebackground, by bringing into the three above-mentioned themes relating to the Near East andthe Eastern Mediterranean countries, significant elements concerning, in addition to theSahara, Egypt, the Nubo-Sudanese Nile region and Chad.

l)

Fig. 1. Tuthmosis in his charioL an intaglio seal, in the British Museum.

10

1. THE HORSE

THE HORSE IN THE NILE VALLEY (map 1)

The pieces of palaeontological documentary evidence, from the literature orrepresentations in the Middle Empire (2000-1800 B.e.), with regard to the domesticatedhorse in Egypt, are controversial.

Conceming the beginnings of the horse in Egypt. hamessed to a chariot, then mounted,the main sources are:

- the Camavon palette and the stele of Kamosis. Kamosis was the last sovereign of the XVllthDynasty who, around 1580 B.e. conducted a campaign in the Delta against Avaris, the capitalof the occupying Hyksos who had come progressively from Asia Minor, from 1730 Re., andwho fled from him on horse back, abandoning their war chariots;

- the inscription on the tomb of Ahmes, whose function was to follow Ahmosis (1580-1558B.e.) on foot when this first king of the XVllIth Dynasty, at the dawn of the New Empire,travelled in a chariot;

- an intaglio seal in the British Museum. the first representative evidence depicting Tuthmosis 1(1530-1520 B.e.) in his chariot (fig.!). This sovereign, for his expeditions into Asia, formeda powerful army including chariotry, a new aristocratie corps able to succeed in competingwith the Mitannians, famous breeders who have left a masterly treatise on the breaking in ofhorses;

- the ensigns represented at Deir el Bahari, under the reign of queen Hatshepsut ( 1520-1484B.e.): one comprising two horses whose heads are adomed by a hawk-head; the other, in thetomb of Amenemheb, an officer of Tuthmosis Ill, surmounted by a horse made of gildedmetal (e. Desroches-Noblecourt);

- the total of the booty of the victory won at Megiddo in Palestine by Tuthmosis III (1504­1450 B.e.) amounted to more than 900 chariots and 2,000 horses, surely propaganda figures,if they are compared with the Egyptian chariotry forces;

- the stele of Amenophis II, Tuthmosis IIlls son (1450-1425 B.e.), on which are reproducedpatemal encouragements: "Let him have the best hOl'ses from my royal stable at Memphisand tell him this: take care of them, donlt fear them, make them gallop and hold them in handif they resist you".

After Akhenaten (Amenophis IV, 1370-1352 B.e.), Horemheb (1352-1320 B.e.) tookthe preliminary steps for his succession to the crown by placing in the hands of the one whowould be Seti 1 (1318-1298 B.e.) the responsibility of being the chief of the archers, masterof the infantry, and master of the chariotry, which would facilitate the reorganisation of thearmy by his son, Ramses the Great (Ramses II, 1298-1232 B.C.).

Il

Fig. 2. Kush ( The Sudan). Temple of Kawa. Taharqa on a smalllocal horse, polychrome relief.

Fig. 3. Meroë. Relief. A small Nubian horse.

12

The breeds of horses

In Egypt, stereotyped bas-reliefs and decorated functional items from the NewKingdom do not give clear anatomical indications to the non-expert. The helpful bone remainscollected are very scarce. At Deir el Bahari, the mare buried in front of the tomb of Senenmut,in about 1500 B.e. was 12.2 hands high. At Saqqara, an altered mastaba from the OldKingdom, furnished remains of a horse standing 14.1 hands, which should be datable toaround 1300-1200 Re.

In Egyptian iconography, Dr. Espérandieu (1952) distinguished three breeds of horses,interpreted as indicating the energy the pharaohs devoted to improving their studs:

- the breed with a Roman profile, the so-called Barb (called "Mongolian" by de Pietrement),a cobby variety of horse, with a short sharp back comprising five lumbar vertebrae (insteadof six for the other racing breeds), and a tufted tail close to the body. Only the first of thesecharacteristics is visible, the other ones being screened by the conventions of the Egyptiansculptural tradition representing "saddle-backed, undulating and theatrically fiery horses"(Lefebvre des Noëttes);

- the Mesopotamian breed with its concave facial profile, of which 260 mares were broughtback from Asia Minor by Tuthmosis III, a noble race which calTied its croup horizontally,had a greyhound belly and its tail proud of its body;

- the breed with a rectilinear facial profile (lndo-European after de Pietrement, Asiatic afterde Sanson), differs from the precedent one in that the brow ridges are protruding and thesmall ears are far apal1.

In Nubia, quite numerous remains of horses have not been studied. De Pietrementattributed a Nubian origin to the Dongolawi (from Dongola) race, close to the Barb fromNorth Africa, the origin of which remains uncertain. One century later, G. Camps proposedthat it was with contributions come from Egypt that this race developed.

At Sulb (Third Cataract), a horse, dated to the time of Amenophis III (1408-1372 Re.),standing 13.2 hands, had five lumbar vertebrae (Michela Giorgini mission).

The existence of a race of local horses is lastingly attested to in this region. UnderAkhenaten, an expedition boasted of having slaughtered 361 stallions there. Under TuthmosisIII and Tutankhamen (1352-1320 B.e.) the tribute of Kush included horses which weretransported by boats converted for this purpose, at a time when Asia Minor perhaps did notsupply enough horses for the Egyptian chariotry.

The autochthonous horses of Nubia were of a small size. Under the Ethiopian XXVthDynasty of Kush (from the VIIIth century onward) the horse of Firka (VIIth-VIth centuries Re.)was hardly more than 11.3 hands. This one (fig 2) wearing a "crowned" head-dress depictedon a polychrome relief from the temple of Kawa, and supposed to be mounted by kingTaharqa (690-664 B.e.) is equally of a small size as, a half-millenary later, were those ofMeroë (fig. 3).

13

Fig. 4. Triumphal ste le. Nimrod presents a horse to Piankhy.

Fig. 5. lebel Barkal (4th Cataract). Temple of Amen. Relief. Princes of Egypt.at the rime of their submission, present large horses to Piankhy.

It is therefore not surprising that the kings of the Kushite XXYth Dynasty, famous horse­loyers, should have had delivered to them horses of the best quality by the princes of the Deltawhen they conquered it. The triumphal stele oftheir precursor, Piankhy (Peyé) (745-713 Re.)has a number of allusions to the horse. On the arch of this monument, Nimrod, prince ofHermopolis. presents to him in 727 B.e., a fine horse (fig. 4). On the relief of the temple ofAmen at lebel Barkal (Forth Cataract), the horses that the same princes present, at the time oftheir submission. are large-sized (fig. 5).

The twenty-four horses, buried in the necropolis of El KUlTU near the first four sovereignsof the XXVth Dynasty, are of a slightly lesser size than that of modem day horses, and thereforecame from the north.

A particular illumination has been put forward by Dr. Malbrant, whose work is theauthority on the fauna of the southem border of the Nigero-Chadian Sahara. He identified thehorse, of a cobby variety, carved in a broad and deep outline, very patinated and worn out.recorded by Huard at Gonoa (Tibesti). as the ponies of North-Dahomey and as those, very strongones, belonging to the Kirdi breed of Northern Cameroon, which are landmarks that explain thediffusion, from the Sudan towards the West, in the Iron Age, of mounted small-sized horseswhich are represented on the rock-walls in Ennedi.

14

HARNESSING AND EQUITATION

These two practices concern the whole area of Asia and Africa where the horse waspresent. The progress realised in the study of the documentary evidence in the past half­century, leads us to re-examine the classical thesis, based on the very low proportion ofhorse-riders compared with the number of chariots represented on pieces of evidence fromAntiquity; a thesis according to which, horsemanship and hamessing a horse to a carriage, inspite of appearing at the same time, did not develop at the same rhythm, owing to the limitedstrength of horses before the Mede breeding and the difficulties of riding without stirrups. Itwas to set little value on the well-known stamina of small-sized races of autochthonous hOl'ses,to forget the horses the young Africans keep and ride bareback, and mostly to ignore themotivations, psychological or of high reputation, which exercised pressure.

ln Asia Minor, around 2000 B.e., the prefect of Mari writes to his king Zimri Lim:"That (my Lord) honours his royal head! If you are the king of the Haneans, you aresecondarily the king of the Acadian. That my Lord does not mount horses, that he is in achariot or mounts mules and that he respects highly his royal head!" (after R. Kupper).

The stele of Tuthmosis III at lebel Barkal recalls that after their submission, the greatones of Megiddo in Palestine left riding donkeys, the king having seized theil' harnessedhorses.

Equitation in the Nile Valley

ln Egypt, where the donkey, a lower species, used for transport as early as the IVthmillennium, is very scarcely represented, those which are depicted hamessed at Deir el Bahari(fig. 6) are attached to the expedition to the land of Punt under the reign of Hatshepsut.

Apart from a scarab showing Amenophis III riding a horse (N.C. Grimal, 1981), it isin the military and religious fields that evidence related to horsemanship will appear.

Fig. 6. - Temple of Deir el Bahari. Harnessed donkeys from Punt. relief.

15

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Fig. 7. Equitation during the New Empire. 1,2. Abu SimbeL from the battle of Kadesh: 3, a statuette in theMetropolitan Museum: 4, a battle-axe: 4 bis, detail of decoration of the axe blade.

16

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Military equitation (fig. 7)

A.R. Schulman has grouped bas-reliefs, ostraca (painted inscribed fragments ofpottery or limestone) and statuettes showing mounted hm"ses, eleven from the XVIIlthDynasty (1580-1320 Re.) and a few from the XIXth (1320-1200 B.C.) and the XXth (1200­1085 Re.) Dynasties.

The best known horse-riders are in the temple of Abu Simbel, of those n° 1 and n° 2from the battle of Kadesh (1294 B.e.). They ride bareback, horses held tightly reined in withthe same bridle as those of the chariots; one of them holds a bow and a whip, the other wearsa military "devanteau" (a small narrow frontal loincloth). abject n° 3 is a statuette in theMetropolitan Museum.

We think that chariotry needed grooms and servants at arms several times higher innumber than that of the horses on duty. How, in fact, did they harness them to unsteadycarriages without having the mastery to groom them, to take them to water, to catch themagain and hand them over to their drivers, and at last to modify their position during action?The eastern Libyans, much used by the Egyptian army, provided for this need.

A soft saddle, datable to the first half of the XVth century Re., made of leather andfitted with thin straps to fasten it, was found at Deir el Bahari and has been published(M. Bietak). Finally the British Museum conserves two objects made of perforated bronzework, a battle-axe (n° 4 and n° 4 bis) and a razor (fig. 7a, n° 5) representing horsemen ridinghorses in a "flying gallop".

Let us recall, in the Greek world, the passage in the Iliad (end of the IXth centuryRC.) attesting to the practice of mounted gymnastics: "such a horseman knowing weIl howto mount saddle-horses groups his four chosen war-horses, launches them at full gallop intothe plain .... , he, always steady and sure, leaps and passes from one horse to another in theflight of the race".

Fig. 7a, n° 5. A razor (in the British Museum)

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17

4

Fig. 8. Astarté riding. 1. stele of Tuthmosis Ill; 2, Turin stele; 3, relief from Wadi Abbad; 4,stele in the Ramesseum of Thebes; 5, fragment from Luxor (documentary evidence published by J. Leclant).

18

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4

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Fig.9. Astarté riding. Ostraca: 1, from Berlin; 2. from the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge; 3, from Deirel Medineh; 4, from Edgerton; 5, from the Louvre (documentary evidence published by J. Leclant).

19

Fig.IO. Sudanese Nubia. Reliefs l'rom the temple of Sanam. Mounted mules.

20

Astarté riding (fig. 8 and 9)

The enlightening information which precedes has been strengthened by Pl'. 1. Leclant'sresearch on Astarté, an Asian goddess, often depicted riding, provided with arms andassociated with floral motifs, who, following campaigns in Syria, took her place amongst theEgyptian gods under the first reigns of the XYIIIth Dynasty.

A mutilated stele from the funerary temple of Tuthmosis III shows (fig. 8, n° 1) theking in front of the divinity, whose reins pass over her mount, an early oriental convention.

On the Turin stele, goddess n° 2, wearing a royal crown, riding side-saddle on a saddlecloth, the reins tied behind her back, shoots her arrow towards a Nubian put to flight.

At Wadi Abbad, in the eastern desert of Egypt, on a rock picture stele (n° 3) near thetemple of Sethi 1, she rides without any means of control represented.

At the Ramesseum of Thebes (stele from the XlXth Dynasty, she rides astride a horse(n° 4) which is wearing a broad collar.

Finally, in the excavated material of the temple of Luxor, an undated fragment ofsandstone might show a horsewoman divinity riding roughshod over an enemy (n05).

Astmté on horseback is also represented on ostraca, free from examples of Egyptian art.

On the Berlin ostracon (fig. 9. n° 1), the horsewoman rides bareback, holds the reinsvery short, and brandishes a bow and arrow.

In the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, listed under n° 2, the horsewoman holds aspear in her left hand. At the back of her waist, a knot recalls that of the Turin stele.

The horsewoman wearing a wig (n° 3), from Deir el Medineh, rests her right hand onthe hindquarters of her horse which has a broad collaI'; with the other hand she holds a spearagainst its mane.

The ostracon of Edgerton (n° 4) shows a very particular riding position.

Finally, that from the Louvre (n ° 5) clearly shows the horsewoman with a spear anda shield on a saddle clotho

ln Egypt the horse was considered as a noble animal, equitation had therefore knownearly specialised practices, before becoming currently used during the Lower Epoch.

In Sudanese Nubia, on a rock block, broken offfrom the temple of Sanam, datable asfar back as Taharqa, king of the XXYth Dynasty (690-664 B.C.), reliefs (fig. 10) showNubians riding mules without reins. They are seated on cloths displaying rosettes which,seem to support high pommels of saddles in profile. Later on, horsemen will appear in thesteIe of the Kushite king Nastasen (335-315 RC.).

21

Fig. Il. Egyptian chaIiot in the Florence Museum. after Littauer and Crouwel.

22

CHARIOTRY

ln the Egyptian army, which had chariots for transport drawn by oxen during theMiddle Kingdom, this arm developed progressively from the end of the XVIIth Dynasty(around 1580 B.C.) in imitation of that of the Hyksos, the "foreign princes" who had occupiedthe north of Egypt since 1730 B.e. (XVth and XVlth Dynasties).

