Prehistoric Rock Art in Libya

The Libyan Sahara is home to hundreds if not thousands of examples of prehistoric art, depicting millennia of human experiences.  The earliest examples date from about 10,000 years ago and feature simple scenes of humans hunting large animals, such as giraffe.  The latest ones, which date from about 2,000 years ago, represent a high level of artistic sophistication and show advanced pastoral communities, much like how the Bedouin lived until recently.  This body of art, etched and painted on simple rock walls, is thus one of our best guides to how life as a human being has changed over the years.  It is in these works that past people preserved for our eyes the things that were most important to them - family, religion, community, survival, and death - helping us to appreciate it what it means to be human.

Van Noten (1978) fig. 117

In this first example we see four men drawing their bows.  Before humans figured out how to domesticate animals, such as sheep, goats, and cows, they had to hunt for their food.  In many of these early examples, humans are depicted capturing wild animals and leading them away with rope.

Van Noten (1978) fig. 181

Hunting and gathering eventually gave way to pastoralism about 8,000 years ago.  And this change can be observed in their art.  Pastoral art shows that new animals and new social practices became important.  In this example, a shepherd leads a large herd of goats and cows.  Keeping their herds fed and watered required people to move with the changing seasons and climate to locate new sources of water and vegetation.  They also had to protect these places.  Pastoral art shows many examples of people fighting around their animals.

Van Noten (1978) fig. 232

In this well-preserved painting, we can see an advanced pastoral society with the two people herding the animals around a central shelter.  We also notice the high degree of sophistication of the artist.  To modern eyes these figures might not look like much, but we have to keep in mind two things.  First, the earliest human art, found in South Africa, dates from around 70,000 years ago, and in North Africa, in the Nile Valley, from about 16,000 years ago.  So by the time of this painting, people had been doing art for a long time.  Second, since these figures were born from an ancient artistic tradition, the differences between them and our art are not a matter of quality as much as stylistic preferences.  People painted like this because that was the fashion in their culture.

Van Noten (1978) fig. 171

In this final example, we can see the timeless image of a family.  The parents embrace while two children drink the milk of a cow.  The woman is also depicted wearing jewelry.  This painting might then be the most important of those I’ve discussed here, because it shows that despite vast changes in lifestyle, culture, society, etc. there is at least one fundamental truth to the human experience: family.  

As I read about prehistoric Saharan art I was struck by how hard it is to interpret these paintings.  We as modern humans tend to look at them and bring our own understandings of how the world works.  We say, “Well in the modern world, if we do this, then so did people 10,000 years ago.”  And despite some real similarities, such as family, people living in the past had their own ways of understanding and depicting the world.  So to truly grasp what these paintings mean, and what it was like to be a human in the distant past, we need to study them in the landscape where they were painted.  Taken away from their rock overhangs, mountains, and wadis, these paintings lose much of their historical value.  We can still appreciate them as art, but their real significance remains in the places where their artists lived.

Images scanned from: Noten, F. L., Rhotert, H., & Misonne, X. (1978). Rock art of the Jebel Uweinat: [Libyan Sahara]. Graz: Akadem. Druck- u. Verlagsanst.