Displacement
A Reguibat tribe crosses the Amojjar pass. The woman and the children travel in a palanquin that protects them from wind and dust.
Mauritania - Chinguetti - 1968

The Oued Azougi in Mauritania can also become a raging river. - Mauritania - 1968

Landscape on the plateau of the Amojjar Pass in Mauritania. - Mauritania - 1968

But if the Tassilian landscape owes its appearance to ancient volcanism, in many other regions of the Sahara it is from the complex and obstinate play of a thousand-year-old erosion that the landscape derives its grandiose cut. Not far from the Amojjiar pass, in central Mauritania, one can admire the monumental sedimentary section brought to life by a runoff which, although very rare today, must have been in ancient times of singular power. Sometimes, this enormous work of clearing was carried out in a very short time. In the Immidir, in the Tassilian region, the pottery made by Neolithic man, 3500 years BC, lies under I7 metres of alluvium! - The Saharan landscape is therefore being permanently modified, but this transformation is being singularly slowed down by the current extreme drought. - Mauritania - 1968

A Réguibat tribe on their way over the pass of Ammojar (Mauritania). Wife and children make the journey in a palanquin that protects them from wind and dust. - Mauritania - 1968

The Moors, like their cousins the Tuareg, are Berbers. They inhabit what is now Mauritania. You often meet them when, as here at Aïn ben Tili, they move from one camp to another with their heavily laden camels. Typical is the wide women's saddle, whose fragility and lack of balance are obvious. - Mauritania - 1970

A Réguibat tribe on their way over the pass of Ammojar (Mauritania). Wife and children make the journey in a palanquin that protects them from wind and dust. - Mauritania - 1968

In a country with a reputation for being devoid of vegetation, the traveller is sometimes surprised, especially after a rain, to discover the vivid hue of some strange flower. For example, this delicate and virginal star of a Liliacee ( Androfymbium gramineum McBride) in Mauritania. - 1970

The Idjil salt mine is located near the present-day town of F'dérik. The fact that the salt layers begin under a top layer only 1 metre thick made it easier for the Moorish Azarzir to mine salt. The very pure rock salt is mined in the form of trapezoidal ingots weighing 20 to 40 kg and is mainly sold in Atar, Chinguetti, Ouadane, Tidjikja and Ayoûn el-Atroûs. Due to competition from sea salt, which can be produced cheaply in the Senegalese salt pans of Kaolack, the formerly sought-after Idjil rock salt was increasingly pushed out of the market. - Mauritania - 1968

A Moor working in the Idjil salt mine near the present-day town of F'dérik. - Mauritania - 1968

The tent of a nomadic family Bir Moghreïn in the far north of Mauritania. - Mauritania - 1968

Dunes at Chinguetti, a historic trading post in the Adrar region in north-western Mauritania. - 1970

The well-preserved ruins of the Chinguetti trading post (Ksar in Arabic) amidst the sand dunes. The former centre of several trade routes running through the Sahara attracts tourists and Islamic scholars who continue to admire the architecture and the old libraries. The vernacular architecture of the older parts of the city is made up of stone and mud houses with patios, each of which huddles along narrow streets around a mosque with a minaret. - Mauritania - 1970

In a country where the sand is 75 degrees Celsius in summer, the main architectural problem is to create shady and cool zones. The oasis dwellers are masters in this difficult art, as here in the Bordj of Chinguetti in Mauritania. - 1970

Chinguetti is sometimes called the seventh holiest city of Islam. In any case, the city is one of the most important cities in the history of Islam as well as West Africa. It became a centre of Islamic, religious and scientific scholarship. In addition to religious education, schools taught rhetoric, law, astronomy, mathematics and medicine. The city has some of the most important medieval manuscript libraries in West Africa, most of which are privately owned. The area around Rue des Savants was once known as a gathering place for scholars discussing the finer details of Islamic law. Today, the abandoned streets reveal the urban and religious architecture of the Middle Ages. - Mauritania - 1970

A Berber woman travelling the streets of Chinguetti with a group of musicians. - Mauritania - 1968

A Berber musician group in the streets of Chinguetti. The tidinit is a long-necked lute and is traditionally played by nomadic Berber tribes. It has a body made of a calabash. The soundboard is made of a degreased but untanned animal skin. Unlike tanned leather, this rawhide becomes very hard and remains firm. - Mauritania - 1968

Berber nomad woman with child at Cara Aderg camp near El Beyedh, Maretania. - 1970

The earth absorbs the water only slowly because clay is often deposited in the bed of the losing rivers, as seen here at Chinguetti, Mauritania. - 1970

The earth is slow to absorb the water because clay is often deposited in the bed of the receding rivers, as seen here on the track between El Beyed and Ouadane in Mauritania. - 1970