The experiment of the campaigns in Palestine required its organisation under the reignsof Ahmosis 1 (1580-1558 Re.) and chiefty that of Tuthmosis 1 (1530-1520 B.e.), who raiseda regular powerful army. The last king of the XVlIIth Dynasty, Horemheb (1352-1320 B.e.),increased from two to three the number of army corps, and Ramses II (1298-1232 Re.) againincreased them to four, each one numbering 5,000 regular soldiers. They were divided intoinfantry companies of 250 combatants with a unit of 50 chariots, which raised the total ofthem to 200 (F. Dumas). This number, which surprises us by its moderation, corresponds to400 horses as chargers, the sustaining of which involved a sub-structure relating to the horsesand people qualified for breeding, selection, breaking in and training of regular and sparecarriages and horses; the base unit being of ten chariots (Schulman). The services of the studsand stables had their own regular servants.

The Egyptian chariot

To begin with, let us state precisely that the Egyptian chariots, lighter than those ofthe Asian opponents, were used in great number, and came into action in units, to support theinfantry or in pursuit of the enemy. In figure Il we have represented a prototype of one ofthem hypothetically attributed to Amenophis III, preserved in the museum of EtruscanAntiquities in Florence.

Intended to be drawn by two horses, weighing around 80 kilograms for a team of twomen, the vehicle, entirely made of wood, has a 2 metre long raised pole which is fixed to theaxle and also linked to the veltical stand of the hand-rail. The two wheels with four spokes(later on from six to eight), free around the axle, couId slide on the spindIe of the axle tocompensate for the different lateral thrusts that they undergo when turning.

The semicircular platform, the back of which is fixed to the axle, is ftoored with wovenleather thongs which give it a certain f1exibility.

The vehicle, whose centre of gravity was positioned ahead of the axle, bore heavilyon the harness-horses, a typical characteristic which, later on will also be that of the Saharanchariots with horses depicted in the "ftying gallop". Therefore, it differs greatly from theCretan and Greek chariots, whose centre of gravity was placed directly above the axle.

23

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1111

11

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Fig. 12. Painting. from the tomb of Huy. Princess of Lower Nubia. in her chariot.

24

The yoke with a double bend and curved upturned ends, is attached to the pole bymeans of strong leather straps, and the two padded forked yoke saddles are attached to theyoke. These forked yoke saddles rested on the front of the horses' shoulders, maintaining thecontact at any pace. An unstretched strap connected the branches of each yoke saddle, so thatwhen the animal bent its head while stopping, it could not get out. Another strap, startingfrom the outside of each yoke saddle and running under the belly of the horse, was joined tothe front of the pole. This came into action when the chariot slowed down or stopped suddenly,to avoid the inertia of it bumping into the hot·ses.

Rings (so-called keys or pass-reins) fixed to the yoke or the pole, limited themovement of the four separated reins held in the hands of the driver. The Egyptian harnessincluded finally, arrangements of the reins with lateral rods running along each neck andwithers, fitted with small pointed round discs, and connecting the yoke to the outer part ofthe bit. This apparatus -possibly limited to training- was to harmonise the motion of thehorses, to compel them to keep their neck raised and to transfer the weight from one shoulderto the other, simply by action of the reins (after J. Spruytte).

The chariots bore on their sides containers used for the bow and the quiver of thecombatant. If the pharaoh is represented on the picture, the driver is omitted and, whenRamses III is shooting with a bow, the reins are attached behind his back, drawn in the sameconvention as for Astarté.

Let us recall, however, that in Byzance, at the end of the first millennium A.D., thedrivers of chariots in the hippodrome with dangerous double sharp bends, attached their reinsin the same manner and had at their disposaI a knife to cut them in case of a "wreck".

The crew sometimes included a third man, the shield-bearer, who could be on theground.

ft is also advisable to point out the representation of "civil" chariots, dating toAkhenaten. Furthermore, on a fresco from the tomb of Huy (the governor of the South underTutankhamen), a chariot drawn by two hornless bulls, controlled by a driver, conveys aprincess of Lower Nubia, whose head-dress is topped by a parasol made of ostrich-feathers(fig, 12).

SOME HISTORICAL DATA

This recall is required to define three periods: those of the Peoples of the Sea *, ofthe Libyan XXIInd Dynasty and of the Kushite Power of the XXVth Dynasty. Ali haveconcerned the chariot and the horse in the Nile Valley. They will be likely to determine thevalue of the theories concerning the appearance, in the central Sahara, of the "Equidians" andof their chariots with the animaIs depicted in a "flying gallop".

* Not indicated in the bibliography of the French version (1985), cf. Alessandra Nibbi, 1998. Notes on theso-called Eastern Libyans, Ancient Egypt and the horse and the chariot. Sahara / 10, p. 97-106.

25

The Peoples of the Sea

Towards the end of the XIIIth century B.e., a part of the numerous peoples, knownas a whole by this denomination, had poured into Marmarica, to the west of the Delta, underthe pressure of the Indo-European invaders who had overthrown the Acheans of Mycènesand, in Asia Minor, the Hittite kingdom. The newcomers amalgamated with the Libyans and,under the authority of their king, Meriai, formed a coalition inc1uding Libyans (Libou andMeschouesch or Mâ), Akawash (Acheans) and Loukou (Lycians), who attacked the Deltafrom the west.

ln 1227, Merneptah, the son and successor of Ramses II, crushed them with hisinfantry and chariots at Per-irt near Memphis, taking more than 9,000 prisoners, seizing theirbronze weapons and capturing a dozen pairs of horses.

After a period of confusion in Egypt, order was restored again under the XXthDynasty, when Ramses III, in the fifth, the eighth and the eleventh years of his rule, had tocope with other aggressions. The first one, conducted in conjunction with the Libyans,consisted of migrations (with chariots, women and children) of peoples come by sea fromAsia Minor, the best known of whom are the Philistines, the Shardanes (from Sardes), theDaneans and the Shakalades.

The king repulsed the attacking forces, acting by surprise, and his f'leet played a greatpart in taking 101 chariots from them.

During the eleventh year of his reign, he again took 2,000 prisoners, one of whomwas king Kapur.

According to the practice initiated by Ramses II, who took numerous prisoners, thevanquished were displaced: "to the north, those from the south and to the east those from thewest". They were grouped in military colonies, specially in the south-east of the Delta, aroundBubastis, and the army took auxiliaries from them in increasing numbers.

The Libyan Dynasty of Egypt

During nearly four centuries (1085-715 B.e.) between the end of the XIXth Dynastyand the "Ethiopian" XXYth Dynasty, Egypt was broken up into local principalities separatedby domestic civil wars. Il is in the middle of this period that Sheshonq, "the great king of theMâ", living at Bubastis, leader of an association of assimilated Libyan tribes, whose membershad occupied an essential part in the Egyptian army, was able to assume the crown. This wasafter the death of Psousennes Il, king of the XXIst Dynasty of Tanis (984-950 B.C.), in thenorth-east of the Delta. He founded the "Libyan" XXlInd Dynasty, the government of whichwas military. The Libyans, therefore, occupied an important place in his army, which wouldhave brought up 1,200 chariots to Jerusalem, an unreliable number given in the Bible(Chronicles, II, 12). Sheshonq re-established to his own advantage a short-lived national unionby having one of his sons given the powerful Pontificate of Amen at Thebes. However,anarchy started again in the YIIIth century and power broke down between the local rulers.

26

The Kushite power

The Pharaohs had colonised the Nubian Nile Valley, in the Middle Kingdom, as faras Kerma to the south of the Third Cataract and, in the New Kingdom, as far as the FourthCataract. The region, from that time onwards. governed by a viceroy called royal Son ofKush, became filled with temples built in a pure Egyptian style. among them those of GerfHussein, Abu Simbel, Sedeinga, Sulb and Sesebi (Gorgod). M. Schiff Giorgini's mission(pr. Ledant) identified over a long distance the ancient road that connected the temples ofSulb and of Sesebi (Gorgod). Nine metres wide and still today partially edged with stones, itwould seem to have been made in the New Kingdom, and to have been used for the chariots.

Abandoned after the XXth Dynasty, the region saw the birth of a new power, at thefoot of the "Holy Mountain" from Jebel Barkal (Fourth Cataract).

Before the middle of the VIlIth century, one of its kings. Kashta, had imposed hisdaughter as Divine Votaress of Amen at Thebes. About 730 Re. his son, Piankhy (Peye, 745­713 B.e.), after a victorious expedition in the Delta. worshipped the Egyptian gods andasserted his orthodoxy by building temples around his capital, Napata (Fourth Cataract).

His brother Shabaka (714-698 B.e.) founded the XXVth Dynasty and had forsuccessor Shabakata (698-690 Re.), then Taharqa (690-664 RC.), the greatest of the Kushkings. However, his successor Tanwetamani (664-656 B.C.) had to withdraw to the south inthe face of the second Assyrian invasion of Egypt by Ashurbanipal (663 B.C.). The systemof the Dynasty was progressively transferred to Meroë between the Fifth and Sixth Cataracts,from the Vth century, then under the domination of Cambyses, the Persian (525-522 B.e.), itschiefkings beingAspelta (593-568 B.C.), Harsiotef(404 Re.) and Nastasen (335-315 Re.).The latter was a contemporary of Alexander. Ergamenes would have been the first to havelived at Meroë (270-260 Re.) before the power came into the hands of queens, the famousCandaces.

The use of chariots is firmly attested to in Kush and even in Asia. for Kushite chariotswere engaged in 701 B.C. in Mesopotamia against the Assyrians in the battle of Altaga wonby Sennacherib. His annals concerning his third campaign state precisely: "1 have capturedalive with my own hands three teams of chariots from Egyptian princes. together with sornechariots of king Melulha (Kush)."

The twenty-four above mentioned horses from el Kurru are buried opposite thesouthern group of queens' tombs, in graves equally separated, arranged in four rows (twowith four and two with eight). Beheaded, they stayed standing up owing to the spaces dugout for their limbs, their bodies resting on the natural ground.

27

Ten of these horses have been identified from amulets, as those of four kings (two ofPiankhy. two of his son Shabaka, four of his nephew Shabakata, two of Tanwetamani). Theywere certainly chariot teams, but the recent suggestion that these chariots would have beendrawn by four horses seems doubtful to us for the quadriga, a Greek invention, does not seemto have been in use in Egypt under the national Dynasties.

A Sanam, in the temple of Amen on one of the blocks of rock that has fallen out, is atwo wheeled-chariot (fig. 13 and n° 1 of fig. 14,), among the surprising series of mule drawnchariots with several axles, one of them with six wheels. depicted under Taharqa.

Fig. 13. Reliefs l'rom the temple of Sanam. Vehicles drawn by mules.

28

t!i

ROCK ART CHARIOTS IN NUBIA (fig. 15)

Fig. 14. - Chariots from Nubia and the Sudan. 1. relief from Sanam;2, head-dressed horse used for drawing chariots. Dunbar; 3. Meroë. temple of the Sun.

11

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A half-millennium later, at Meroë, the lower part of a relief from the temple of theSun shows a harness-chariot with 8-spoked wheels, the most southern one in the Sudan(Fig. 14. n° 3).

The Nubio-Sudanese Nile rock art has provided six chariots from the late period, inaddition to the horse from Gerf Hussein (Dunbar) whose head-dress indicates that it might be apart of a harness-vehicle (fig. 14, n° 2).

In Egyptian Nubia, two chariots are found in the sector of Korosko-Thômas. The onefrom Nag Kolorodna (n° 1) has the pole raised and the reins run to the heads of the horses whichhave fish bone tails. The driver wears a conical tiara, with the indication of a supposed urreusand has been interpreted as being a king by Almagro.

29

Fig. 15. Rock art chariots from Egyptian Nubia: 1, Nag Kolorodna: 2. Khor Malik (Almagro-Basch);3 and 6 (Cervicek). - The Sudan: 4, Kosha (Vila): 5, Geddi-Sabu (Al1ard-Huard).

30

Fig. 16. Engravings of horses from the Sudan: 1. Sabu (Allard-Huardl; 2, Tila; 3, 5, Abka (Myers);4. Gorgod (Allard-Huard).

31

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At Khor Madik, facing Thômas, vehicle n° 2 is reduced to its simplest expression:with a single wheel, a linear designed driver, a unique line to represent the pole and the reins,and horses with bodies merging into one another.

Two graffiti, n° 3 and n° 6, of schematic vehicles, with the horses seemingly hamessedto a swing-bar have been published without any commentary (Cervicek).

From the Sudan, chariot n° 4 engraved at Kosha (to the north of the Third Cataract,A. Vila) is without technical value, but curious insistence has been placed on the manes andthe tails of the horses kept in hand by a man with a triangular-shaped body.

Finally, the rudimentary chariot (n° 5), recorded at Geddi (Third Cataract) in 1984,has as its main point of interest its southerly position.

It is worth noticing that the representations of chariots are not present to the west ofthe Nubio-Sudanese Nile as far as Fezzan and beyond the Tibesti.

Let liS recall however, that H.A. MacMichael has indicated paintings of horse-ridersat Shalashi in lebel Haraza: "the hOl'ses have, as on Egyptian paintings, a thick breast, archedneck. fine legs and they wear a head-dress. The men are of the Egyptian style with a widechest and a narrow waist." It is regrettable that this interesting image has not been published.

Horses (fig. 16 and 17)

In figure 16, subject n° 1 (about 45 cm in length), of a light patina, is from the ThirdCataract (Geddi). It is a powerful animal, with an abundant mane particularly weIl rendered,larger in dimension than the man who is associated with il. Horse n° 2 from Tila near Abka(Second Cataract), also of the same light patina, seems c1early to be being broken in.

From that latter site come horses n° 3 and n° 5, one of which might be hamessed(these two images were communicated to us by a.H. Myers). Finally, young horse n° 4, muchmore patinated than animal n° 1 is also from the Third Cataract area (Gorgod).

Figure 17, shows another horse (50 cm) of a light patina, from Geddi, on board aboat; its master poses, arms akimbo, standing on the cabin, with a whip in his hand.

We shall consider again the mounted horse during the meroitic Iron Age when sornehorse-riders, equipped with spears with large Sudanese iron heads are depicted in fairlyreasonable number in the Chadian Sahara.

32

Fig. 17. Sudan, Third Cataract, Geddi. Engraving: horse on board a boat (Allard-Huard).

33

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Map 2. Chariots in a "ftying gallop" of the Central Sahara (vertical shading)and schematic chariots engraved in Fezzan (dotted area).

