The rock engravings of Tighremt n'Ouazdidene (High Atlas, Morocco)

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Inhaltsverzeichnis
(der kompletten Print-Version)
Carmen Díaz Alayón & Francisco Javier Castillo:
Estudio de la lista de voces prehispánicas de
Juan Bautista Lorenzo Rodríguez ................................................................... 7
Robert G. Bednarik:
Archaeology and rock art science ................................................................. 57
Hans-Joachim Ulbrich:
Bibliographie der Ilhas Selvagens (Portugal) – Addenda II ......................... 73
Rudolf Franz Ertl:
Neue Donaureiter-Bleivotivtafeln entdeckt ................................................. 99
Arnaud F. Lambert:
Megaliths and the Early Mezcala Urban Tradition of Mexico .................... 135
Xavier Li Tah Lee Lee:
Canarias: destino didáctico de la expedición
de Martin Rikli y Carl Schröter .................................................................. 147
Alain Rodrigue:
The rock engravings of Tighremt n'Ouazdidene
(High Atlas, Morocco) ................................................................................ 167
Andoni Sáenz de Buruaga:
Grabados rupestres de hachas de "tipo Metgourine" en el
entorno artístico de Lejuad (Tiris, Sahara Occidental) ................................173
Marcos Sarmiento Pérez:
La estancia de Nikolay Nikolajevitsch Mikloucho-Maclay
en Lanzarote en 1866-67 .............................................................................203
Franz Trost:
Der Nil als Grenze zweier Landmassen ......................................................223
Hans-Joachim Ulbrich:
Die kanarischen Ureinwohner in der Cosmographia (1544)
des Sebastian Münster .................................................................................249
Hartwig-E. Steiner:
Zeichen des Vogelmann-Kultes der Osterinsel
in den Höhlen auf Motu Nui / Polynesien .................................................. 269
•
166MMALMOGAREN 44-45/2013-2014
Rodrigue, Alain (2014): The rock engravings of Tighremt n'Ouazdidene (High Atlas,
Morocco).- Almogaren 44-45 / 2013-2014 (Institutum Canarium), Wien, 167-172
Zitieren Sie bitte diesen Aufsatz folgendermaßen / Please cite this article as follows:
ALMOGAREN 44-45/2013-2014MM167
Almogaren 44-45 / 2013-2014 Wien 2014 167 - 172
Alain Rodrigue*
The rock engravings of Tighremt n'Ouazdidene
(High Atlas, Morocco)
Keywords: Morocco, High Atlas, engravings, weapons, Berber
Résumé:
La station rupestre de Tighremt n'Ouazdidene est une station secondaire du Haut Atlas
marocain. Elle regroupe sur deux dalles plusieurs centaines de figurations stéréotypées
de   cadastres  , rouelles et autres dessins énigmatiques. Parmi ces images, certaines
gravures sont à relever, qui traduisent les thèmes récurrents du monde berbère, thèmes
encore très vivaces.
Abstract:
The rock engravings station of Tighremt n'Ouazdidene is a secondary station of the
Moroccan High Atlas. It regroups on two main slabs many hundreds of stereotyped figures
of  land registering look-alikes", roundels, and many more enigmatic drawings. Among
these images, some of them are worth to be mentioned, illustrating the recurrent Berber
themes, which are still so vivid.
Zusammenfassung:
Die Fundstelle Tighremt n'Ouazdidene kann als sekundäre Felsbildstation im marokkani-schen
Hohen Atlas bezeichnet werden. Sie vereinigt auf zwei hauptsächlichen Steinfor-mationen
mehrere Hundert von stereotypen Motiven: "Kataster" (wie Landaufteilung aus-sehend),
Kreisförmiges und andere enigmatische Figuren. Manche davon sind erwähnens-wert
und illustrieren wiederkehrende Berber-Thematiken, die immer noch lebendig sind.
Situation and history
The rock engravings station of Tighremt n'Ouazdidene is located in the
Moroccan High Atlas, five kilometers south-west of Eç Çour (road from
Marrakech to Ouarzazate), in the valley of the river Sous (Assif n'Sous). This
station, on the Saharan mountainside of the Atlas, belongs to the group of sites
including Oukaimeden, Yagour, Rat and some less important sites as Tainant
and Aougdal n'Oumzouar. It bears the national inventory number 150068.
* Docteur en Préhistoire, Comité Départemental d'Archéologie du Tarn (France).
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Although the station is well-known (at least since the prospecting of A.
Simoneau, 1977), none of its pictures was published.
The rock engravings have been drawn on two beds of sandstone, emerging
one hundred meters south of the village of Tighremt n'Ouazdidene. The ridges
of sandstone are a kind of resurgence from the huge layers that cover a great
part of the High Atlas, on the northern side of the mountain. These layers
(Permian / Triassic), offering large flat surfaces, are particularly favorable to
the carving.
