Jbel Bani Rock Art: Newly-discovered Shelters along Mountain Paths suggest a Significant Link between Central Sahara and North Africa (Zagora, Southern Morocco)

Abstract

The authors, with the help of a team of researchers, have discovered twelve rock shelters with inside paintings on the southern slopes of the Jbel Bani Mountains in southern Morocco. The paintings vary in subject and time period and span multiple rock art styles. Majestic creatures that once inhabited southern Morocco are depicted next to hunters, pastoralists, and warriors. The shelters and paintings cast upon their walls illustrate a transfer of culture, beliefs, technology, and ideas between people groups of the Meridional and Central Sahara and the Jbel Bani region. These discoveries were all made along a mountain path in the Bani Mountains known as Foum Laachar and may help trace ancient human migration routes.

Horses and Habitations: Iron Age Rock Art from Fortified Hilltop Settlements in the Wadi Draa, Morocco

“…In addition to these sites in the Tinzouline area, there have also been some recent discoveries of multi-phase rock art (both engraved and painted) from a series of rock shelters in the Jebel Bani area (Ifran-n-Taska) and close to the pass of Foum Laachar just west of the southern part of the Middle Draa (Moumane et al 2019;Skounti et al 2012;Zampetti et al 2013). These rock art stations include images of horses, mounted and unmounted warriors with round shield and lance, bi-triangular human figures (very similar to material from Libyan Fazzan, Barnett 2019a: 104-05, 131;di Lernia and Zampetti 2008) and Libyan inscriptions.…”

The Middle Draa Project (Morocco): results from the survey and trial excavations 2015–18

“…Little prior archaeological research had taken place in the region. There are a number of well-known rock art sites including a large corpus of horse and rider/hunting scenes with Tifinagh inscriptions close to Tinzouline (for example, Glory et al 1955; Pichler 2000; Simoneau 1972) and recently explored clusters of paintings at Ifrane'n’Taska and Foum Laachar in the Jabal Bani (Moumane et al 2019; Skounti et al 2012). Preliminary satellite remote-sensing by Sterry as part of Mattingly's Trans-Sahara Project located extensive archaeological remains of hundreds of sites including hilltop and oasis settlements, cairn cemeteries of pre-Islamic type, irrigation systems and small dispersed settlements.…”