Featured: Friendly specialist tours to ancient, mystical and historical sites in the UK and beyond

Friendly specialist tours to ancient, mystical and historical sites in the UK and beyond

Random Image


Kerhuen Dolmens

Circles of Stone - Max Milligan

Circles of Stone - Max Milligan

Who's Online

There are currently, 490 guests and 1 members online.

You are a guest. To join in, please register for free by clicking here

Sponsors

<< News >> African Rock Art Vandalised

Submitted by aluta on Thursday, 31 January 2008  Page Views: 5933

Site WatchCountry: Morocco News sources report that rock art at sites including the important archaeological site at Lajuad in Western Sahara has been spry painted with graffiti, apparently by U.N. peacekeeping personnel.

See here for BBC story, here for a blog post about it, and here for more pictures.

<< Hollywood Galleries, SoCal Museums: Illegial Antiquities, Tax Fraud in FBI Sting

Open Day this weekend on Merseyside: M62 J6 Stone Age Settlements >>

Please add your thoughts on this site

Prehistoric Dorset

Prehistoric Dorset

Sponsors

Auto-Translation (Google)

Translate from English into:

"African Rock Art Vandalised" | Login/Create an Account | 4 News and Comments
  
Go back to top of page    Comments are owned by the poster. We aren't responsible for their content.
Vandal Threat To Cave Paintings by coldrum on Wednesday, 17 June 2009
(User Info | Send a Message)
(by Francesca Spinola) (ANSAmed) - TRIPOLI - Some time around the middle of April, in an area of the Libyan Sahara on the Algerian frontier known as Tadrart Acacus, seven cave paintings from the Neolithic era, dating back to a period between 3,000 and 10,000 years ago, were vandalised with tins of spray paint. The caves were declared UNESCO world heritage sites more than twenty years ago. The crime was committed by a former tourist guide, a Tunisian citizen whose identity has not been revealed since he was arrested by local police on April 24. The only news to have leaked out from TripolI's Department of Archaeology is that the man is of Libyan origin and had recently been fired by the Italian tourist agency 'Dar Sahara', which has been present in the area for many years, serving the interests of lovers of the desert and cave-painting enthusiasts. ''The red, black and white graffiti written in spray paint consists of abuse addressed to the Libyan government and against Italians'', says Juma Anag, the head of the Department of Archaeology. A mission from the department, together with colleagues from the Italo-Libyan Archaeological Mission from Rome's La Sapienza University, under Professor Savino di Lernia, will be visiting the sites over the coming days to assess the extent of the damage. According to Seif Al Islam Al Gheddafi, a passionate archaeologist and president of the charitable foundation which bears his father's name, the formation of a special commission of archaeologists, security experts and frontier tourist police is already in hand with the objective of affording the country's archaeological sites, especially those in the remote desert, an efficient system of protection as soon as possible. ''The paintings - and the graffiti - are in fact easily accessible to anyone who provides themselves with a simple desert pass'', comes the complaint from the head of the Italian archaeological mission to Acacus, Savino di Lernia, who will himself be on site in Libya to assess the financial and scientific effort involved in cleaning the paintings. Libya is home to a vast archaeological heritage spanning Greco-Roman cities on the coast, such as Sabratha, Leptis Magna, Cyrene, to name but a few, the medieval ruins of Ghadames, the Medina in Tripoli, and the desert cave paintings. Security for all these sites has up to now been entrusted to a few patrols of tourist and border police who share an immense territory between them. The area of Tadrat Acacus alone covers 6,000 square kilometres. This is too much for the scattered police patrols who have a growing number of tourists to control. The special task force desired by Seif Al Islam will also have the remit of coming up with ways to prevent similar acts of vandalism in the future. Meanwhile, the deep distress being felt by the Italo-Libyan Archaeological mission and local tourist organisations is shared by the Touareg community who have been working together with these bodies for the past sixty years. (ANSAmed).

http://www.ansamed.info/en/top/ME13.WAM10256.html
[ Reply to This ]

UN vandals spray graffiti on Sahara’s prehistoric art by coldrum on Thursday, 07 February 2008
(User Info | Send a Message)
UN vandals spray graffiti on Sahara’s prehistoric art

Spectacular prehistoric depictions of animal and human figures created up to 6,000 years ago on Western Saharan rocks have been vandalised by United Nations peacekeepers, The Times has learnt.

