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Mysteries of the Libyan Desert

Chapter 34: INDEX AND GLOSSARY
By W. J. Harding King
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About This Book

A record of three years of exploration across the central Libyan Desert that blends travel narrative, scientific observation, and ethnography. Journeys between oases and over dunes, ridges, and rocky plateaus are recounted alongside maps, photographs, and sketches. Geological, botanical, and meteorological notes and practical observations on camel travel, water sources, and desertcraft are interwoven with descriptions of settlements, craft, and domestic life in places such as Dakhla, Kharga, Farafra, and Rashida. Encounters with local leaders and Senussi sites add cultural context to accounts of archaeological remains, wildlife, and the practical challenges of prolonged work in a waterless region.

No. 219 was found on a loose block of stone at the foot of a ruined mud tower in Dakhla Oasis, near Bir ’Ain Sheykh Mufta, about three kilometres to the south-east of Smint el Kharab.

Nos. 221-228 occurred cut on a small stone ruin known as Qasr el Kadabya, about five kilometres to the south of the village of Tenida, in Dakhla Oasis.

No. 224 was seen, at the foot of the wall by a doorway, in a small stone building at the well of ’Ain Amur, on the more northerly road from Kharga to Dakhla oases.

In addition to the graffiti shown in the plates, a large number of rough drawings were seen, which want of time, unfortunately, did not allow me to copy. Many of them were of subjects that did not admit of reproduction. Among the remainder were hunting and battle scenes, drawings of a few boats, or ships—one of which was obviously intended to represent a dahabya—and, in addition to numerous pictures of camels, those of horses, mules or donkeys were unexpectedly numerous, considering the small use that is made of these beasts in that part of the desert.

Among the animals shown in the hunting scenes were several ostriches, which, though found in the Sudan, are quite unknown at the present time in the district where the graffiti were seen. In addition, horned game were represented in a few places; but it was impossible to determine the species which were intended to be represented.

In the battle scenes, the men were armed with bows, shields, spears and swords. I saw no guns to indicate modern drawings, or shangamangers that might have pointed to a Sudan origin.

The figures in every case were cut on the surface of the Nubian sandstone, a substance that is easily scratched with a knife. A portion of some of the figures given in the plates is shown by means of a dotted line, intended to show that the part thus outlined is uncertain, owing to the rock having been chipped, or to some other cause.

The Gubary road, where most of the graffiti were found, runs near the foot of a scarp that shelters it to a great extent from the strongly predominant northerly winds. But considering the amount of erosion that takes place during the frequent sandstorms from this quarter, after making all allowance for the sheltered position of the rocks upon which these inscriptions occur, their sharp-cut appearance was remarkable, seeming to indicate that they do not date from a very remote period.

Nos. 217 and 218, however, were an exception. These two inscriptions were cut one above the other, about five feet above ground level, on a vertical surface facing about north-west. The rock at this point may perhaps have been unusually soft, but both inscriptions showed most distinct signs of weathering.

No. 217 appears to be of special interest, as it seems to be written partly in primitive Arabic characters and partly in some script, such as Tifinagh, making use of dotted letters. Inscriptions of this bilingual character have also been found in the Twat group of oases, in the Western Sahara, at Ulad Mahmud, in the Gerara District.[26]

The uncertainty as to the correct position of most of these graffiti, combined with the simple forms that so many of them show and the rough manner in which they have been drawn, renders comparisons with other drawings perhaps dangerous, and in any case requires more expert knowledge than that possessed by the present writer. But the following notes upon them may perhaps be of interest.

Many of the drawings are unquestionably tribal camel brands, as an Arab can often be seen cutting his wasm, or brand, on the ground during a halt, in the same manner as a white man will write his name.

These wasms are probably of great antiquity, and are said by the Arabs who use them to date from pre-Mohammedan times. They are used by the bedawin in a manner analogous to the heraldry of medieval Europe. Each tribe has its own brand, the junior branches and offshoots of the clan adopting the original wasm with a difference, recalling the “marks of cadency” in heraldry.