34

SAHARAN CHARIOTS

A historical acconnt of the research

ln 1931, in the Tassili-n-Ajjer, about one thousand two hundred kilometres to thesouth-west of 'Khalij Surt' , lieutenant Lanney discovered at Tamajert painted images ofchariots, made in a stylised realism, drawn by two horses running at a "flying gallop".Lieutenant Brenans brought to Algiers in 1934 faithful copies of analogous images which hehad recorded in the Wadi Djerat. The passionate and imaginative researchers in the matterwho were E.F. Gautier and M. Reygasse, at once saw in it confirmation of the 'passage', byHerodotus who came to Cyrenaic in about 450 B.C., relating to the Garamantes who pursuedthe Ethiopian Troglodytes in their chariots drawn by four horses. In the same year that theycame to the Wadi Djerat, the two researchers were followed by P. Perret who recruitedH. Lhote at Fort Polignac (Illizy).

By putting together this limited documentation and peripheral data provided by thehistory and the early art of the Aegean world and of Egypt as weIl as ancient literature, wediscover various hypotheses that are changeable, contradictory and sometimes anachronistic.These authors and others after them, expressed, each in their own way the attribution of theworks concerning immigrant" Peoples of the Sea "; imagining a "military kingdom of theTassili"; speaking of"Ancient road-ways of Trans-Saharan trading" and taking into accountthe Aegean, Aegeo-Garamantic, Libyan, Phoenician, Garamantic, Greek, Carthaginian, andRoman chariots, the whole included in a 1500-year scale.

Such an effervescence of ideas had had for result to cause us to deviate from the studyof numerous problems which claimed our attention at the very time when the initial stagesof the research -prospecting and publication in their context of reliable pieces of evidence­were just starting.

The list of chariots (159 in 1951, Th. Monod) has been raised to 608 by H. Lhote(1981), an impressive total, since then further increased, which must not though delude us.Nearly half of them, in fact, include late schematic chariots from two sites, Aouineght (inMauritania) and Wadi Lar'ar (South Oran region), where they are reproduced in the form ofgraffiti, more or less ill-formed, and 35 others are known only by hearsay or from otherinformation.

A little more than a tenth of the total, the earliest, shows painted chariots drawn byanimais in a "flying gallop", with drivers, in their very great majority, strongly bent forwardin their chariots of a simplified Egyptian type, canons that are applicable to this group, centredin the Tassili-n-Ajjer.

Most of the other vehicles derived from this centre, are engraved, more or lesssummarily depicted or in a schematic style, drawn or not drawn, and scattered over numeroussectors in Fezzan, the central and western Sahara and as far as the south-western border ofthe Saharan Atlas. In contrast to that, they are totally absent between the Tibesti-Ennedi andthe Nile Valley.

35

2

1

Fig.18. Painted chariots from Tassili-n-Ajjer. 1. Djerat, recorded by Allard-Huard;2. (Kunz); 3, (Aumassip).

36

2

Fig. 19. Painted chariots from the Tassili-n-Ajjer. 1, (Kunz); 2, the Bardo Museum, Algiers;3. (Orloff); 4, recorded by AIJard-Huard.

37

6

1

Fig. 20. Tassili-n-Ajjer, Djerat, 1, engraved chariot (A1lard-Huard). - Hoggar, Tefedest. 2, 3, 4, 5, paintings(Santamaria). - Acacus, 6, painting (Pene!). - Southern Tadrart, 7, engraving (Al1ard-Huard).

38

In 1981, the merit of the Sénanque conference, of the work by H. Lhote and thatconcerning ancient harnessing demonstrated by J. Spruytte, would have been to check theevidence and its weaknesses, and to contribute to putting together to a certain extentconceptions that had long been diverging about dating, the origin, and the particularities ofthe Equidians and their relations with the local populations.

The group of chariots in a "t1ying gaIIop" (map 2)

The consensus accepting that this homogeneous painted group was the earliest in dateleads us to describe the who1e of technology, zootechny and humanity that it concretises,before reconsidering the theories that have concerned or concern it.

Absent in Fezzan, the country of the Garamantes, as weil as along the whole Libyancoast, the published chariots discussed are confined both to the northern border of the Tassiliplateau, in the surroundings of the ridge "track" which runs along the plateau lengthwise and,in small number, in the Acacus. From the Hoggar where sorne chariots have been indicated,only three pairs of mounted horses were known, painted at Timmissao between Hoggar andthe Adrar of the Iforas (see fig. 23). We add to it four chariots in a "ftying gallop" from theTefedest (see fig. 20).

It is difficult to be sure about the actual total number of the "ftying" group, for,amongst the sorne eighty listed documents by H. Lhote, he indicates thirteen of them dividedbetween nine sites, and which he had neglected to record during the course of his missions,or kept unpublished. This lack of assets concerns also a certain number of images from variousorigins, of which one cannot appreciate the reliability. Finally, unharnessed chariots, or thosedrawn by oxen are included in the group discussed, which would be present at sorne thirtysites where, apart from six of them (grouping from five to nine chariots), one numbers onlyone or two. Ali these chariots are with the axle at the rear edge of the ftoor.

In figure 18. the unharnessed one (n° 1) is painted at Djerat, it has fittings whichenable the horses to be fixed to the yoke. The ftoor and the hand-rail are depicted in a veryreduced manner. The wheels in profile are represented -a fairly frequent convention- by twoconcentric circles. On drawing n° 2, the painted chariot, shown laid ftat and open, seems tohave two lateral hand-rails. Subject n° 3 has a raised pole.

Figure 19 shows four other vehicles. Typical of the Tamadjert site, the drivers of thefirst two chariots, of whom one wears a tightly waisted tunic with a ftared lower part, holdtheir four reins separately. According to J. Spruytte, the horses could have had a draw-barunder their neck. The tails might have been eut in order not to interfere with the driver. AtByzance, the tails of the war-horses at the hippodrome were strongly knotted. Driver n° 3handles a two-strapped whip and behind him, two javelins are at his disposaI. Finally, inchariot n° 4, the driver is curiously depicted in front of the handrails.

39

4

/

Fig. 21. Tassili-n-Ajjer. Particularities of harnessed chariots. 1, (Aumassip); 2. (Brenans); 3. (Kunz);4. Djerat (Allard-Huard); 5. Ala-n-Edoument (Lhote); 6. Tin Abou Teka (collection Allard-Huard).

Acaclls. 7. (Mari).

40

Figure 20 displays certain of our image documents that we have recorded. In engravedscene na 1 from Ikehaman (wadi Djerat) , the driver in his chariot makes after an antelopepreviously not seen, that we distinguished on photo 1. The f100r of the chariot is triangularand the driver, as for those in the only two other chariots "in a f1ying gallop", engraved in theWadi Djerat (one of them on photo 2), is bent backwards, which is the contrary in the caseof those in the painted chariots.

Photo 3 indicates, furthermore, that the f100r of the chariot has its centre of gravitybehind the axle as on the static chariot on photo 4. For these reasons, we think that this smallseries particular to a place where engraved rock art had been continuously practised formillennia up until the camel period, cannot automatically be incJuded in the main paintedwhole that we discuss.

From the Hoggar, chariots nOs 2,3,4 (Santamaria, unpublished), on a rock wall of lnTounine Hassi in the Garet el Djenoun (250 N - 50 30' E), seem to be depicted racing. Oneof the drivers holds a whip and the angle drawn by his reins ending behind the horses' ears,suggests that a device holding them apart could have disappeared as has the one on drawingna 4. Chariot na 5 cornes from Aïné Mertoutek (24020' N - 50 3D' E).

These images are late on within the "f1ying group". At the eastern end of the area ofthe "f1ying group", painting na 6 is what remains of a harnessed chariot from the Acacus,while na 7, a decadent style trace engraving from the southern Tadrart, depicts only one horse,with two reins ending at the top of its head.

Figure 21 groups particularities of harnessed chariots. The f100r in na 1 from lnHanakaten is squared, with parallel laths like those in na 3 from the Wadi Imirhou. Chariotna 2 is, like several others, fitted with a guard-rail that the driver could hold tightly betweenhis legs in order to keep his balance. From Djerat, a rudimentary chariot na 4 has either ayoke or a draw-bar at the end of the pole. Standing on the incurved-shaped f100r of vehiclena 5 exceptionally in a group, three hunters are pursuing Barbary sheep. From Tin Abu Teka,static chariot na 6, depicted with a couple in it, seems to be fitted with a device for dividingthe reins. Finally, from the Acacus, chariot na 7, with two concentric wheels, is fitted with ahigh hand-rail.

The question about the number of spokes in a wheel that certain researchers havecaJculated with great care, seems to us specially significant in noting the regressive evolutionof the "f1ying gallop" ending up with the heterogeneous filling up of the wheels.

Finally the chariots in a "f1ying gallop" style, whose conception is that of the Egyptianchariots, seem to us to be local copies of them, simplified and adapted to a limited use; theyhave variable f1oors, they are provided for one man only, they have substituted arches forhand-rails, rein-holders are absent and for the traction system the yoke can become a draw­bar.

41

Fig. 22. Tassili-n-Ajjer. Paintings, types of horses. 1,2,6, 7, 8, Djerat (Allard-Huard); 3, 4, 5, (Kunz).- Hoggar, painting, 9, (Santamaria). - Djerat, engraving, 10, (Allard-Huard),

42

Horses

Figure 22, in conjunction with photos 3 and 4, groups figures of horses from theTassili-Hoggar zones, selected, insofar as it is possible, with men accompanying them. Onenotes their varied nature, in the clear differences of the lines, the length of the legs (na 5recalling the Greek geometric style), the sizes of the animais, the facial-profiles and the coats,certain of which are piebald.

The convex facial profile of the Barb breed is notably absent, the opposite of whathas been written about this subjeet. The diffusion of this breed into North Afriea does notseem, therefore to have eoncerned the Equidians. Let us reeall the theories about its origin:eross-breeding between zebras (Equus mauritanicus) and domestieated hOl'ses introducedfrom Asia Minor to Egypt (Gautier); and the supposed transmission into the Sahara by theHyksos (Espérandieu) of a breed that none of the very rare bone vestiges of the horses leftby that ethnie group has permitted attribution to. The Dongolawi-Barb eonneetion alsoremains to be clarified.

Fig. 23. Paintings. Riders on horses in a "f1ying gallop"( Lhote): l, 2, 3, Timmissao; 4, 5, 6, Tassili-n-A,Üer.

43

PhOlo 1. Tassili-n-Ajjer, Djeral, from Ikehaman: engraving of an anlelope hunlwith a chariol in a "flying gallop" (L.A-H.)

':.4«Pholo 2. Djeral, engraving: chariol in a "flying gallop" surmounled by Iwo

running human figures (L. A-H.)

".

Pholo 3. Djeml, engraving: a slalic chariol,wilh Iwo human beings and Iwo horses (L.A-H.)

44

Photo 4. Djerat, engraving: harnessed chariot wilh its driver, seen from above (L.A-H.)

Figure 23 shows images ofhorses from Timmissao (nOS 1 to 3) ofwhich two are riddenastride and one side-saddle by a rider depicted with a mushroom hairstyle. They are works whichbelong to a period, already late, of the "ftying gallop". Of the subjects nOs 4, 5 and 6 from theTassili-n-Ajjer, only the na 4 has a convex facial profile.

Generally speaking, the common stereotyped position of the horses in a "ftying gallop"­long in its neck and withers, forehead in a near horizontal position- intended to create animpression of speed as the one produced by the drivers in a very much bent forward position,does not render easy the differentiation of the breeds.

The use of chariots

The use of chariots for war has been put forward since 1934, according to the theories ofHerodotus, who came to Cyrenaica about 450 B.C., sorne five hundred years after the appearanceof the first representations of chariots drawn by animais in a "ftying gallop", at a time of theGreek quadrig<e, to which he attributed, wrongly, a Libyan origin.

It goes without saying that the Equidians were equipped with javelins, which they alsohad with them when they were in their chariots. H. Lhote has supported the war-like use of thelatter based on two pieces of evidence.

The first one is the weil known panel at Djerat* which juxtaposes or superimposesdifferent scenes revealed by the different tints of the ochre. They are Barbary sheep huntingscenes, one of them with bows and hunting dogs; two groups of pike-bearers on foot, equippedwith shields, fighting against each other; and finally a chariot, which appears in a darker tintthan the other subjects, and seems to come to the rescue of one of the two groups. Its driver,who stands with his feet on the axle, has a shield, as has a second person holding three pikes,depicted in the air above the vehicle, and who does not necessarily belong to the chariot'scompany. A third man, bent above the neck and withers of the horses, seems to be in the same

*Cf. H. Lhote in Arcl1eo[oxia, 9, 1966. and in Les chars rupestres Sahariens, 1982, p. 92.

45

position. The round-shaped shields. cornmon to the fighters on foot and the three men, confera certain unity to the whole, shown as a general combat.

The second piece of evidence mentioned is the chariot of our 'limited' photo 2. In1973, our attention was drawn by figures of wan'iors made by the same hand, one in a "flying"style. who accompany the chariot and contrast with a horned-man of a c1early lighter patina,holding before him a javelin, and running in front of the chariot. In 1976, H. Lhote publishedthe chariot only. It is in J981, that he associated to it, not the two above-mentioned people(the flying man and the horned-man), but the "runaways" (in front of the vehic1e), qualifiedas "Shardane" **.

The use of chariots for the transport of people was very limited by their structure asby the topography, and their use for the transport of material was exc1uded.

We have indicated two chariots depicted in hunting action; one in a hunting scene ofan antelope (fig, 20, n° 1) and the other of Barbary sheep (not reproduced) in fig. 21, n° 5).

The competition of the three chariots from the Garet el Djenoun (fig. 20) seemsindisputable on our historie photo document, which shows them placed at intervals on a largebare panel.

The use of chariots for individual sport seems to us to have been highly in favour.These simple devices, brought by their owners or made locally, were of a nature to obtain asporting pleasure for the owners, in paI1icular, where, as at Tamajert, possibilities of chariotroutes, and a social satisfaction existed.

It is as a value of high prestige that G. Camps has attributed to the chariots, consideredas the perquisite of a dominant warlike caste, a conception that can be illustrated, but in apacifist way, by the worthy couple in chariot n° 6 in figure 21. One can equaIJy think that thechariots' owners were not anxious to be placed on a socially inferior step in matters ofhorsemanship.