When, due to a - really rare - coincidence, a spring bursts open, wonderful vegetation sprouts: Spring of Terjit, Mauritania. - Mauritania - 1970

This old man from Tidjikja, southern Mauritania, has the typical features of his breed. The sun and life in the wide open spaces have chiselled his countenance and shaped him. - Mauritania - 1968

The nomad Sidi Ali Ali from the Tamchekett region in Mauritania. - 1970

Sunset at Tichitt, an old oasis town in the Tagant region at the foot of the Tagant Plateau in eastern Mauritania. Tichitt is known for its traditional stone houses. The main source of income is date cultivation. - Mauritania - 1970

A caravan passes in front of the traditional stone houses of Tichitt. The town was founded around 1150 and was the trading centre of Tagant in Mauritania. - 1970

Dhar Tichitt is a Neolithic archaeological site in the south-western Saharan region of Mauritania. It is one of several settlement sites along the sandstone cliffs in the area. The cliffs were inhabited by farmers and pastoralists from about 4500 B.C. and lasted until about 2300 B.C. This area is one of the oldest known archaeological settlement sites in the western part of Africa. About 500 stone settlements were scattered throughout the region in the former Saharan savannah. In addition to cattle breeding (e.g. cattle, sheep, goats), the inhabitants hunted, fished, gathered wild cereals and cultivated rush millet. - In the background, the town of Tichitt. - Mauritania - 1970

Dhar Tichitt is a Neolithic archaeological site in the south-western Saharan region of Mauritania. It is one of several settlement sites along the sandstone cliffs in the area. The cliffs were inhabited by farmers and pastoralists from about 4500 B.C. and lasted until about 2300 B.C. This area is one of the oldest known archaeological settlement sites in the western part of Africa. About 500 stone settlements were scattered throughout the region in the former Saharan savannah. In addition to raising livestock (e.g. cattle, sheep, goats), the inhabitants hunted, fished, gathered wild cereals and cultivated rush millet. - View of a wind-eroded rock from a grotto. - Mauritania - 1970

Akreïjit, like Dhar Tichitt, is a Neolithic site in the south-western Saharan region of Mauritania. - 1970

A little girl from Akreïjit with a very special haircut. - Mauritania - 1970

Moorish woman from Tichitt - Mauritania - 1970

Oualata is an oasis town in the administrative region of Hodh Ech Chargui in south-eastern Mauritania. It was one of the most important trading centres of the caravans (gold and salt trade), but also the meeting point of pilgrims to Mecca. - Mauritania - 1970

The house door of Sassoul Moulaye in Oualata. Here the masonry is not made of stones, but of unbaked mud bricks dried in the sun and joined together with an earth mortar. Remarkably solid, as long as it does not rain, these buildings have the disadvantage of dissolving in water with astonishing rapidity, which is why constant attention must be paid to the condition of the roof. - Mauritania - 1970

This gate in Oualata (Ouig Bir) impresses with its monumental appearance. But stylistically it is already strongly influenced by nearby Mali, the home of such rich and diverse Sudanese art. Here, the masonry is no longer made of stones, but of unbaked mud bricks dried in the sun and joined together with an earth mortar. Remarkably solid, as long as it does not rain, these buildings have the disadvantage of dissolving in water with astonishing rapidity, which is why constant attention must be paid to the condition of the roof. - Mauritania - 1970

In front of the house of Sassoul Moulaye in Oualata. Here the masonry is not made of stones, but of unbaked mud bricks dried in the sun and joined together with an earth mortar. Remarkably solid, as long as it does not rain, these buildings have the disadvantage of dissolving in water with astonishing rapidity, which is why constant attention must be paid to the condition of the roof. - Mauritania - 1970

The little girl Lemine Oul Boulabatt from Oualata in Mauritania. - Mauritania - 1970

The interior decoration of the houses of Oualata (Mauritania) is linked to the brilliant doctrine that flourished in this town between the 16th and 18th centuries and attracted many foreigners. It deeply shaped the local, very puritanical mores, and one of the social consequences was the confinement of women. Struggling with boredom, they came up with the idea of richly decorating the interior of the house. The paintings were applied to the whitewashed walls with a finger. Here, the artist Fafa Mint Barka at work. - Mauritania - 1970

The interior decoration of the houses of Oualata (Mauritania), here the house of the prefect, is linked to the brilliant doctrine that flourished in this town between the 16th and 18th centuries and attracted many foreigners. It deeply shaped the local, very puritanical mores, and one of the social consequences was the confinement of women. Struggling with boredom, they came up with the idea of richly decorating the interior of the house. The painting was applied to the whitewashed walls with a finger. - Mauritania - 1970

At El Beyed, Mauritania, although no palaeontological documents are available, a very important Acheulean deposit, characterised mainly by bifaces and choppers, outcrops on the present ground. The position of the geological layers in which the industries are found gives a first chronological approach. But, of course, it is not known to which human type they belong. No serious excavations have yet been carried out in this region, which is becoming increasingly rich.