I was able, with the assistance of my men, to identify the following brands:—

The circle seen in No. 27 is a wasm of the Hamamla tribe shown in No. 80 and, with the added stroke, may constitute the brand of one of its subdivisions.

No. 29 is the wasm of the Khana tribe.

No. 37 of the Jebsia.

No. 43 that of the Zowia. It is curious that this, one of the most fanatical tribes that have been converted to the tenets of the Senussia, should make use of the emblem of Christianity as their badge.

No. 44 may be the brand of the Zoazi tribe that appears in No. 168, and also perhaps in No. 114.

No. 48, in the position shown, is the wasm of the Ulad ben Miriam, or, if turned as it appears in No. 158, of a Maghrabi tribe known as the Malif.

No. 75 was said to be the brand of another Maghrabi tribe, the name of which I was not able to learn.

No 85 is the mark of the Amaim, which may be also represented by Nos. 157 and 174.

No. 86, if turned through 180 degrees, would be the wasm of an Arab tribe from Moab, whose name I could not ascertain.

No. 87 may perhaps be inverted and intended to be the brand of the Reshaida—a dotted circle surmounted by a cross. Possibly No. 170, though the circle is represented by a square and the figure is also inverted, may also stand for this wasm.

The Reshaida are an offshoot of the Awazim, whose brand—a circle and cross, without the “cadency mark” of the dot—appears in No. 166, with a line added to it on the left-hand side. Reference will be made to this additional line below. Possibly Nos. 98 and 124 are also meant for this Awazim brand.

No. 109 is the wasm of the Orfilli tribe.

No. 156 that of the Hassun, said to be an offshoot of a tribe, whose name I could not ascertain, that have the mark Y for their brand.

Nos. 172 and 173 are both brands of the well-known Bisharin tribe.

No. 177 is the mark of the Harb tribe.

No. 179 of the Hawerti tribe.

No. 234 was said by my men to be the brand of a tribe sprung from another clan whose wasm may be shown in Nos. 73 and 112, but they were ignorant of the names of both of the tribes.

Many of the other marks shown in the plates are probably derived from these wasms. The bedawin Arabs are nearly always illiterate, but are accustomed to communicate with each other by marks scratched on the ground in the same way that gypsies make use of a “patteran.” See p. 180 ante.

Such marks, for instance, as No. 50, derived from the Malif wasm, and 171 and 183, from the brand, are very possibly produced in this way.

Many of the simpler signs occurred repeatedly, and in addition the group shown in No. 2 was seen twice, and that in No. 14 several times, while the combination No. 25 in one place was repeated no less than thirty-three times in three horizontal lines. Similar marks to those No. 95 occurred in several places, generally in groups of three, placed as shown in the plate.

No. 18, the seal of Solomon, is not uncommonly seen in the rock inscriptions of the Western Sahara. It takes several forms, each of which may have a dot in the centre, thus: . Its commonest form seems to be that shown in No. 18, but sometimes one of the triangles of which it is composed is drawn with a heavier line than the other, thus: . It is also represented in at least one case-on the Col de Zanaga, in the Figuig district—surrounded by a waved line producing a kind of rosette . In addition to these forms, the false seal of Solomon, or five-pointed star, constructed by a continuous line is also seen in this district, but I did not happen to come across it in the Libyan Desert. These signs are all much used by the native magicians.

No. 88 was apparently the tracing of a leathern sandal and was lifesize. The outline of both shod and unshod feet, sometimes the right foot being traced and at others the left, were of not infrequent occurrence. They are also found in the Western Sahara at Qasr el Jaj Ahmer, in the Geryville district, and at Guebar Rashim. The outlines of hands also occur; but I did not see any of the latter in the Libyan Desert.