**cf. H. Lhote in Les chars rupestres sahariens, 1982, p. 108. fig. 40.

46

EQUIDIAN SOCIETY

Before examining the hypotheses expressed about the origins and characteristics ofthe appearance of the chariot men in the Central Sahara, presented as the results of migration,warlike invasion or warlike incursions, let us consider the ethnographical aspect of theEquidians.

Their milieu remains that of the "final Bovidian" where their way of life hardlydiffered from that of the last Pastoralists of the Tassili-n-Ajjer, the Equidians being like them,small breeders of cattle and of goats (fig. 24, n° 3), living in low nomad huts (nO 1).

Cultural features of the Equidians (fig. 24)

Asserting themselves through their rock art works, which permit us to bring out theelements of their way of Iife, which nearly always had local precedents.

-"Flying" attitudes are already seen depicted in the early rock art of the Tassili-n-Ajjer,applied to a "wild boar", gazelles, and hunters armed with pikes or bows.

-The schematisation of human figures (heads more or less cenocephalous, and later on smallstick-shaped heads with aureola hairstyles) had been employed during several anterior phasesin the north-east quadrant of the Sahara. One also notices, at Adjefou and In Eten, a fewEquidians with pointed beards like the ones of the Pastoralists.

- Close-fitting short leather tunics, whose lowest part is rigid and flared, are visible in theAcacus (F. Mori) and in the Hoggar (1. Petit, unpublished) from early pastoral periods. Amongthe Equidians, more than half of the chariot drivers wear these tunies, the others being naked,an opposition which could express a social separation between owners and servants in chargeof the horses, but not enough to prove the coexistence and the definition of two ethnie groups,one dominating the other.

In several parts of the Tassili-n-Ajjer one cannot distinguish, in a same context, theEquidians with tunics and those wearing short coats leaving one shoulder bare, recalling thosewith which the Egyptians have represented the eastern Libyans.

-The Equidian women, with ample long, tightly fitting dresses (n° 3) which also have aprecedent engraved at the Wadi Djerat, appear to be on equal footing with the men in scenesof sociallife which have been so characteristic of the Pastoralists from the high period of theTassili.

On the other hand, carefully rendered crooked-legged stools of the Equidians (n° 1)may have been their own, the same as a few stringed musical instruments, from the late periodof this group.

Finally let us mention certain large trilobate head-dresses (na' 5 and 9) which haveBovidian homologues in the Saharan Atlas.

47

1

1,1 9

Fig. 24. Paintings. The Equidians. - Tassili-n-Ajjer. L scene in a hut (from Kunz); 3, (Breuil); 6. (Riga!).- Southern Tadrart, 2, 8. couples; 5, 9, trilobate head-dresses (Allard-Huard). - Hoggar, 3, 7,

(Huard and Santamaria).

48

-Conceming the arms of the Equidians, the bow is maintained. but the main ones are thepike and the spear generally without metal heads. When they are depicted, they initiallyconcem bronze arms imported from the north, before the Iron Age which originates inCyrenaica about 600 B.C. The shield, small and generally round. appears at an alreadyadvanced stage in the Equidian culture.

-The Equidians have, to their credit, the development of the breeding of a race of somewhatlupine (having the nature or qualities of a wolf), greyhound (na 6). known in the Acacus asearly as "the antique pastoral phase" (Mori). The naturalist Egyptologist Keimer thought themto be born of CanÎs lupaster in which Anubis became incarnate. Pharaoh Antef II (around2000 B.C.) had one of these dogs, given the Berber name of Abai Kur, a greyhound.

-The compound spiral motifs that accompany certain compositions of the Equidians alsohave engraved precedents. In particular. the design combining spirals and meanders paintedat Ihararar which is a simplified replica of an engraved motif, belonging to the pastoral period,found at Ikoumaren in the Hoggar (Huard and Petit).

-With regard to chariots drawn by oxen (see fig. 25), H. Lhote has written: "The f1yinggallop" style, in several cases, extends to oxen harnessed to chariots which are sometimesdepicted on the same rock wall as the harnessed hOl'ses, for instance as at the Wadi Djerat."(1981, p. 84). Their environment is indisputably Equidian, late in time and, in two cases, theyare driven by women. These vehic1es for transport, of poor and decadent workmanship, seemto us clearly posterior to the "f1ying" style group, the subject matter of our study.

Finally in short, the cultural features of the Equidians can be explained by localfactors. without calling on distant contributions.

Hypotheses on the origin of the Equidians

The questions which c1aim our attention about the origin of the Equidians are variedand Iinked: the origin and character of the supposed immigrants, their ethnic composition,their means of introduction, and their chronology. The answers, based upon the interpretationof historical data lacking in precision. and of documentary images showing artisticconventions, can only be partial and are sometimes impossible.

In the light of the analyses which precede. we shall first review the opinions expressedby the most qualified observers.

-In 1934, E.F. Gautier, coming back from the Wadi Djerat proposed a "Garamantic" originfor the chariots and imagined a Garamantic military kingdom of the Tassili-n-Ajjer. In anotherpublication, of the chariots he retained only "the frenzied gallop. exactly like those of theAsian. Mycenian, Aegean chariots", and supposed them lo be imported into the Tassili asearly as 1500 B.e. by the invaders who were "the Peoples of the Sea", in turn enemies andmercenaries of Egypt. M. Reygasse shared similar views on the Garamantic hypothesis andput back the appearance of the chariots to 1000 B.e.

49

-In 1935, R. Perret excluded a transmission of the chariots through Egypt and thought themto have come from Asia into Libya through Greece. The Djerat population wouId haveprovided mercenaries to the union forces of the "Peoples of the Sea" against Egypt.

-In 1937, R. Vaufrey noted the great scarcity of the "ftying gallop" in Mycenian art (in whichwe note that the drivers are not bent fOl'ward) and presumed that Saharan chariots were thework of indigenous peoples having served in the ranks of Libyan mercenaries, a theory towhich 1. Tschudi (1955) was opposed because "the paintings are too numerous and carefullyreproduced to have been executed from memory". The "ftying gallop" would be just aconvergence.

-In 1953, H. Lhote, who did not ignore the existence of the Florence chariot, insisted uponthe similarity of the Aegean chariots and those from the Tassili where the triangular tunicwould have been imported from Crete. One could be in the presence of "Aegeo-Garamantic"chariots.

-The author then drew a map of the distribution of the chariots from the Central Sahara"without taking into account their style, age, structure" which would indicate a "chariot route"progressing from Fezzan to the Adrar des Iforas through the Tassili and the Hoggar. Thecrossing of the Tassili being possible only through the deep gorges of the wadis Tadjerjertand Imirhou, he gave preference to the latter.

-In 1954, he was no longer in favour of it: "one manages to get out of the wadi only withdifficulty after the exhausting efforts of the mounts. One wonders how the chariots couldhave used that route".

-In 1966, however, in his article, "The Tripoli-Gao Route of the Libyan war chariots", theharshness of the wadi had vanished, "... one just has to follow the way as far as the plateauof Dider".

-In 1972, with the professor J. Leclant, for the first time we insisted upon the ditferences instructure between the Egyptian and Aegean chariots, and one will no longer hear of the latter,with regard to Libya.

-The year 1981 knew varied restatements (cf H. Lhote, G. Camps, A. Muzzolini).

1 - H. Lhote's work is interspersed with interesting adopted definite positions, sometimesvery clear, sometimes ambiguous if not contradictory:

"The origin of the chariots can be mapped out around 1200 B.C, the Egyptian delta is ailnoises and fury, the pharaohs fought hard battles to drive out from it a feared coalition, thatof the "Peoples of the Sea". The latter, finally defeated, escaped towards the west. The chariotthen spreads among the Libyan populations in Fezzan. The earliest representations of it arepaintings, depicting horses and the ftying gallop in elegant draftsmanship" (Jaquette).

50

"After their failure against Egypt, we do not know how, they (the Libyans and the 'Peoplesof the Sea') dispersed throughout Cyrenaica" (p. 104).

The chariots were "introduced through Fezzan", but "it is not necessary to consider thepossibility of a Trans-Saharan route, but instead axes of penetration north-east, south-west,through the Central Sahara, which will constitute, as it were, the framework of theBerberophone estate which, from century to century, will become the Tuareg country" (p. 62).

"The occupation of the telTain was not done ail at once, but took place progressively" (p. ]04).

The chariots "are of the same type as the Egyptian chariots, or even the Aegean ones" (p. 67).

"The f1ying gallop style reflects a foreign artistic influence" (p. 65).

"It is obvious that the appearance of the chariots painted in the "f1ying gallop" style indicatesthe alTival, in the Central Sahara, of invaders having nothing in common with the populationswho lived in the country previously" (p. 101).

"Could populations of Libyan origin have lived in the region before the alTival of charioteerpeople. It is very likely"(p. 101).

"However that may be the human being type with a close-fitting short tunic, armed withjavelins and a round shield that would have had an area of distribution limited with precisionto the Central Sahara, thus taking possession of that region" (p. 104).

"One only can surmise what their settlements (of the Libyans) were in the Tassili-n-Ajjer andthe Hoggar. Their armed forces were probably not very numerous" (p. 105).

2 - G. Camps explains the introduction of the chariot with the horse "by degrees from Egyptby the intermediary of the eastem Libyans" in two ways starting from the Gulf of Sidra (KhalijSurt -Tripoli coast): "towards the south, Fezzan, then the Tassili and the Hoggar; towards thewest, from Tripolitania and southern Tunisia". The expansion of the horse "was not aphenomenon necessarily linked to a conquest. Saharan art incites us preferably to believethat there was not sudden change and stillless mutation between the "bovidian", pre-equine,and the "equine" periods.

"The introduction of the horse and the chariot through MeditelTanean people does not seemto have caused ethnie disorder in the Central Sahara."

"The Equidian drivers of chariots seem to have constituted a warlike social class whichimposed its domination on the melanodermic (having dark skin) populations who hadpreceded them and had not disappeared."

51

5~.,.,.... ~

,-., -;.. .." ..'. :\ ~'.., ~.;- . :.• ~'~f.... ~ ..r., ,. .....-

" \.t't

2

Fig. 25. Chariots drawn by oxen. Paintings, Djerat, 1, from Tamajert (Spruytte): 4. (Lhote). - Engravings,Fezzan. 3, 6, chariots drawn by four horses (Graziosi); 2, 5, schematic chariots (Le Quellec).

52

3 - A. Muzzolini distinguishes a type of Greek chariot with the platform directly above the axleand a type which he calls Egypto-Asian, with a platform in front of the axle, which could also bethat (modified and adapted) of the chariot in a "flying gallop". "An origin partially Egyptian(of the Saharan chariots) is possible but, not at ail essential". A transmission of the chariots fromEgypt to Libya however and even contacts between the Delta and inland Libya remain to beproved. No figurations of chariots are found on the coast. "Western Libya joined History onlyafter the foundation of Cmthage around 750 B.e. and chiefly of Cyrene in 630 Re."

Let us note that the hypothesis of an introduction of Phoenician chariots into Libyacannot be a priori set aside, seeing as these chariots were of the same structure as the Egyptianchariots, that Tyr had a corporation of chariot-builders and that one sees at Megiddo (Palestine)chariots depicted with animaIs in a flying gallop. The commerce of Tyr however, was mostlycarried out towards Cyprus and Crete. Ezechiel, who enumerates the peoples and the "importantnumber of isles with which Tyr traded (XXVI, 16, 18 and XVII, 3, 7, 15), makes no referencesto the coast of the Maghreb, which its ships had to follow, making to Tarsis, its provider of"silver, iron, tin and lead" (XXVII, 12).

Engraved chariots from Fezzan (fig. 25)

Since as early as 1932, schematic engraved chariots, of a light patina, have beendiscovered in northern Fezzan (in particular wadi Zigza and wadi Masauda). J.-L. Le Quellec,who carried on the rock art prospection in that region, in 1983, recorded there at least twentychariots, to which have to be added a few unpublished vehicJes drawn by horses or oxen,collected by 1. Ph. Lefranc.

Datable from the time of Herodotus (450 B.e.) they are located, as the crow flies,250 kilometres north-east of Djerma (Garama) the capital of the Garamantes, and fail to appearat the important neighbouring sites of this rock art centre (Maknusa, Buzna, Zinkekra).

Therefore the transmission of the chariots from the Mediterranean coast to the Tassili­n-Ajjer is without landmarks in central and southern Fezzan. Moreover these heavy chariotsfrom Fezzan, often drawn by four horses harnessed to double poles or shafts linked with a crossbar at the level of the necks and withers (na' 3 and 6), are not quadrigre which could only haveone pole, the horses either side of il. being directly connected to the body of the chariot.

The absence of early figurations of chariots on the whole Libyan coast, and in centraland southern Fezzan, with the exception of these, late ones in northern Fezzan, would put a stopto these with regard to the an'ival ofEquidians, who suddenly reveal their art and their technique,apparently around the beginning of the first millennium. It would leave nearly untouched theimportant problem they set, if other factors could not be anticipated.

53

.'~.~ '.;~ " .....

...... ,. - L \1 .

\\" ~. "\

,.",~'.~:.~.~~~

Fig. 26. Tassili-n-Ajjer. Painted quadriga at Ekat-n-Ouchere (after Kunz).

Fig. 27. A pyramidal scaffolding: structure topped by a cock (?) or a horse 0)and a chariot fram Ouan Mouline (after J. Tschudi)

54

External influences upon the Tassili-n-Ajjer

Sorne traces of external influences are found in the Tassili. The most clearly distinctand earliest one is, in our point of view, the appearance (see fig. 28, nOS 1 and 2), amongst thesmooth shafts of the Equidians. of spears with more or less leaf-like armatures. probably inmetal which, during the first half of the First millennium, could only be bronze, that is to sayimp0l1ed, and thus of Phoenician or Greek origin. The following two pieces of evidence, verymuch later than the "flying gallop", are none the less significant.

A painted large-sized quadriga (L = 80 cm), unf0l1unately very damaged, has beendiscovered at Ekat-n-Ouchere. in the western Tassili. by 1. Kunz (fig. 26). Its four rearingwar-horses, of a great artistic value, contrast in ail respects with the bamessings of the Equi­dians. The anatomical details are "of a great delicacy of execution and perfectly reproduced.The stepped disposition of the hOl'ses gives an impression of perspective and allows us to re­cognise each of the bodies. which are skilfully distinguished by the degree of gradient andby the colour, a purplish-blue ochre for the contours, white and reddish ochre for the smfaces".For ourselves we note the elongated heads with a concave profile and the lower lips "drawnback under the action of the bit", according to the discoverer who noticed a great similaritybetween that work of art and the Greek representations of the Vth and the IVth centuriesB.e.: "a traditionalist autochthonous draughtsman -denoted by the usual representation ofthe small-stick head - has copied a foreign model with wbich he could have been in contactowing to links with the Mediterranean world". A decorated piece of ceramic. we believe,could have been this mode!.