The Neolithic skull shown here, discovered in the northwest of Mautetania, does not differ in any way from that of a modern human being. On an anthropological level, the study of Neolithic skeletons is rather disappointing, because they can only be divided into three groups: Black, White and Mixed. The mystery of their origin remains, and nothing makes it understandable why Homo sapiens seized world domination within a rather short time. The available scientific data allow us to assume that the Neolithic people began to occupy the Sahara between 7000 and 6ooo BC; but these figures are only preliminary, and it is quite possible that they are a little underestimated (IFAN Collection, Dakar, Senegal) - 1969

The pottery is little known, but the beautiful piece from Ehi Mounto (Niger), 25 centimetres high, proves that the craft had reached an unusually high degree of perfection, at least in some places, far from being in decline. The black, very homogeneous clay had made it possible to produce a pottery in which the wall thickness did not exceed 3 millimetres at half height! (IFAN Collection, Dakar, Senegal) - 1969

View of Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania. Nouakchott's convenient location on the Atlantic Ocean in the south of the country was chosen in 1958 to build a capital for the newly independent country on the site of a village with 500 inhabitants at the end of the French colonial period. Due to the rural exodus caused by economic crises and droughts in the 1970s and 1980s, it has since grown, largely unplanned, to over one million inhabitants. A large proportion of those who have moved in live in sprawling neighbourhoods in cheap accommodation with inadequate infrastructure in all areas. - Mauritania - 1968

The village of Noudache is located next to the site of Aoudaghost, which was uncovered by archaeological missions in the 1960s. It is a rather unusual site, as it is thought that it may have been the capital of the Ghana Empire in the 8th century, an oasis of great wealth, only a small part of which has been revealed. The village of Noudache is very new, the first settlements having been built in the 1970s by settled nomads, and lies at the foot of a rocky basin. - Mauritania - 1970

Tamchekett is a town in the Hodh El Gharbi region of south-central Mauritania. Temporary lakes form here during the rainy season. - Mauritania - 1969

This old man from Tidjikja, southern Mauritania, has the typical features of his breed. The sun and life in the wide open spaces have chiselled his countenance and shaped him. - Mauritania - 1969

At the market in Timbédra, this old man patiently waits for a buyer. - Mauritania - 1969

A girl from Timbédra. This place is a small market centre and is located on the Route de l'Espoir, the only west-east asphalt road crossing the country. - Mauritania - 1969

277 - Region of Smara. - Bubale (the famous Pelorouis antiquus Duv.), whose horns, in aerial view, contrast with the body shown in profile. Deep-line engraving. One interpretation suggests the animal is lying down and struck by lines. Length from tail to snout: 0.27 m.

278 - Col d'Amoggiar (Mauritania). - Ochre painting, very clumsily depicting an animal with horns and a mane. From snout to hindquarters: 0.16 m in length.

279 - Col d'Amoggiar (Mauritania). - Ochre painting of a "solar" symbol with four small inner circles. The fifteen rays are not joined with the circle. Two hands, one in negative (in red ochre), are visible on the left. Diameter of the solar symbol: 0.18 m.

280 - Col d'Amoggiar (Mauritania). - Ostrich painted in yellowish-white. From head to feet: 0.09 m in height.

281 - Col d'Amoggiar (Mauritania). - Fresco of figures painted in red ochre in a small, isolated rock shelter. At the top left, standing figures can be seen, each with the right hand on the hip and the left hand extended towards the neighbor. The second holds a bow in the right hand. The third holds the second's hand and wears a balloon-like skirt. Below, on the right, a rider, a seated person, and a small bovine. The work is heavily degraded by wind erosion.

282 - Oumat-el-Ham (Mauritania). - Two antelopes painted in red ochre, facing each other with their rear ends. The animal on the right shows only one front and one hind leg. Length from snout to snout: 0.38 m.

283 - Oumat-el-Harn (Mauritania). - A rhinoceros painted in red ochre (discovered by Maximilien Bruggmann in 1969). Length: 0.18 m.

284 - Noudache (Mauritania). - A chariot in a very decadent style, difficult to date. The interest of this chariot, painted in red ochre and drawn by oxen, lies in the driver’s donkey head. From the oxen's head to the driver's head: 0.25 m.

285 - Noudache (Mauritania). - A chariot drawn by two oxen, executed in red ochre. Two-wheeled axle. The driver here is a man. The giraffe is unintentionally comic due to the length of its neck and the excessively long tail. From the giraffe’s snout to the driver’s head: 0.48 m.

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