Of the other signs, the mark which occurs, in combination with others, in Nos. 14 and 244, has also been found on the temple of Soleb, in the midst of an inscription. The sign , No. 74, also appears here.[27]

Nos. 42, 43 and 49 were reported by the late Mr. Oric Bates from Marmarica.[28] So, too, were Nos. 63 and 71, if turned through 180 degrees. The small circle that appears as No. 80, and in combination with other signs in Nos. 9, 27, and in several of the groups shown in the plates, and also No. 162, if turned through a right angle, also figure in this collection. Among which, too, is the sign which may be identical with the mark in the inscription given as No. 219.

In some of the inscriptions found at the Gara esh Shorfa, in the Aulef district of Tidikelt in the Twat group of oases, the vowel dot (tagherit) of the Libyco-Berber script is often enclosed by a line that forms a kind of loop round it, recalling the cartouche frequently used in modern Tifinagh writing to surround the different words of a sentence; the is also sometimes enclosed in the same manner, the letters when thus treated having the following appearance: , . The right-hand signs of No. 63 and No. 132, No. 146 and several other of the graffiti shown in the plates may perhaps be examples of this practice, which also is very possibly illustrated by the sign that occurs in No. 219. The cartouche treatment appears in No. 245.

Some of the more complicated signs may only be idle scratchings; drawings, for instance, such as No. 34 are often to be seen upon blotting pads, being made by some writer during the intervals of his composition. But such signs as Nos. 16, 142, 148, 149 and 153 recall the curious ligatured monograms sometimes used by the modern Tawarek in their writings, or the cryptograms, mentioned by Duveyrier and H. Barth, that the Tawarek women sometimes amuse themselves by inventing, that can only be deciphered by those to whom they have imparted the key.[29]

The circles in Nos. 203, 211 and 212 represent small cups about two inches in diameter and were used perhaps for some game such as harubga, or possibly for divination in the manner described by Mohammed et Tounsi.[30] Somewhat similar groups of cups have been found in the Twat Oasis group at ’Ain Guettara, and also in the Geryville district, at El Jaj Mohammed and Shellala Dahrania.

Nos. 224—the left-hand portion—242 and 243 probably represent human beings. In 224 the five fingers of two hands and the long hair in the star like a mark above them occur in several other undoubted drawings of figures that were seen, but are not shown in the plates. It is, however, doubtful whether it is the feet or the hands that are represented in Nos. 242 and 243. Among the figures that are not given in the plates, several appeared in which the hair was represented by dots instead of the lines in No. 224.

Rough drawings of camels were often seen. They are shown in Nos. 193 and 196, and possibly also Nos. 194, 195 and 131 are intended to show them. Nos. 193 and 195 may perhaps represent camels carrying a travelling tent, such as are used by wealthy women, and sometimes also by men on a journey. No. 193 may possibly represent a beast with two humps, though these, of course, are never seen in North Africa. No. 196 apparently carries a rider, mounted on a riding saddle. Among other creatures appearing in the plates, No. 210 is presumably a man being swallowed by a crocodile.

Rough drawings of camels, of a very similar type to those here reproduced, have been found by Lieut.-Col. Tilho in the oasis of Harda, in Borku; and I came across others myself in a cave, near Marsa Matru, on the North Egyptian coast. The latter were found in conjunction with drawings of a cannon being fired and of a paddle-wheel steamer, which appeared to be contemporaneous, so evidently they were of a comparatively recent date.

The drawings of ostriches and the fragments of their shells which are often to be found in the Libyan Desert, even in the neighbourhood of the Egyptian oases, has been held to show that they once existed wild in this part of the desert. But the argument is by no means conclusive; ostrich eggs used frequently to be brought from the Sudan by the old slave-trading caravans, who used them as food, and the drawings no more show that ostriches inhabited this part than the pictures of boats show that dahaybas once sailed over the desert in the neighbourhood, say, of Dakhla Oasis. The occurrence of these, and of drawings of antelopes and other wild animals, merely show that some of the travellers who used these roads came from districts where the creatures they represented could be seen.

LIBYAN DESERT
AND
ENNEDI

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INDEX AND GLOSSARY