The chariot from Ouan Mouline (fig. 27) denotes a more recent indirect influence,for it is part of a composition; two men who climb a palm-tree, an unhamessed chariot witha rather large platform, and a pyramidal scaffolding structure topped by a cock (?) (or a horse;question to be discussed?). If it is a cock, this is a symbol visible at Carthage on the funerarystelae from the last centuries B.e.

ln figure 28, late Equidians nO' 3, 4 and 5 have with them arms that could be of iron,this wrought metal being attested to from 600 Re. in Cyrenaica.

ln the absence of represented pieces of evidence at the level of the "flying gallop"about the chariots, in the north of the Tassili, texts from Antiquity can be evoked The intro­duction of the Greek chariots into Cyrene (630 B.e.) could have not been a new fact, if onefollows the idea of Callimaque, a Cyrenaen poet. who describes his ancestors the Dorians ofThéra circulating in chariots in the company of blond Libyan ladies. These Libyans couldapply to quadriga their experience of the horse and of the chariot, acquired during centuriesby the eastem Libyans in the Egyptian army and particularly under the XXIInd Dynasty.They obtained repeatedly favourable results at the horse races of Hellade, of which the IVthand Vth Pythian Odes of Pindare echo before Herodotus, who mentioned the Asbytes makinguse of chariots much more than the other Libyans, and having sorne of them drawn by fourhorses. Equitation was also practised and Pindar speaks of the crowd of nomadic horsemen(IXth Pythian Ode).

The Greeks from Cyrenaica had chariots drawn by four horses.

55

3

Fig. 28. Paintings. Equidians holding spears with leaf-like armatures in metaI.Southem Tadrart, l, 5, (Allard-Huard). - Tasili-n-Ajjer, 2, (Breuil); 3, (Jacob); 4, (Lajoux).

56

During the VIth century B.e., relationships between Egyptians and Libyans fromCyrenaica were not broken off when the Greeks eliminated them from Pentapole, the Libyanscalled for help from the Pharaoh Apries (588-568 B.C.).

The Garamantes, about whom opinions have been varied, if not contradictory, wereat that time well-known horse-breeders, and it seems right that their name had, by expansion,included several Libyan ethnic groups quoted from the time of Herodotus onwards.

It was only in the IVth century B.e., that Carthage caused war chariots to be built.They were drawn by four horses, and were engaged in Sicily against Timoleon. Thirty yearslater, in 308 B.C., Agathocle, a tyrant of Sicily, landed in Tunisia and fought against theCarthaginians with a corps numbering fifty chariots with Libyans in them. Finally, in 214 B.e.,the queen of the Asbytes, thrown out of her chariot, perished at Sagonte, in the ranks ofHannibal.

A global interpretation

Does an explanation exist of the representations of chariots drawn in "the f1yinggallop", which does not neglect the factors which have opposed the partisans of various thesesput forward?

Let us start from accepted facts. It is through the Mediterranean coast that the chariotand the horse were introduced to the Sahara. ln the XlIIth century B.e. a few chariots of theAegean or Egyptian type were then in the hands of eastern Libyan chiefs, received as gifts,bought or captured. The Libyan great sand sea (The Great Sand Sea of Calanscio), pushingback along the coast the communications between the Delta and Libya, prevented theresurgence of the coalition of Libyans and "Peoples of the Sea that was destroyed in 1227 B.e.at Per-irt at the birth of the Delta, and it could have been substantial in Marmarica.

For three centuries, the losers, a loose grouping of different Libyan tribes, wereconfined by the Libyans to the east of the Delta, where their military colonies suppliedauxiliaries to the army, in particular to the chariotry, which needed numerous staff to breed,break in and attend to the horses, as weil as to keep the vehicles in good repair. That longperiod of peace in the region permitted family relations and exchanges between the Libyansof the Delta and their country of origin. Progressively, they acceded to dominant posts in thearmy and, in 950 RC. their leader Sheshonq, benefitting from the division of power, quietlyassumed the Crown, founding the Libyan XXIInd Dynasty, of which one knows that itrestored relationships with the Libyan oases in Egypt.

During these last centuries of the millennium, chariots, mostly of the Egyptian type,were in the hands of Libyan tribes from Cyrenaica. Therefore we have good reason to thinkthat certain families from inland Libya were in possession of chariots or were aware of them.It is thus normal that the Libyans most concerned, as being in the Tassili, had the desire andthe possibility to build vehicles with their own resources and to use them locally. They hadthe means to let us know about it, for it was they, the men of horses, who represented thesevehicles in rock art.

57

The absence of painted images of chariots between the Cyrenaica coast and the Tassili­n-Ajjer is not an argument of value against our scenario, for rock art has always failed ta appearin certain regions where the rock support would be favourable to it, whereas it has developedand remained in other sectors mostly in the fonn -painted or engraved- which prevailed therepreviously.

2

3

Fig. 29. Engraved chariots later than the "ftying gallop" period. Hoggar, 1, North Tin Eggoleh; 2, 3, Edjidj.- Southern Tassili-n-Ajjer, Taout, 4 (Allard-Huard).

58

The Tassili-n- Ajjer and the Acacus have been amongst favoured zones and we have

noted:- that it is practically impossible to separate the paintings of the last Bovidians, among whomone notes Libyan cultural features, from those of Equidians;

- that the cultural features of the latter (the Equidians) had been used in the same place before

them;

- that importations from the north, in particular concerning the spheres of clothing and of armyprovisions, were probable.

The only remaining question requiring an answer is therefore this one: why do therepresentations of chariots in "a f1ying gallop" appear suddenly, or at least so it seems? It is nolonger a matter of technique, but an artistic and social question. Noting that, in each of the mainsites, the chariots are very similar, if not made by the same hands, one is led to question oneself- as is the case at other rock art levels - about the forms of production and of reproduction ofthe works discussed, marked by conventions maintained by tradition. The number of theirauthors, mobile or not, has in any case, been very limited, ascribed to the generations concernedduring some five hundred years (900 to 400 B.C.) which would correspond with the culture ofthe Equidians.

ACter the "f1ying gallop"

Subsequent to the group which has just been discussed, it is by hundreds, for centuriesand until the beginning of our era, that the engraved vehicles have been recorded in the Centraland north-western Sahara. They are pecked or hammered out, sometimes drawn by horses oroxen, but in majority unharnessed, schematic, and with yokes or shafts.

Figure 29 shows our contribution to this subject matter, being a continuation of ourrecent researches in the Central Sahara. Engraving n° 1, of a medium patina, represents a chariotfrom North Tin Eggoleh (Iength: about 35 cm), very tightly pecked, on which the raised axle isprominently displayed. Images n° 2 and n° 3, set apart, and very visible (L =40 cm), of a lighterpatina than the one before, coming from Edjidj, to the north of Hirhafok, are drawn schematicallyin a f1attened plan. Each of them comprises two ring-bows in front of the platform, which extendsbeyond at the back of the axle. Finally, n° 4, a rudimentary vehicle with two shafts (L: about25 cm) has been recorded at Taout, on the southern border of the Tassili-n-Ajjer.

Mounted horses can be put in parallel with two chariots of a late period. We have thenreached the Iron Age. An example is given by a horseman from the southern Tadrart; he has around shield, rides a bridled horse bareback, and with ajavelin he hunts a feline (photo 5). Thesehorsemen, the so-called Libyco-Berbers, become very numerous, particularly in the Hoggar andthe Aïr.

59

.~:>~~;

i •.c.~~t,~~·

Photo 5. Southern Tadrart, Ouan Zonaten: engraving, horseman (L.A-H.)

Photo 6. Djerat, engraved spearman (L.A-H.)

60

2. IRON

In Egypt, this metal was present in three forms: meteoric iron, soft iron and hardiron. This being established, it is advisable first to justify that the working of iron cornes afterthat of copper, the smelting of copper ore leaving as a by product soft iron, unsuitable for themaking of anns and tools. which were therefore cast in bronze. Hard iron results from "acalculated alternation of heating by blowing the bellows and hammering, so as to incorporateinta the metal the necessary amount of carbon" (Mauny); the charcoal provided the carbon.After that iron then had to be worked. The methods used by metal works remained for a longtime an industrial secret of the Hittites, from whom the pharaohs received a few preciousarms from the XIVth century B.C. onwards. Metallurgy was known by the Phoeniciansaround IWO B.e. Ezekiel (XXVII, 12 and 19) distinguished the iron of Tarsus from "worked"iron from Asia Minor. During the IXth-VIIIth centuries, wrought iron (Odyssey XIV, 325)was still considered as wealth. The Dorians knew the working of it around 900 B.C., beforethe Carthaginians, the Greeks from Cyrenaica and the Egyptians.

The diffusion of iron in Africa happened according ta two different cunents: one fromthe Mediterranean coast towards the northern Sahara (A), and the other through the Egypto­Sudanese Nile (B), which diffused this metal from Meroë in the direction of the ChadianSahara.

A - MEDITERRANEAN IRON IN AFRICA

1 - The Phoenicians included iron among their e,\portations. At Carthage its most ancienttraces found in tombs are dated to the VIth century B.C. From the end of the followingcentury, Carthage enlarged its lands and enlisted mercenaries, amongst whom, Libyan chariotdrivers and Numidian horsemen.

The rather late prosperity of the Punie settlements of the Syrtes: Leptis Magna, Oéa(Tripoli), Sabratha, started from the VIIth to the Vth centuries B.C., based upon an indigenouscaravaneer traffic, of which modalities are unknown. One can admit that iron arms couldhave been a means of exchange appreciated by the inland indigenous chiefs from the mrdcentury B.e., a period when iron became common in the Punie burial-places. On the otherhand, it remained extremely scarce in pre-Roman tombs in Fezzan.

2 - From 630 B.C. onwards, Cyrene could have known iron from the Dorians. famous fortheir arms made of that metal, who were a part of the three founder groups of the city. TheApollonion of Cyrene has given us a hollow iron statue, dated to the end of the VIIth centuryB.e.

When Cyrenaica became a centre of training for quadrig::e where Libyan driversdistinguished themselves, tribes such as the Asbytes and the Auchises respectivelysunounding Cyrene and Barcé, knew a certain amount about the use of wrought iron. Throughthem, the chiefs of tribes from the hinterland, who still had javelins with heads hardened byfire (Herodotus, VII, 71), could acquire metal arms.

61

tl

Fig. 30. Engravings. Arms with armatures in metaL from the Central Sahara. 1. ln Azaoua:2 to 6. Aïr, (Lhote).

62

In the Central Saharan zone one can separate only hypothetically, from their rock artlevel and their context, the spears with bronze heads from those of iron which followed them.These arms were a minor part of those possessed by the Equidians, and continued to be so

after them.

ln the Wadi Djerat the engraved figure of an isolated pedestrian (photo 6), holding ajavelin with a leaf-like head, belongs very probably to the Iron Age.

In Fezzan, the above-mentioned arms are extremely rare, whereas they are found inthe Aïr.

In figure 30, the most ancient piece of evidence would be drawing n° l, from InAzaoua; it shows a man wearing a Libyan coat, of a dark patina, whose javelin could beevidence of very southerly Mediterranean bronze. From the Aïr, subject n° 2, who, accordingto its dress of an Equidian fashion, could be female, holds in one hand two small javelins.Subject n° 3 is equipped with a long spear, and the others (nO 4, n° 5 and n° 6) have a javelinand a small round shicId each, inherited from the Equidians.

The "Libyco-Berbers", associated or not with horses, who will last until the Camelperiod, possessed as typical arms three short javelins and a round shield.

To the cast of the Maghreb, urban centres in the Und century A.D. could havetransmitted arms of a Roman type at a time of traffics between Rhadames (Cidamus) andSabratha as between Fezzan and Leptis. In the IlIrd century A.D., Rhadames was the base ofa detachment of troops in front of the limes (fortified Saharan frontier-line during the Romandomination in North Africa), the general disposition of which was closed up by Diocletien inA.D. 297. Iron is very scarce in tombs of the Roman epoch in Fezzan, and the dismantlingof the province of Africa markcd by the rebellions of nomadic tribes and the division of theempire (A.D. 395) was certainly not favourable to the diffusion of iron in the Central Sahara.

It was the same during the Byzantine epoch, when, at the beginning of the VIthcentury A.D. the emperor Anastase forbade the Romans and the Barbarians to pass the lineof castra (castra means or signifies camp; a common name of numerous ancient towns whichwere probably set up around Roman camps). Yet, diplomacy and religious propagandaobtained favourable results in spiritual change at Rhadames (the indigenous peoples signeda treaty of alliance and at the same time they became converted to Christianity), then inA.D. 569 and very temporarily it was the tum of the Garamantes of Fezzan.

One cannot date the tradition of Fezzan which attributed the establishment at Sebhaof the Ben Gdaïr, lewish ironsmiths, come from the north, following steel-c1ad horsemen.The belief in a lewish origin for metal work also exists with the Tuareg of the Hoggar, whereiron ore is rare.

63

Finally, the early diffusion of MeditelTanean iron to the Central Sahara was very limited,as is shown in a panial statistic established comparatively with the Tibesti depending on theMeroïtic current of iron:

Simple smooth javelinsSpears with a large iron headOther irons

Central Sahara1221619

Tibesti23

1618

Photo 7. Nubia: X Group (Yth-Ylth century A.D.), large sadd le pomme!decorated with plated metal (photo, J.Leclant's collection).

64

B - IRON IN THE NILE VALLEY

ln Egypt. Except for a few objects of meteoric iron, the metals in use were copperand bronze until the heart of the Lower Epoch. Previously, arms and objects made of iron, atthat time a precious metal, sporadically imported from Asia Minor from the XIVth centuryB.e., had been found in royal tombs. It is only during the first half of the VIIth century B.e.,a time of close understanding between Assyria and subdued Egypt, that one generally agreesto situate the beginning of the real diffusion of iron, of which numerous articles coming fromDaphne in the Delta have been attributed to the Greek and Carian mercenaries enlisted byPsammetik 1 (663-609 B.e.). The first manufacturing firm having treated iron, at Naucratis,is dated to the Vith century B.e.. Persiall troops of occupation and the deliveries of Hellenicarms to the last national kings couId have contributed to accustoming the Egyptians to ironarms, if not to their making, which is certainly a slow process; and iron-smelting was reallyonly attested to from the Ptolemaic Epoch, at the end of the IVth century Re.

