An immense expanse of golden sands and monumental dunes covers the Saharan region south-west of Libya. It is the heart of the ancient land of the Garamantes, which continues further south into south-western Fezzan, home of the Tuareg clans. Here, true works of art of nature suddenly appear: the astonishing salt lakes of Ubari, lapped further south by the wind-sculpted dunes of Murzuq and to the south-west by the bizarre sandstone formations of the Jebel Acacus frontier region, which in turn guard the only man-made work of art, the most conspicuous heritage of rock paintings and engravings in the Sahara.
Crossing the endless and desolate Libyan desert moors in a south-westerly direction, one is suddenly astonished to find oneself in front of the scenery offered by the Ubari Salt Lakes. We are in the heart of the region inhabited in ancient times by the Garamantes, which was home to a dozen vast stretches of water, which have dried up due to heavy evaporation, and of which four main ones remain today, enchanting travellers like precious gems. Set by cordons of dunes, some of them vertiginous, and bordered by green palm groves, the lakes create a contrast of colours of indescribable beauty, between the ochre of the sand, the green of the vegetation and the blue of the salt water, on which the clear sky and the surrounding landscape are reflected. Mavo, Gebraoun, Umm al-Maa and Mandara, are unexpected paradise oases in the heart of the Sahara’s most desolate desert region. From the top of the dunes, the spectacle is incredible, especially at sunset, which lights up the contrast of colours with fiery light.
Heading further south, one enters the vast area of the Idehan Murzuq, a veritable sea of sand shaped by the wind into monumental, perfectly shaped, pointed dunes. Like gigantic natural sculptures, the Murzuq dunes are among the most scenic sandy backdrops that the weather has created, with peaks reaching 300 metres in height and no end in sight. Here it is only the rumble of the wind moving the top layer of sand that can be heard, similar to the roar of an oncoming thunderstorm that cleaves the atmosphere with thunder.
But it is at the border with Algeria that the Libyan Sahara preserves an immense open-air work of art, this time created by man thousands of years ago. We are among the rocky ravines and wind-eroded sandstone formations of the Jebel Acacus, emerging from the surrounding sands and rising above ancient wadis that were once fertile and are now inexorably drained and swallowed by the desert. Hundreds of rock art sites are preserved here, some dating back at least 10,000 years. Together with the ancient engravings of the nearby Wadi Methkandoush and the specimens of Tadrart Rouge and Tassili N‘Ajjer, these two in Algerian territory, they constitute the largest and most valuable archaeological heritage of rock art in the world, concentrated within a radius of a few hundred square kilometres.
A veritable museum en plein air, hidden in ravines and rock walls, amid lunar landscapes of sandstones eroded by the weather, interspersed with sand dunes clinging to canyons and pinnacles of surreal shapes. In the Jebel Acacus, all epochs and stylistic forms, in which rock art is commonly inventoried today, are present, spanning some 10,000 years of human history: from the earliest depictions of large wild animals, to the so-called ‘round-head’ period, from the intermediate period of cattle to the more recent representations of horses and camels. Many iconographies are depicted with great realism, from erotic scenes to nuptial scenes, from giraffes and elephants rendered with great detail to hunting scenes and tribal dances, with anthropomorphic figures wearing masks.
