Tertia Barnett: An Engraved Landscape: Rock Carvings in the Wadi al-Ajal, Libya
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BOOK REVIEW
Tertia Barnett: An Engraved Landscape: Rock Carvings in the Wadi al-Ajal, Libya Monograph 11, The Society for Libyan Studies, London, 2019, 2 vol., 933 pp., ISBN 978-1-900971-53-9 Daniela Zampetti
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This two-volume book by T. Barnett represents the results of a series of preliminary investigations between 2000 and 2002, and subsequent systematic fieldwork carried out in the Wadi al-Ajal (Libyan Fezzan) between 2004 and 2009. The work on rock art of this region began as part of the Fezzan Project, an interdisciplinary research program including archaeological surveys and excavations conducted by C. Daniels and M. Ayoub between 1958 and 1977, and by D. Mattingly between 1996 and 2001, along with the Department of Antiquities of Libya and the Society for Libyan Studies. The main aims of the project were the reconstruction of the environment and history of Wadi al-Ajal during the last 12,000 years, and the history of the Garamantian kingdom between c. 500 BC and AD 500. The Fezzan Project was succeeded in 2007–2011 by the Desert Migrations Project (DMP), involving the universities of Leicester, Cambridge, Reading, and KCL, and by the Trans-Sahara Project under the auspices of the European Research Council. This last project has focused on state formation, migration, and trade in the central Sahara between 1000 BC and AD 1500. The publication of a series of papers and of four volumes (see, in particular, Mattingly et al. 2007) illustrates the methods, aims, and results of research on the settlements of the Wadi al-Ajal, the Garamantian capital of Old Jarma, and the surrounding area. The engraved rock
D. Zampetti (*) Sapienza Università di Roma-Fondazione Sapienza, Rome, Italy e-mail: [email protected]
art, whose chronology spans from the Early Holocene to the present day, includes a rich repertoire of inscriptions and over two thousand panels—most of them previously unknown. Volume 1: Synthesis is organized in three sections. The introductory Section 1 (Chapters 1–4) deals with the general aspects of Saharan rock art, synthesizing the history of research, the chronological questions, the climatic changes during the Holocene, and the cultural and social dynamics. Section 2 (Chapters 5–8) is the core of the volume; this describes the methods of rock art surveys, the proposed stylistic chronology, and the analysis of the engravings’ iconography and their related social contexts. Chapter 8 reports other kinds of rock surface markings like cups, incisions, and so on. Section 3 (Chapters 9–11) examines the environmental and the cultural contexts of the carvings. Completing the volume is a very accurate bibliography and two important appendices dealing with the Pre-Pastoral and Pastoral sites of the surveyed area and the 3D modeling of some rock art sites. Volume 2: Gazetteer provides an illustrated catalog of the engravings from the 14 zones of the surveyed area. These are completed by maps, drawing of some selected panels (n = 150)
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