The Iron Age in Kush

The introduction of iron to the Sudan, under the Kushite power would be due:

- either to king Taharqa (689-663 B.e.) who could have received it directly from theAssyrians, as iron ingots were part of the treasure of Sanam (Napata); but only two tombsearlier than king Amtalqa (568-553 B.e.) contained an iron arrow-head each;

- or to the loniall and Carian mercenaries who passed through Nubia under Psammetik II(593-588 Re.) and proceeded as far as the Fourth Cataract, and whose inscriptions can be readat Abu Simbel and Buhen. Iron spearheads found in graves at Ikhmindi, which are similar tothose at Daphne are attributed to them. The reign of the Kushite king Aspelta (593-568 B.e.)coinciding with their anival would mark the beginning of iron in the treasure of Napata.

The Kushite power had been progressively transfelTed from Napata to Meroë fromthe Vith century Re., one of the reasons evoked to justify this withdrawal was the abundance,in the sector of the Fifth and Sixth Cataracts, of good quality iron ore and wood necessaryfor its transformation. The famous slag heaps at Meroë, indeed testify to an industry, thecapacity of which should be, however, reduced, taking into account the small quantity ofproduction and, consequently a large disproportion between the volume of slag and that ofthe metal produced.

At Meroë, iron occulTed in the graves of the wealthy as early as the VIth century B.e.,but its absence in those of the ordinary people leads us to suppose that smelting and forgingiron could have been a royal monopoly, methods of which were jealously kept secret (Arkell),a probable hypothesis as far as the organisation of Kush took its inspiration from that ofEgypt, where the industrial circuit of metals directly depended on the king or the greattemples.

65

GJ1

1 (

Fig. 31. Meroitic arms. l, ceramic from Wadi es Sebua; 2. 3,4, reliefs from Meroë.

66

Meroitic iron smelting, which could have been active from the VIth century B.C.,

reached its highest point during the first century B.C. and the first century A.D. Spreadingfrom upstream to down stream, it is attested to near Napata, Kawa, Argo. Kerma, where slag

deposits are in connection with the Meroitic temples.

The long and often broad iron spearheads found during excavations of sites orrepresented on monuments (between the Vth century B.e. and the VIth century A.D.)particularly draw the attention, for these designs will be reproduced in Chadian Saharan rock

art.

At Nuri, near Napata, two metal spearheads which occur in royal tombs from themiddle and the end of the Vth century B.C., measure 22 cm and 30 cm and, at Sanam, awidened fragment, of II cm. At Barkal, in the temple of Amen, a mutilated low reliefrepresents a Kushite spearman (fig. 31. na 2). At Meroë, one also observes pieces of ironeither in the shape of arrowheads or triangular. In Nubia, the spearman with a broad headedspear (na 1) is painted on Meroitic pottery from Wadi es Sebua.

In the southern group of lebel Moya, an iron spearhead (23 cm) and arrowheads withlateral spikes have been unearthed.

Later on, long spearheads occur in the Roman-Nubian cemetery of Karanog (inNubia). Excavations carried out in the Nubades (or Nobatae, cf. Arkell 1955, p. 171, 178-9)principalities of the X-Group (from the IVth to VIth centuries A.D.) have revealed productsof very varied iron-working with sharp-pointed heads 20 cm long of barbed thin javelins atBallana, a large sharp-pointed socketed head (30,5 cm) at Buhen and, at Firka sharp-pointediron heads of 26 cm and 28 cm long.

The engraved rock art in Nubia displays various arms (fig. 32). The two spearheadsna 1, the outline of one of them having a double swelling which is known in the X-Group arefrom the region of Korosko. We have recorded other documentary pieces in the sector of theThird Cataract. The warrior na 2, from Missida (Masida), is impressive by its size (H= 1,25 m)and its position, pecked on a very hard rock suppol1 (granite); he holds vertically in one hand along thin javelin and with both hands cross-wise what seems to be a sword, which is an armknown at Meroë. It is of a light patina. The other subjects in the figure come from the WadiGorgod, where engravings na 3 to na 8, very slightly patinated, constitute an isolated group ofpictures. They have javelins of various lengths with sharp-pointed heads or swords. They protectthemselves with leather shields, keeping the shape of the animal out of which they are made.The two slender spears (na 9) are incised and of a light patina.

67

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hird Cataract: 2. fromThe Sudan, T(Almagro), - d)from Nubia, 1. d (Allard-Huar .k art of arms, 3 0 9 Gorgo' 32 Engraved roc M' sI'da (Masida):. t •FIg,. , IS.

68

3

Fig. 33.Engraved images depicting mounted horses. The Sudan. 1. from Sabu, the Third Cataract. (Allard­Huard). Egyptian Nubia, 2, (Frobenius); 3, (Almagro). Lower Nubia, 5. (Winkler).

Painting, 4, from Jebel Marra (Jungraytmayr).

69

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In the Western Sudan (map 3)

Meroë, whose power was based partly upon the traffic with inland Africa (Reiner),couId have radiated towards the west through the Sahel, where the axis Ed Debba ­W. el Melik - W. Haouar (Hawa), which leads to Ennedi, was, at that time very frequentlyvisited (Myers). Possible traces of Meroitic influence have been observed by Wainwright andArkell in remains of former monuments such as the ruins of sandstone in the Wadi el Malikand the pyramids of burnt bricks at Abu Sofian, where two slag heaps are not dated. In spiteof the absence of concrete evidence. the conditions which existed in the Sudan have beenconsidered as favourable to the transmission of wrought iron if not of iron metallurgyconsidered from its technical aspect, in the direction of Darfur. In particular this was due tothe horse (which could have been used in this southern Sub-Saharan zone of steppes wheretraffic and exchanges existed).

On bas-reliefs from Meroë, laurel leaf shaped spearheads are associated with smallsized horses of the Nubian type (fig, 31, na 4).

From the Vth-VIth centuries AD. the X-Group has left numerous documentary piecesrelated to the horse: saddles with large pommels decorated with plated metal (photo 7,cf. p. 64), bridIe-bits and adornments for horses.

During the VIth-VIIth centuries A.D. the Nubade principalities, converted toChristianity under Theodose, entered the Byzantine influence and Silkos founded a Christiankingdom at Dongola, where the Byzantine army levied tax.

The large iron spearheads persisted in Christian Nubia, arming Holy horsemen who,in the church of Faras, have adorned horses like those of Nobade princes.

In rock art. saddled horses or horses led in bridles (figure 33) are represented: na l,from the Third Cataract, and na 2, from eastern Nubia. During the Middle Ages in the sectorof Korosko, caparisoned horses appeared (n Û 3), mounted by riders holding swords andjavelins. In Darfur, to the west of the Sudan, painting na 4 from lebel Marra (Nyan Mortuge)depicts a rider on a saddle with a high pommel and cantle; he is armed with a large sword;he rides on a horse covered with a long caparison of a pattern still in use in the Peul sultanatesof western Chad and northern Cameroon. FinaIly, horseman na 5, from Lower Nubia, hasbeen assigned to the Arabian epoch, because of his long spur.

Before dealing with the study of the horse and Iron from the Sudano-Chadian borders,let us bring to mind the position ofAl Arkell, the historian of the Sudan, for whom followingthe fall of Meroë in the face of the power ofAxum (Ethiopia), about AD. 350, what remainedof the kingdom retired towards North Kordofan and Darfur. From that perspective, it is normalthat the Sudanese metal-workers had come to ply their activity in Ennedi, of which the mineraIresources were certainly known.

71

8

Fig. 34. Chadian Sahara. Engraved mounted horses, from Erdi, 1 (Huard); Ennedi. 2 (Kollmansperger); SouthernTibesti and Borku, 6 ta 9 (Huard). Paintings from Ennedi. 3. 4. 5 (Huard).

72

In the Chadian Sahara

Erdi, to the north of Ennedi, has furnished horseman n° 1. in figure 34, pecked in asunken relief technique on a wall of the Korko water hole. He wears a high cap of a sortwhich is represented twice in Lower Nubia, where it has been attributed, by Winkler, to thenomadic Blemmyes, who were horsemen and cameleers, very active at the Roman epoch,that is to say between 30 B.e. and A.D. 297, when Nubia had been evacuated and its powerrestored to the Nobade princes. Balfour Paul however, thought that the warriors with a"Phrygian cap" were Roman soldiers or Greek mercenaries, employed by Ptolemy. in agarrison in the zone of mines in the Red Sea. A horseman of that type. engraved in the WadiHammâmât (Goyon) is accompanied by an inscription in Greek.

In Ennedi, several early sites of iron metallurgy exist with remains of forging furnacesand twyers. lronsmiths say that their roots are from the east.

Undatable feather-headed horseman n° 2, also pecked, seems to hold his horse backand brandishes an axe. From Fada, paintings n° 3 and n° 4 show horsemen armed withSudanese large pointed-headed spears, riding horses bareback in the ftying gallop, withoutreins depicted, dating to the beginning of our era. In that same sector, other cultural featuresfrom the Nile appear such as harps and headrests. Painting n° 5, from Béchiké, depicts ahorseman holding a javelin with a pointed head in the shape of a bayonet. who drives hishorse with a rope passed round its neck.

In Borku, the most significant metallurgical sites are found in the region to the north­west of Koro Toro (Bochianga, Tongour), where pottery includes pierced cylinders, and largetumblers, sorne with lips and incised or painted decorations characteristic of Sudanese Nubia.

An arrow with a lateral barb like those from the Meroitic Sudan has been found atthe foot of Emi Koussi.

The horsemen engraved in Borku and on the southern border of the Tibesti are froma spread of epochs. From the Wadi Misky, subject n° 6, made in a rudimentary form holds aneastern spear. N° 7, conventionally standing up on a saddle with a pommel and a cantle, isarmed with a throwing knife, a weapon from the Middle Ages. N° 8, whose horse shows aconvex facial profile, brandishes a sword with a cross-shaped hilt, and n° 9, mounted in thesaddle is equipped with a throwing knife and a shaft without a spearhead.

Figure 35 groups spearmen painted in Ennedi; they show spears of which the form istypical of the Sudanese Nile: n° 1 with an iron arrow-shaped head; nOs 2, 3, 4 and 5, withleaf-shaped heads; n° 6. with a lateral dart; n° 7, with a magnified pointed head; n° 8, a smallsized spearman dressed with a leather loin-cloth, holds a large triangular headed spear; n° 9,is a warrior of a late period, with a knife fixed to his arm.

73

6

8

5

Fig. 35. Sudanese anns from Ennedi and eastern Tibesti. Paintings, 1 to 8 (Huard); 9 (Huard and Le Masson).

74

10

Fig. 36. Sudanese arms from Tibesti. Paintings, 1,2,3, (Huard and Massip); 4, (Huard and Le Masson);5,6, (Huard); 8, 9, JO (Huard and Le Masson. Engraving, 7, (Monod).

75

In the Tibesti (fig. 36 and photo 8), where ironsmiths said that their ancestors camefrom Ennedi. the south-eastern CUITent of iron finds its apogee and its end in a mass of chieflyengraved figures of spearmen. N° l, from the southern Tibesti is armed with a large iron leaf­headed spear and a kind of partitioned shield; na 2, with a mushroom shaped hair style, holdsa triangular headed spear, as does na 3, naked, and with a shield. N° 4, a painting from theSouthern border of the massif, represents a man wearing an Equidian tunic, a sign of contactwith the Central Sahara; he holds a large local shield waisted at its centre. On the n011hemborder, na 5 from Oudingueur is dressed in an animal skin whose tail is hanging down, whilena 6, with a feathered head is characterised by a bracelet and knife fixed to the arm, a weaponwhich appeared in Ennedi with the camel at about the beginning of our era. The two engravedsmall-feathered spearmen, na 7, have been borrowed from the long series recorded by Th.Monod around Aozou, in late Bovidian surroundings. Finally nOS 8 to 10 are painted in theeastern Tibesti. Photo 8 is a good example of these spearmen from the Tibesti, and theirconnection with the east.

Photo 8. Tibesti: engraved spearmen (P.Huard).

76

3. THE CAMEL

Here we will only consider the diffusion in Africa of the domesticated cameL whichcame from Asia Minor.

In central Arabia, two engravings, auributed to ethnie groups from the IIlrd and IIndmillennia B.e. (Anati), represent wild camels, being hunted, one with a bow, the other wilha spear. The camel seems first to have been ridden there, bareback on the hindquarters, thenusing a saddle that framed the hump.

In Palestine, the Book of Genesis mentions, in Abraham's lime, herds of camels, thatrest on their knees (XXIV, 11) "And he made his camels to kneel down without the city by a weil of

water. .. ". Rebecca and her maidservants mount camels (XXIV, 61) "And Re-bek'ah arose, and her

damsels. and they rode upon the camels, ... ". In Jacob's time, "Rachel having taken téraphim(domestic idols) put them under the pack-saddle of the camel and sat on it" (XXXI, 34) "Now

Rachel had taken the images, and put them in the camel's fumiture, and sat upon them".

In Egypt, a pecked rock picture of a camel was considered by G. W. Murray asPredynastic. The unpublished camel (photo 9), of a total patina, pecked at Gourtum, in thesouthern Tibesti, on a vertical rock wall could be examined from this point of view as il is anengraving to which we do not know any paralleI in the eastern Sahara.

Very scarce indications about an archaic presence of the camel in the Nile Valley havebeen evoked; they are a camel hair rope from the Fayum, dated to the IIIrd Dynasty and, fromNubia, a rib of a dromedary found in a seulement of the C-Group (end of the IIIrd, beginningof the IInd millennium B.e.) But it is a fact that the camel was absent from the Nile Valleyuntil the VIIth century B.e.

~,J" 'l'~4f~",;

. 7,:.:~ .~~:~!. '- .'

77

5

7

Fig. 37. Domestic art, figurations of camels. l, from Assyria: 2, 3, Arab riders from the Assyrian epoch;4, Egyptian vase. 5, engraving from the Fayum; 6, graffito dating from the 2nd century A.D.;

7, relief from Meroë, of the Roman epoch.