The registration of the engravings of Tighremt n'Ouazdidene is rather
difficult because the drawings are covering the two surfaces without any order,
cross-checking each other, many of them vanishing, without rendering any
distinct image, except an amount of squares, "cadastres", round drawings,
roundels (Fig. 1 & 2) ... all the non-figurative drawings that can usually be
found on the engravings sites of the recent period (Pichler & Rodrigue, 2011).
And once again, from this inextricable mess of signs, one can extract three
groups of drawings that can illustrate the main themes and subjects.
Weapons
This group includes what can be considered as rectangular shields (Fig. 4 /
1-3). In our analysis of the engravings of the High Atlas (Rodrigue 1999), we
proposed these images as shields made of wooden slats, decorated with me-tallic
nails (perhaps even painted) and belonging to the first period of the atlasic
bronze age.
Surprisingly, the rectangular shields of Tighremt n'Ouazdidene are drawn
in a recent environment (horses, camels, adornments). More singularly, one of
these shields has been decorated in its center part with two (perhaps three ?)
daggers, which is the first known image of that kind (Fig, 4 / 2).
Yet, we cannot avoid the hypothesis of the representation of an adornment
(fibula) or chest plaques. This is particularly obvious with the drawing of the
figure 4/1 : we must admit that the two protuberances at the top and at the
lower part have nothing to do with a shield. It can also be a re-used shield and
turned into a fibula. It could also be the case in the image of a decorated
rectangle, just below an animal (very probably a horse, fig. 4 / 4).
Daggers represent important series. The handle can be terminated by a
pommel (two kinds, upward or downward, fig. 4 / 5, 7) or a sphere (Fig. 4 / 6).
The blade is rather short and slightly bent at the end. The curved extremity
must be the representation of the case and so the image of theses daggers is
always the one of a dagger in its case. One engraving gives the image of a
dagger linked to its shoulder-belt in (intentional ?) relation with a forearm
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(Fig. 4 / 6). One must notice that the shoulder-belt is attached to the case by
four points (two on each side of the weapon, rings ?), excrescences that we
find on most images of this kind. We propose here a drawing of what probably
was the system of attachment (Fig. 3). These weapons are usually said to be
from Arabic influence (what is not yet proved) and are, anyway, very different
from the straight blade daggers of the High Atlas (atlasic bronze age).
Animals
They are of two kinds :
- very schematic and unskilful images of horses with saddles (Fig. 4 / 4, 8).
This is the perfect representation of the animal in the Libyco-Berber style
of engravings in sites as Foum Chenna (Pichler, 2000) or Marrakesh (Rod-rigue
1994).
- camels : very explicit drawing of the animal (Fig. 4 / 9), with the long head,
the hanging belly, the large soles and, of course, the hump.
Adornments
The images of fibulas are not so rare in the prehistorical rock art of Morocco.
Some are already known in the region of Mcissi and in the High Atlas. They
usually give the details of their indented contours and the delicate works of
toreutic (cross and perhaps the representation of settings of semi-precious
stones). In Tighremt n'Ouazdidene, one can find good examples of the classic
Berber shoulder fibula, which includes two triangular plaques united by a
chainlet (Fig. 4 / 7). The left element is linked to a dagger. The fibula on the
right, close to the double fibula on the ground, is a more simple one, but both
are still used today, with an open buckle and a needle.
Comments
The most difficult point with rock art stations like Tighremt n'Ouazdidene
is to establish if they are ancient or not. The location of drawings, their
complete disorder, the piling up of enigmatic images are some of the typical
indications that allow us to say that the station doesn't belong to the bronze
age, as it is established in the High Atlas. Some elements (horses, camels)
belong to the Libyco-Berber style and themes. Despite the fact that the
adornments bear a patina, one can think that they have been drawn yesterday!
The vanishing pecked out subjects are indeed very less attractive than the
Tazina style rhinos and elephants. This is certainly not a sufficient reason to
ignore them.
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Bibliography
Pichler, W. (2000): Die Felsbilder von Foum Chenna / Oued Draa (Marokko):
ein Spiegel der nordsaharischen Berberkultur im 1. Jahrtausend B.C.
Almogaren XXXI, pp. 117-124.
Pichler, W. ; Rodrigue, A. (2011): The rock art site of Hadjart (Taouz, Morocco).
Almogaren XLII, pp. 51-62.
Rodrigue, A. (1994): Corpus des gravures libyco-berbères de Marrakech.
Bulletin d'Archéologie Marocaine XVII, pp. 89-180.
Rodrigue, A. (1999): L'art rupestre du Haut Atlas marocain. L'Harmattan, Pa-ris,
420 p.
Simoneau, A. (1977): Catalogue des sites rupestres du Sud-marocain. Ministère
d'État chargé des Affaires Culturelles, Rabat, 127 p.
Figures:
Fig. 1: Engraved slab of Tighremt n'Ouazdidene (Photography A. Rodrigue).
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Fig. 2: Engraved slab of Tighremt
n'Ouazdidene (Photography A.
Rodrigue).
Fig. 3: Attempt of reconstitution of
the attachment system of the dagger.
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Fig. 4: Main themes of engravings in Tighremt n'Ouazdidene.
All sketches by the author (  2013).