Archaeological sites boasting ancient paintings and engravings of giraffes, buffalo and elephants have been defaced within the past two years by personnel attached to the UN mission, known by its French acronym, Minurso.

Graffiti, some of it more than a metre high and sprayed with paint meant for use for marking routes, now blights the rock art at Lajuad, an isolated site known as Devil Mountain, which is regarded by the local Sahrawi population as a mystical place of great cultural significance.

Many of the UN “graffiti artists” signed and dated their work, revealing their identities and where they are from. Minurso personnel stationed in Western Sahara come from almost 30 countries. They are monitoring a ceasefire between the occupying Moroccan forces and the Polisario Front, which is seeking independence.

One Croatian peacekeeper scrawled “Petar CroArmy” across a rock face. Extensive traces of pigment from rock painting are visible underneath. Another left behind Cyrillic graffiti, and “Evgeny” from Russia scribbled AUI, the code for the Minurso base at Aguanit. “Mahmoud” from Egypt left his mark at Rekeiz Lemgasem, and “Ibrahim” wrote his name and number over a prehistoric painting of a giraffe. “Issa”, a Kenyan major who signed his name and wrote the date, had just completed a UN course, Ethics in Peacekeeping, documents show.

Julian J. Harston, the UN’s representative of the Secretary-General for Western Sahara and head of Minurso, said that he had been shocked by the scale of the vandalism. After visiting two of the sites, including Devil Mountain, this week, he said: “I was appalled. You’d think some of them would know better. These are officers, not squaddies.” The UN would take action against any officers “kind enough to leave their calling card. We will report it to the troop-contributing countries. We can move them.”

The extent of the damage is revealed in a report by Nick Brooks, of the University of East Anglia, and Joaquim Soler, of the University of Gerona, Spain, which was passed to The Times yesterday. It outlines the “severe vandalism”, saying that it “now appears to be an essentially universal practice when Minurso staff visit rock art sites . . . Minurso staff have felt entitled to destroy elements of Western Sahara’s and the Sahrawis’ cultural heritage, despite being aware of UN ethics in peacekeeping, and in breach of legislation enshrined in the 1954 Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict.”

It concludes: “Minurso personnel have played a major role in damaging archaeological sites, and such staff are engaged in the systematic defacement of valuable archaeological sites over a large area . . . the recent damage at Lajuad is unprecedented.”

The vandalism will reignite the debate about the conduct of UN peacekeepers after a series of scandals. Last January the UN admitted that more than 200 of its troops had been disciplined for sex offences, including rape and child abuse, in the preceding three years; in May it emerged that Paki-stani peacekeepers had been trading weapons with Congolese militia.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article3280058.ece
[ Reply to This ]

Re: Lajuad location by Aluta on Friday, 01 February 2008
(User Info | Send a Message)
Mopre excellent work by the batster. Thank you, bat400.
[ Reply to This ]

Lajuad location by bat400 on Thursday, 31 January 2008
(User Info | Send a Message)
The location is very roughly 22.5N 14.9W.
For a report with photos of evocative stone constructions of the area, see this link.
[ Reply to This ]

Your Name: Anonymous [ Register Now ]
Subject:


Add your comment or contribution to this page. Spam or offensive posts are deleted immediately, don't even bother

<<< What is five plus one as a number? (Please type the answer to this question in the little box on the left)
You can also embed videos and other things. For Youtube please copy and paste the 'embed code'.
For Google Street View please include Street View in the text.
Create a web link like this: <a href="https://www.megalithic.co.uk">This is a link</a>  

Allowed HTML is:
<p> <b> <i> <a> <img> <em> <br> <strong> <blockquote> <tt> <li> <ol> <ul> <object> <param> <embed> <iframe>

We would like to know more about this location. Please feel free to add a brief description and any relevant information in your own language.
Wir möchten mehr über diese Stätte erfahren. Bitte zögern Sie nicht, eine kurze Beschreibung und relevante Informationen in Deutsch hinzuzufügen.
Nous aimerions en savoir encore un peu sur les lieux. S'il vous plaît n'hesitez pas à ajouter une courte description et tous les renseignements pertinents dans votre propre langue.
Quisieramos informarnos un poco más de las lugares. No dude en añadir una breve descripción y otros datos relevantes en su propio idioma.