78

Figure 37 shows cameleers: na l, an AssYlian, mounted on a saddle that frames the hump;na 2, an Arab, from the same epoch, leading the camel with a forehead rope; na 3, two Arabsusing a common saddle, one of them leading with a rod, and the other shooting with a bow.

Assyrian king Assarhaddon (681-669 B.e.) obtained, from the Arabic chiefs, trainsof camels with which he entered Egypt.

ln his turn, in 525 B.C, Cambyses the Persian, used camels for the transport ofgoatskin bottles. In the Eastern Desert of Egypt, caravaneer traffic is attested to by inscriptionsfrom Himyarites and Nabateans. At the sanctuary of the Great Sphinx, an inscription inAramaic (belonging to the language of Aram -Syrian, Syriac) datable to the end of the Vthor the beginning of the IVth century Re., indicates the presence of camels in a caravannumbering 500 hm·ses.

ln the Und century B.e., according to the customs register of the Fayum, the camelwas widely in use in Egypt as a pack animal, and for the transport of mail and of travellers.Vessel na 4, from an indeterminate epoch, shows a camel carrying four amphorae weilbalanced around the hump, a theme common on the Alexandrine terra cottas. The produce ofthe Egypto-Libyan oases was then taken out by caravans of camels and donkeys.

These practices continued during the Roman epoch, when tourists went on camel­back to visit the Pyramids. Camel na 5, from the beginning ofthe Ist century A.D., is engravedon the plinth of a statuette in Fayum. In the mrd century A.D., soldier Aurelios Pétésé drewhimself, leading his camel, carrying amphorae, (na 6) at Hermopolis Magna in middle Egypt.

DIFFUSION OF THE CAMEL TOWARDS THE MAGHREB

The pieces of documentary evidence are scarce and unevenly distributed.

During the VIth century B.e., the Cyrenaica Persian satrapy (the Ancient PersianEmpire was divided into 20 governing provinces called satrapies) had to know the camel asit was used for mail and trade with Egypt.

Towards 150 B.e., in Tunisia, the name of a cameleer is shown on the dedication ofa sanctuary of Massinissa, at Dougga.

ln 68-67 B.e., L. Lollius, a lieutenant of Pompey, minted money at Cyrene, bearingthe effigy of a camel, the symbol of trade with the hinterland.

ln 46 B.e., Cesar took away from Juba 22 camels at the battle of Thapsus in Tunisia(de Bello Africano, 68, 4).

ln the IInd century A.D., caravan traffic in Phazanie (Rhadames) and in Fezzan, wherea Roman influence could have endured from Vespasien's time (A.D. 68-79), put to use theharnessed horse and the camel (E. Demougeot). In Tunisia, at La Goulette the existence of atoll to ferry camels attests to a common use of them. Beyond the limes (fortified Saharan frontier­

line during the Roman domination in North At'rica), the nomadic Libyans, whose breeding practices

79

had prospered, joined by tribes rebellious to the religious Romanisation, were in a state ofrevoIt against the Romans of Cyrenaica.

In the IIIrd century A.D., a detachment of the Lambese Legion transferred in front ofthe limes took possession of Rhadames.

In the IVth century, in A.D. 364, general Romanus wouId have claimed from theinhabitants of Leptis Magna 4,000 (or 400?) camels for his transport in order to cope withthe threats of the Nomads who themselves had camels.

From the Vth century A.D., their tribes began the invasion of the colonised zone.

In the VIth century, the Vandals had many bloody battles with them, in particular inAD. 513, before being vanguished by the Byzantines of Belisarus (AD. 532-534), whoexpelled them from Carthage. Procope (the Greek historian who accompanied Belisarus as a secretary

during his campaigns), a witness in the field, described the tactics of the Saharan cameleersagainst the imperial cavalry.

Finally, in the VIIth century, under the second Arab invasion, which occupied thefield, Ogba ben Nafi, started from Fezzan, in AD. 666-667 pushed along as far as Kaouarwith 400 horsemen supported by 400 camels which carried 800 goatskin bottles. From thattime onwards, the Central Sahara would be the incontestable field of the great nomadic tribes.There, for a long time the horse and the camel would be represented on a par in rock art(photo 10).

Photo 10. Hoggar: Libyco-Berber horse and camels for a long period representedon a par in rock art (photo after Mrs Lefèvre).

RO

- \ -" -Photo Il. Meroë: a bronze figurine of a crouching: came!,

tomb of Arikankharer, 25 Re.

Photo 12. Borku: from Iwinninga, engraved cameleer (Courtin).

81

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4

1

.,5

Fig. 38. Rock art pictures of camels. From Nubia, 1,2, (Winkler): 6, (Bietak and Engelmayer).From Uweinat, 3, 4, (Van Noten); 5, (Winkler).

82

THE CAMEL IN NUBIA

ln Nubia, between A.D. 131 and 156, the cohort 1 Augusta Lusitanorum equitata,biIleted opposite Edfu, numbered 20 dromedari, with spears and shields, amongst its

horsemen.

At that time, the nomadic Blemmyes, great camel breeders who had come fromArabia, became threatening. The Romans, who had occupied Lower Nubia and the Khargaoasis, used cameleers against them in the IIIrd century, until their withdrawal in A.D. 297,under Diocletien, from this zone, the guard of which was then entrusted to the Nobades.

Going upstream on the Nile, camels are fairly numerous in the engraved rock art ofLower Nubia. Schweinfurth attl'ibuted a great age to a camel led by hand, engraved neal'Aswan, placed near a hieroglyphical inscription from the Vith Dynasty.

Figure 38 shows different types of camel mounting in Lower Nubia: n° l, with twomen; n° 2, in front of the hump, a position locally very unusual; n° 3 and n° 4, on thehindquarters; n° 5, a cameleer conventionally represented standing up on the hump; n° 6,from Sayala, very clearly seated on a pack-saddle framing the hump.

Concerning the Sudan, D. Newbold established the date of the second century B.e.for the appearance of the camel.

Photo Il shows a crouched down came!, wearing a packsaddle without an armatureon its hump (G. Reisner); this bronze figurine was found in the tomb of royal prince of Meroë,Arikankharêr, dating from around 25 B.e.. At Meroë, a girthed camel, carrying a beam(fig. 37, n° 7), visible on the entrance wall of the chapel of pyramid Beg. N. 15, is datable toaround A.D. 135 (Lepsius).

The camel could have come to Meroë, both through the Nile and from southernArabia, through Ethiopia. In the tombs of sharply pointed pyramids, bones of horses areassociated with il. A horse's saddle and a camel's packsaddle have been found together there.The analysis of woven remains collected in numerous tombs in the region of Wadi Halfa(Second Cataract) has shown a prevalence of camel hairs, attesting to a caravaneer aspect ofthe Meroitic economy.

ln the rock art of Nubia and the Sudan, camels are rarely depicted harnessed. Whenthey are they wear a packsaddle on the hump, or framing il. A tomb from Firka, which canbe dated to the Meroë period (before 550 B.C.) or the Christian epoch (from A.D. 543), hasgiven a skeleton of a camel in situ, with the forks of the saddle in front of and behind thehump. This packsaddle, the "basour", is spread aIl over the Sudan and the Chadian Sahara,where, from its conception it is opposed to the "rahla", a light saddle set on the withers, usedby the Berbers of the central belt zone.

Let us recall that in A.D. 641 the first incursion of the Arabs took place into the Sudan,following which the king of Dongola paid a tribute to them.

83

Fig. 39. Rock art .plctures of camels f .. rom NubJa. From Gorgod 1 to 3 d4, (Leclant). ' an 5 to 7, (Allard-Huard);

84

Figure 39 shows pecked small-sized camels (about 20-25 cm long), of a light patina,in the sector of the Third Cataract (Gorgod), often associated with horses made by the samehand. As in the previous figure, they are mounted: na 1 and na 5, bareback on the hump;na 2, on the withers; na 3, by two men, one on the hump, the other on the hindquarters; na 4,with a saddle placed on the hump: na 6 and na 7, also with two figures, in front of and behind

the hump.

IN THE CHADIAN SAHARA

On the early representations, the camel was always mounted using an eastern "basour"which was more or less heavy.

In Ennedi, it came from the Sudan, at the beginning of our era, a very little time afterthe horse. ln figure 40, the feather-headed cameleer (na 1) engraved in sunken relief, is seatedon a light saddle set on the hump. Subjects nOs 2 and 4, painted at Fada, are to be put in parallelwith the spearmen riding galloping horses in extension reproduced in figure 34,na' 3 and 4.

From Borku, na 3, painted, more recent, is seated in a huge "basour". Cameleer na 5is provided with a throwing knife and his "basour" is set on a clotho

On photo 12, a fairly weil patinated, engraved cameleer at Iwininga is depicted witha mushroom hairstyle, a javelin and a cross-shaped frame shield.

On photo 13 from Orori, a camel mounted by two men, one with a throwing knife, isassociated with a spearman who is in the saddle.

From the Tibesti, camels are reproduced in figure 41. These from Aro on the north­western border of the massif are early ones and show a certain naturalism: na l, a cameleerin a "basour" is pursuing an archer on foot; nOs 2, 3 and 4 are lively figures; in compositionna 5, a cameleer in his "basour" is depicted near a palm-tree. This site includes horsemanna 6, riding bareback.

Photo 13. Borku, Omri: cameleer and horseman (Courtin)

85

Fig. 40. Camels from the Chadian Sahara. Ennedi, 1, engraving (Huard); 2, 4. paintings (Bailloud).Borku, 3 (Mgr Dalmais); 5, engraving (Huard's collection). Eastern Tibesti. 6, painting (d'Alverny).

86

9

Fig 41 E - ---. . ngr""d" . -amels from the T .

Olloï, 7 to 13 . lbestl. Aro, 1 to.. wlth horses 10 12 (H5

, and 6 with a h()r' ., uard). se,

87

The other figures represent more recent camels from the Enneri 0110'1 near Zouar. Inthem we notice the various mounts that have already been indicated on the Nile, andaccompanied by saddled horses.

Finally, painted cameleer n° 6 in figure 40, with his elaborated "basour", his longthrowing knife and his decorated shield, is part of a series of exquisite figures of camels fromthe eastern Tibesti (d'Alverny).

ln Ennedi and Borku, the association of horse and camel is attested to until thecontemporary epoch: brass emblems, dating to the XIXth century, worn on the top of theirheads by female dancers from Borku fifty years ago, showed indifferently, mounted horsesand or camels (photo 14).

**CONCLUSION

Originating in the Orient, the three examined acting factors of civilisation, whichappeared in Africa, spread strongly over time from the middle of the Und millennium B.c..They had Egypt as an important relay, from which the historical and technological sources,put in parallel with the evidence of the Eastern Mediten'anean civilisations, brought out twogroups of diverging currents of progression; one in the direction of the Central Sahara andthe Maghreb. the other, later and limited, upstream on the River Nile as far as the Sudan,from where it reached the Chadian Sahara.

The first current, having from the XXUnd Dynasty concerned the harnessing of ahorse to a carriage and the mounting of a horse by Eastern Libyans. inftuenced by theEgyptian technique, took root, without conspicuous traces of conftict, in the late Tassilianpastoral environment; itself heir to the regional pictorial tradition, which already representedthe cultural features used by the "Equidians". These small breeders of cattle and of goatsoccupied the south of the future Garamantic area, on which the Carthaginians, the Greeks,the Romans and the Byzantines would only have a limited hold before the region became theuncontested land of the famous cameleer nomads, from whom are descended the present dayBerbers and Tuareg.

The second CUITent. relayed through Meroë, as far as the Chadian Sahara through theSahel, transmitted Kushite metallurgy, the way to mount the Nubian horse, and the camelequipped with the eastern pack-saddle. In the Tibesti the country of the Ethiopian Troglodytes,named by Herodotus, who were the ancestors of the present day Teda, only iron and the camelwould take root.

Since then, the two groups, the Tuareg and the Teda, strongly individualist, have beenin contact only through reciprocal razzia (raids), nomadic Berbers deeply overrunning theeastern Sahara. and a certain expansion of the Teda into southern Fezzan.

Once more, it appears that the regional cultural problems related to the eastern halfof the Sahara can only be usefully approached in the light of peripheral data cOiTectly analysedand standing out as landmarks in space and in time.

88

Photo 14. Mounted horses and a camel: brass head ornaments wom by Teda female dancersin the XIXth century A.D. (Huard's collection).

H9

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. THE HORSE AND THE CHARIOT

a) Middle East, valley of the NiJe, Sudan, Chadian SaharaArkelL A.J. - A History ol the Sudan, London, 1955 (2nd edition, 1961).BATES. O. - The Eastem Libyans. London. 1914.BOESNECK. J. - Die Haustiere in Altiigypten. Munich, 1953.BRAUNSSTElN-SlLVESTRE, E - Coup d'œil sur le cheval et le char dans l'Egypte du Nouvel Empire.

dans Les Chars préhistoriques du Sahara, 1982.BRAESTED. Anciellf records o{Egypt.

CHAPMAN, S.E. Decorated C1U/pels (!lthe Meroitic Pyretmids, Boston. J 952.CHAPMAN, S.E. and DOWS DUNHAM. - The Royal Cemeteries (!{ Kush. Ill, 1956.DARESSY. - Une représentation de cavalier égyptien, A.S.A.. VI, 1907, p. 97.DESROCHES-NOBLECOURT, e. - in ReFile d'Egyptologie, 7,1950. pL 9. fig. 8.DUNHAM, DOWS. - The Royal Cemeteries (J{ KIISh, 1. El Kt/l'ru, Boston, Mass .. 1950.

- The Barkal Temples, 1970.EDGERTON, W.E. - Historical Records (J{ Ramses III. The tcas in Medinet Habu, 1-2, Chicago, 1936.EMERY. W.B. and KIRWAN, L. - The Royal TOl1lbs at Ballana and Qustul. Cairo, 1938.GARIES. N. de and GARDINER. A.M. - TI/{' Tomb (JlHuy. 1926, PL XXVII.GARSTANG, J. - Meroe, the city (!{ the Etlziopians. Oxford, 191 1. Pl. XXXIII.GRIFFITH. EL. - Oxford Excavations in Nubia (Sanam). IX. LiverpooL 1922.GRIMAL, N.e. - La stèle triolilphaie de Piankhy au lIlusée du Caire. IFAO. Le Caire, 1981.HUARD, P. et BECK. P. - Tibesti. carrefour de la Préhistoire saharienne. Arthaud, 1969.HUARD. P. et LECLANT. J. - Problèmes archéologiques entre le Nil et le Sahara, Etudes Scientifiques.

