Description
The "submarine" at Enneri Blaka owes its name to the shape it resembles. Wouldn't you think you were seeing the mighty conning tower of a submarine emerging from an ocean of sand? In reality, the Enneri is a wadi, a river, but here, in the barren bed in the middle of which the strange rock rises, nothing has flowed for a very long time, and the "submarine" is fossilised forever. Seldom has a region been more severely beaten with barrenness than that in which the Blaka lies. For not the smallest shrub grows there, and the camel riders who have visited it speak of it as a hell without water and without the slightest hope of life . . . And yet shepherds once grazed their flocks here. In the camp, their peaceful life took place without clashes, and local artists decorated the walls of the abris and the smooth rock surfaces with beautiful engravings and fine paintings. The fact that one also finds depictions of hippos suggests that a lake existed nearby ... But so far there is no irrefutable evidence, such as a vertebra of a large fish found in the sand, for the correctness of this assumption.
In the large abri of the "submarine", one has discovered the outstanding depiction of a hind in white and ochre, which bears an astonishing resemblance to works from the wall art of South Africa. Convergence or influence? It is impossible to answer this question with the current state of our knowledge. - Niger - 1968
Description
The "submarine" at Enneri Blaka owes its name to the shape it resembles. Wouldn't you think you were seeing the mighty conning tower of a submarine emerging from an ocean of sand? In reality, the Enneri is a wadi, a river, but here, in the barren bed in the middle of which the strange rock rises, nothing has flowed for a very long time, and the "submarine" is fossilised forever. Seldom has a region been more severely beaten with barrenness than that in which the Blaka lies. For not the smallest shrub grows there, and the camel riders who have visited it speak of it as a hell without water and without the slightest hope of life . . . And yet shepherds once grazed their flocks here. In the camp, their peaceful life took place without clashes, and local artists decorated the walls of the abris and the smooth rock surfaces with beautiful engravings and fine paintings. The fact that one also finds depictions of hippos suggests that a lake existed nearby ... But so far there is no irrefutable evidence, such as a vertebra of a large fish found in the sand, for the correctness of this assumption.
In the large abri of the "submarine", one has discovered the outstanding depiction of a hind in white and ochre, which bears an astonishing resemblance to works from the wall art of South Africa. Convergence or influence? It is impossible to answer this question with the current state of our knowledge. - Niger - 1968
