Dabous Giraffes
Girafes de Dabous
Interesting facts
- A thin line runs from each giraffe's mouth to the head of a small human-like figure, a detail whose meaning is still debated.
- The artists combined scraping, smoothing and deep engraving of the outlines, giving the animals unusually crisp, sculptural edges.
- A survey of the outcrop counted 828 images: 704 animals, 61 human figures and 17 inscriptions in the Tifinagh script.
- The palaeontologist Nikos Solounias has suggested the coat pattern may show an extinct giraffe rather than the modern species.
- The mould was taken in November 1999 with silicone, and the aluminium casts were made at a French foundry in nine panels bolted together.
- Trampling, graffiti and the theft of rock fragments threatened the carving, so a well was dug for a small Tuareg community that now guards and guides visitors.
- The outcrop lies only a few kilometres from the Trans-Saharan Highway, yet the giraffes went unrecorded by archaeologists until 1987.
Why it is worth it
On a low sandstone outcrop on the western edge of the Aïr Mountains in northern Niger, two giraffes have been cut into the rock at almost life size. The larger stands about six metres tall, which makes the pair the largest known animal petroglyphs in the world. They are a male and a female, drawn in clean, confident outline with the patterned coat, the long neck and even details of the head picked out in the stone, with a precision that suggests people who knew these animals well. Seen in the low light of early morning or evening, when the grooves fill with shadow, the animals seem to step out of the stone.
The carvings are believed to be between six and eight thousand years old, from the African Humid Period, when the Sahara was a savanna of grassland, lakes and trees, home to animals that could not survive here today. Petrified wood found in the surrounding area is a reminder of that greener landscape. The giraffes are not alone: the rocks of Dabous carry more than 800 recorded engravings, most of them animals — cattle, ostriches, antelopes, lions, rhinoceros and later camels — along with human figures and inscriptions in Tifinagh, the script of the Tuareg, so that the site holds thousands of years of changing life in one place.
The French archaeologist Christian Dupuy first recorded the giraffes in 1987, and a photographic expedition led by David Coulson in 1997 brought them to wide attention. Because the sandstone was being damaged by human activity, a mould of the carving was taken, and an aluminium cast made from it is displayed at the airport in Agadez, so that the image can be seen even by those who never reach the rock itself; the Bradshaw Foundation has long supported the effort to protect the site.
Getting there
Dabous lies in the desert about 110 km north of Agadez, the old caravan town of the Aïr, near the main road towards Arlit, which is about 80 km away. The practical gateway is Agadez, served by Mano Dayak International Airport (AJY), which handles domestic flights; from there the site is reached by four-wheel-drive vehicle with a local guide, as there is no settlement or facility at the rock.
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From the encyclopaedia
The Dabous Giraffes are neolithic petroglyphs by unknown artists on the western side of the Aïr Mountains in north-central Niger. The carvings are 6 metres (20 ft) in height and consist of two giraffes carved into the Dabous Rock with a great amount of detail. One of the giraffes is male, while the other, smaller, is female. The Dabous Giraffes are located on a sandstone outcrop in the Ténéré desert in the first foothills of the Aïr Mountains, about 110 km north of Agadez and a few kilometres from the Trans-Saharan Highway. They are the largest known animal petroglyphs in the world.
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