Le Caire, 1972, sept.-déc., pp. 68-78.KENDALL, T. - Kush, the Lost Kingdolll (J{tile Nile, Boston Art Museum. 1982.KIRWAN. L. - The Oxford University ExcaJ'(lfions at Firka. Oxford, 1939.KITCHEN, K.A. - The Third Interlllediate Period in Egypt. 1973.KUPPER. J.R. - Archives royales de Mari. VI, 1954. p. 109.LECLANT, J. - Quelques documents sur les chevaux de Nubie, dans l'Homme et l'animaL

1er Colloque d'Ethno:oologie, Paris, 1975.- Astarté à cheval. d'après les représentations égyptiennes. Syria, 37, 1960. 1-2.

LEPSIUS. e.R. - Denkmiiler in Aeg)ïJten und Ethiopien. Lexicon der Egyptologie.LITTAUER. M.A. and CROUWELL, J.H. - Wheeled vehicles and ridden animais in the Ancient Near East,

BrilL 1979.LUCKENBILL. D.D. - Historical Records of'Assyria, Chicago, 1927.MACADAM, A.EL. - The Temples (!{ Kawa. Il. Oxford, 1955.MASPERO, J. - Organisation militaire de l'Eg."pte byzantine. Paris, 1912.MONNERET de VILLARD. U. - Storia della Nubia cristiana. Rome. 1928.MORET, A. - Histoire de l'Orient. II. 1936.NAVILLE, E. - The Temple (J{ Deir el Bahari, Ill.POSENER, G., SAUNERON, S. et YOYOTTE, J. - Dictionnaire de la civilisation ég)ptienne, 1959.ROEDER, G. - Les temples immel:~és de Nubie. Bat el Wali, pl. 14.SHULMAN, A.R. - Egyptian Representations of Horsemen and Riding in the New Kingdom,

J.N.E.S., XVI. 1957.- The Egyptian Chariotry: a Re-examination, J. (!{Alli. Rech. Center in Egypt, II. 1963.- Military Rank. Title and Organization in the New Kingdom, Miinchen Aegyptologische Srudien. 6,

Berlin. 1964.

Rock artALMAGRO BASCH, M. - Estudios de arte rupestre nubio, Madrid, 1967.BAILLOUD. G. - Mission des confins du Tchad. Recherches préhistoriques et archéologiques. Avant-projet

de rapport, 1958.BIETAK, M. et ENGELMAYER, R. - Eine Abri-Siedlung aus Sayala. Nubien, Wien, 1963.CERVICEK, P. - Notes on the chronology of the Nubian Rock Art, in Etudes Nubiennes. Colloque de

Chantilly. 1975 (1978), tableau n019.DUNBAR, J.e. - Rock Drawings ofLower Nubia, Cairo. 1941.

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FROBENIUS, L. - Histoire de la civilisation a./i"icaine, 3e éd. Gallimard, 1952, pl. 35.GOYON, G. - Nouvelles inscriptions rupestres du \l'adi Hallllllâmât, 1957, pl. III, 236.JUNGRAYTMAYR, H. - Felsbilder von Sud-Darfur, Afrika und Ubersee, 44,1960.

- Rock Pictures in the Sudan, CII/Tent Anthropology, II, 4, 1961.KOLLMANSPERGER. - Drohende Wüste. Wiesbaden, 1957.MACMICHAËL. H.A. - Notes on the Gebel Haraza, Sudan Notes and Records, 1927.NEWBOLD, D., ill Antiquity, 1928.VILA, A. - La prmpection archéologique de la vallée du Nil au sud de la cataracte de Dol, C.N.R.S.,

1976, fig. 47 and 49.WINKLER, H. - Rock Drawings a/the Southem Upper Egypt, l, 1938, II, 1939.

b) The Aegean, North Africa, SaharaALLARD-HUARD, L. - Peintures rupestres du Tadrart méridional, BSPF, 84, 9, pp. 282-288, 1987.BREUIL, H. - Les roches peintes du Tassili-n-A.iier, 1954.CAMPS. G. and GAST, M., éd. - Les chars préhistoriques du Sahara. Actes du Colloque de Sénanque, 1981

(Aix, 1982). Communications de: G.CAMPS, H.LHOTE, A.MUZZOLlNI, A.BONNET, J.P.JACOB,N.ORLOFF. G.AUMASSIP, R.WOLF, J.SPRUYTTE.COURTOIS, C. - C.vrène sous la monarchie des Baffiades, 1953.

- Les Vandales et l'Afrique, 1955.- La civilisation grecque, J963.

DESANGES J. - Catalogue des tribus qfi'icaines de l'Antiquité classique cl l'ouest du Nil. Fac. Lettres,Dakar, n° 4, 1962.

DUSSAUD, R. - Les civilisations préhelléniques dans le bassin de la Iller Egée, 1914.ESPERANDIEU, G. - Domestication et élevage dans le nord de l'Afrique au Néolithique et dans la

Protohistoire, Actes fie Congrès pwu!fi'icain de Préhistoire, Alger, 1952 (1955).GAUTIER, E.F. - Rapport de la mission Gautier-Reygasse de 1934. C.R. de l'Académie. des Inscriptions,

1934, pp. 149-159.- Anciennes voies de commerce transsaharien, Geografiska Annale, 1935.- Du nouveau au Sahara, Revue de Paris, 15 nov. 1935.- Le passé de l'Afrique du Nord. Les siècles obscurs, 1942.

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sept.-déc. 1972.KUNZ. J. - Felsbilder der westlichen Tassili-n-Ajjer, Beitrdge "ur allgemeine und vergleichenen Archeologie. 1,

1979.LEFEBVRE DES NOETTES Cdt. - L'attelage, le cheval de selle, 1931.LEVÊQUE, P. - L'aventure grecque, 1904.LHOTE. H. - Le cheval et le chameau dans les rupestres du Sahara. Bull. IFAN, Dakar, XXV, 3, 1953.

- L'expédition de Cornelius Balbus au Sahara, Revue Africaine. n° 438-9, 1-2. 1954. p. 68.- La route des chars de guerre libyens Tripoli-Gao. Arc!teologia. 9, 1966.- Les chars rupestres sahariens, 1982.

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- Gravures et peintures rupestres du Tassili des Ajjer, L'Anthropologie, 45, 5-6, 1935.SPRUYTTE. J. - Études expérimentales sur l'attelage, 1977.TSCHUDI, J. - Pitture rupestri del Tassili degli Az.ger. 1955.

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ADDISON. - Welcome Excavations in Nubia. 1. Moya. 1949. Il. Abu Geili. 1951.

ALLARD-HUARD, L. et HUARD. P. - Les peintures rupestres du Sahara et du NiL Études Scientifiques,mars-juin 1978. fig. 32.

CLAUSTRE-TREINEN, E - Sahara et Sahel à l'âge du fer. Borkou, Tchad. 1982.DOWS DUNHAM. - The Royal Cemeteries ()fKush. l, El Kurru, 1950. Il. Nuri.FORBES, R.J. - Mewl!lllXY in Antiquity. Leyde, 1950.

- Studies ill Ancient Technology. Il, 1955.

GARSTANG, 1., SAYCE, H .. and GRIFFITH. EL. - Meroe. The City oj"the EthiopiallS. Oxford, 1911.GAUCKLER, P. - Nécropoles pl/l1iques de Carthage. 1-2. 1915.HUARD, P. - Contribution à l'étude du cheval et du chameau au Sahara oriental. l, le fer,

Bull. fFAN. Dakar, XXI, B. 1-2. 1960.

Nouvelle contribution à l'étude du fer au Sahara et au Tchad. ibid. XXVI, B. 3-4. 1964. pp. 297-396.Introduction et ditTusion du fer au Tchad. J. (It'A./i'ican History, VII, 3, 1966. pp. 377-404.

Huard. P. et LE MASSON. - Peintures rupestres du Tibesti oriental et méridional. O~iets et MomIes. IV. 4,1964.LECLANT,1. - Le fer dans l'Egypte ancienne, le Soudan et l'Afrique, Annales de l'Est. Mémoire n° 16.

Fac. de Lettres. Nancy. 1956.LHOTE, H. -La connaissance du fer en Afrique Occidentale, Encyclopédie mensuelle d'Outre-Mer, 1. 1952.MACIVER, D.R. and WOOLEY. CL. - Buhell, Philadel{lhie, 1911.MAUNY. R. - Les siècles obscurs de l'Afrique Noire 1970, pp. 60-73.MONOD. TH. - Sur quelques lanciers de la région d'Aozou. Ri\'. di Scienze Preistoriche. II, 1. 1947.PEARCE. S.V. - The appearance of Iron and its use in the Prehistoric Africa. fllSt. (~/'Archeology.

London University, 1960.SHINNIE, P. - Merue, 1967.TRIGGER, B.G. - The myth of Meme and the African Iron Age, A/i'ican Historical studies, II, 1969.WAINWRIGHT. G.A. - Iron in the Napatan and Meroitic Ages, Sudml Notes and Records, 1945.

III. THE CAMEL

ALLARD-HUARD, L. et HUARD, P. -Les peintures rupestres du Sahara et du Nil. Études Scientifiques.

Mars-juin 1978, fig. 33.ALVERNY. F d' - Vestiges d'art rupestre au Tibesti orientaL J. Soc. A./i-icanistes. XX, 1950.

ANATI. E. - Rock Art in central Arabia, Louvain, 1968.BALFOUR PAUL - HistOl-y of the Beja Tribes. 1954.CAGNAT, R. - L'année romaine d'Afi'ique, 1920.CONTI ROSSINI. C - Storia d'Ethiopia, 1928.DEMOUGEOT, E. - Le chameau et l'Afrique du Nord romaine, Annales. mars 1960.

FORBES. R.J. - The COI//Ï11g of the camel.GAUTIER, E.E - Le Sahara, 1913, pp. 96-106.HUARD. P. et MASSIP, J.M. - Gravures rupestres du Tibesti méridional et du Borkou, Bull. Soc. Préhist. h,

LX, 1963, 7-8, fig. 4.LECLANT. 1. - Témoignage de sources classiques sur les pistes menant à l'oasis d'Amon, Bull. fFAO, 49.

1950. p. 250.LESCHI. L. - Rome et les Nomades du Sahara central, Tra\'. fmt. Rech. Sahw:, III, 1945.LESQUIER, J. - L'armée romaine d'Égypte. d'Auguste à Dioclétien, Le Caire. 1918.

ROBINSON, A.E. - The came! in Antiquity. SNR. Kharthoum, 1936.ROVERI, A.M. - Sabagura. 1 graffiti rupestri, Oriens oriellfalis, I. Rome, 1962.SCHAUENBERG. K. - Die cameliden in Alteltum. Bbnner fahrbiicher. 1955-1956.SCHWEINFURTH. G. - Uber 'lIte Tierbilder und Felsinschriften bei Assuan, Zeitschr(ji zur Ethnologie,

44,1912, p. 627.ZEUNER, EE. - A History ofdomesticated animaIs. 1963. pp. 349-358.

N.B. In addition to the general bibliography of 1985: MICHEL DESSOUDEIX. "CHRONIQUE DEL'ÉGYPTE ANCIENNE, LES PHARAONS, LEUR RÈGNE. LEURS CONTEMPORAINS", ACTES SUD, MAI2008.

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"Private/y pub/ished by the author"

The great accompanying role played and progress made by three "acting factors",the horse, iron and the camel, are developed in our work "DIALOGUES OF THE ROCKS, III- INNOVATIVE PEOPLES".

In the Central Sahara, mostly in the Tassili-n-Ajjer, the attention of the traveller is alwaysattracted by the artistic representations, painted and sometimes engraved, of hamessed chariotsdrawn by two horses depicted in stylised "tlying gaIlop".

Achevé sur les presses de l'imprimerie du Crestois 26400 en février 2011Dépôt légal Février 20 Il

ISBN 978-2-9509834-5-9

Ironwork in the Sahara knew two different and unequal currents. It was introduced to the coastby the Dorians (Cyrene, VIIth century B.e.), then by the Carthaginians (Vth century B.e.), andits diffusion into the interland remained limited. The second CUITent started from the Nile Deltain the VIIth century B.C. under the Assyrians; their mercenaries transmitted it to the kingdomof Kush (Sudanese Nile). Meroë, its southem capital, owed the rise ofits ironwork to the localabundance of iron ore and of wood as fuel. Its large triangular or leaf-like iron spearheadsprevailed in rock art figurations, as far as the Central Sahara.

These Equidians belonged to the last pastoral populations made scarce by increasing dryness.Their light vehicles were made and used locaIly; and the so-called "North-South Trans-Saharanroutes", obtained by joining on the map the points that regroup figurations, generally engraved,schematic and late, spread over more than a millennium, did not exist. The problem posed bythe nucleus of fine hamessed chariots with horses depicted in "the tlying gaIlop", found in theTassili-n-Ajjer, absent in Fezzan, remains unresolved.

During the flfst millennium B.C., the horse and the chariot were introduced to the Sahara by theeastem Libyans, who, in the Nile Delta, served as grooms in the aristocratic army of theEgyptian chariotry. If the horses were of varied types, aIl the vehicles, formerly so-called"Garamantic", were simplified copies of the Egyptian chariots; the driver standing up on theplatform in front of the axle, whereas the Aegean and Greek chariots had their centre of gravityplaced directly above the axle.

Among the Equidians, the men wore close-fitting short leather tunics, the lowest part ofwhichwas rigid and tlared, and the women long tightly fitting dresses, forms which recall Aegeanstyles. A remarkable quadriga of great artistic value with its four rearing war-horses, painted atEkat-n-Ouchere (northwestem Tassili) evokes Greek representations from the Vth and IVthcenturies B.e.. The presence of naked men among the Equidians also makes us think ofa socialhierarchy.

l " III9 782950983459

The domesticated camel had come with the Assyrians, then the Persians into Egypt, whereit wasvery useful during the Und century RC.. Its diffusion towards the west had been slow. It isrepresented on a Cyrene Roman coin in 68 B.e., and Cesar captured 22 camels from king Juba,at the battle of Thapsus in Tunisia.

At Meroë, around 25 B.e., the tomb of royal prince Arikankharer included a brass figurine ofa camel. In Nubia, at Edfu in around A.D.I50 the Roman cohort. numbered 22 cameleers to fightagainst the Blemmyse waITiors, who were the first great nomadic cameleers to role over theSahara for many centuries.