Laas Gaal
Interesting facts
- A French survey team led by archaeologist Xavier Gutherz was first shown the painted shelters on 4 December 2002, guided there by local people from the nearby village of Daarbudhuq.
- The painted cows lack the shoulder hump seen on most African cattle today, a sign that they show an older, humpless kind of livestock.
- Udders are drawn with care, each with four clearly marked teats, which researchers read as a hint of how much these herders relied on milk.
- Most of the cow figures are surprisingly small, typically some 40–50 cm long and 20–30 cm high.
- Later artists painted humped zebu cattle, archers and simplified cows over the Laas Geel figures, proving that this style is the oldest on the walls.
- Attempts to date the pigments directly have failed; instead, digging in one shelter turned up colouring stones brought from elsewhere, possibly ground to make the red paint.
- Much later clan marks in red, white and black also appear on the rock, and present-day herders can still recognise some of them.
- Despite claims sometimes made, archaeologists see no real cultural link between these paintings and ancient Egypt or the land of Punt.
- Because the rock stands where two seasonal rivers meet, some researchers suggest it served as a sanctuary where herders of different lineages gathered.
Why it is worth it
A low outcrop of red granite rises from the dry plain between Hargeisa and Berbera, and under its overhangs hides one of the richest galleries of prehistoric painting in the Horn of Africa. More than a thousand figures cover the walls of the shallow shelters at Laas Geel: cattle in profile with lyre-shaped or hooped horns, heavy udders and long necks hung with what looks like a decorated breastplate, some of them draped in ceremonial cloths. The colours are still strong – red and yellow ochre, white, black and even green – because the granite roofs have kept sun and rain off the rock for thousands of years.
The rock holds about thirty shelters, and most of the paintings are concentrated in roughly a dozen on its eastern face; the largest are only a few metres deep. Beneath or behind the cows stand small human figures with pin-like heads, dressed in what appear to be tunics and trousers, sometimes with a dog at their side. Wild animals – giraffes, antelopes, monkeys, jackals or hyenas – appear far less often, along with dots, dashes and looping patterns. Excavation in one shelter produced occupation layers dated to roughly 3500–2500 BC, and most estimates place the paintings at around four to five and a half thousand years old, the work of herders for whom cattle were the centre of life. Archaeologists see a link in style with painted sites in Ethiopia and Arabia, yet no other site in the region matches Laas Geel directly.
The name means "the camels' watering place" in Somali: the outcrop stands where two seasonal riverbeds meet, and water lies close beneath the sand. Local herders had always known the paintings and, according to local tradition, attributed them to jinn, calling the place the haunted mountain. Outsiders learned of them only in late 2002, when a French archaeological team surveying the region was guided to the rock; a detailed study followed in 2003, and in 2012 a dozen shelters were recorded in three dimensions. A small exhibition building stands at the foot of the outcrop.
Getting there
Laas Geel lies about 48 km from Hargeisa, close to the road towards Berbera. The nearest airport is Egal International Airport (HGA) in Hargeisa, about 49 km away.
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From the encyclopaedia
Laas Geel, also spelled Laas Gaal, are cave formations on the rural outskirts of Hargeisa, Somaliland, situated in the Maroodi Jeex region of the country. They contain some of the earliest known cave paintings of domesticated African aurochs in the Horn of Africa. Laas Geel's rock art is estimated to be approximately 5,500 to 4,500 years old.
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