Rock art of the Djelfa region
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The rock art of the Djelfa region in the Ouled Naïl Range (Algeria) consists of prehistoric cave paintings and petroglyphs dating from the Neolithic age which have been recognized since 1914. Following the Saharan Atlas Mountains they follow on from those, to the west, of south Oran (the regions of Figuig, Ain Sefra, El Bayadh, Afalou and Tiaret), to which they are related. Comparable engravings have also been described further to the east, in the Constantine (Algeria) region.
Localities and descriptions
Some of the engravings of the Djelfa region seem to have been known since the 1850s (El Idrissia). Among the best-known, those of Zaccar were discovered in 1907, and Flamand described in 1914 the station of Daïet es Stel. In the mid-1960s the active Djelfa Council of Initiatives undertook to record engravings and paintings, and Father F. de Villaret, who accompanied the visitors, thus made known works from some twenty new stations, notably those of Oued el Hesbaïa and Aïn Naga. In total more than 1,162 engravings have been discovered in the region.
Henri Lhote referred to these engravings in his major work, Les Gravures rupestres du Sud-oranais, which he published in 1970 in the series of the Mémoires du Centre de recherches anthropologiques préhistoriques et ethnographiques (CRAPE).
