the chéïré-1 painted shelter (ennedi, chad)

1

Introduction

Chéïré is the name on the Ennedi topog-

raphic map by the IGN (sheet NE-34-IV) of

a sandstone peak, very easy to spot from far

away. A huge sand dune connects this peak

to the eastern slopes of a flat-topped hill,

where the Chéïré-1 shelter opens in a con-

cealed location at the elevation of 650 me-

ters (Fig. 1). About forty-two meters wide,

up to ten meters high and nineteen meters

deep, this shelter originated from the col-

lapse of three massive sandstone beds, gen-

tly dipping to the northeast (Fig. 2). Some

ground-stones scattered on the shelter floor

indicate the site was used at least as a tem-

porary dwelling place (Fig. 3). Paintings

decorate the most accessible surfaces of the

shelter walls for a length of twenty-seven

meters, following the floor at human height

and gradually sloping from west to east

(Fig. 4). The most elaborate and dense com-

positions are found on the most protected

sector of the shelter, behind a boulder act-

ing as a barrier, likewise painted on its sides

facing the out-side. Chéïré-1 was discovered

Chéïré-1 est un grand abri peint situé dans le secteur sud-

ouest de l'Ennedi, à l'est de la célèbre guelta du Wadi Ar-

cheï, particulièrement riche de belles peintures dépeignant

les éleveurs de bétail qui ont habité la région dans la pre-

mier âge du fer.

Chéïré-1 is a large painted shelter located in the SW sector of

the Ennedi, east of the renewed Wadi Archeï guelta, particu-

larly rich with fine paintings portraying the cattle herders

who inhabited the region during the early Iron Age.

The Chéïré-1 painted shelter (Ennedi, Chad)

Alessandro Menardi Noguera1

Andrea Bonomo2

Fig. 1 – Location map of the Chéïré-1 shelter (triangle). The

site is here named Chéïré-1 following the naming convention

consolidated in the regional scientific literature. The satellite

image in the background is from Digital Globe—Google

Earth©.

1) [email protected] - 2)[email protected]

doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.886590 - Creative Common Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.886590

Alessandro Menardi Noguera & Andrea Bonomo - Bergamo, AARS meeting, 31/05/2014

2 https://independent.academia.edu/AlessandroMenardiNoguera

during the 1997 winter by Andrea Bonomo.

Revisited in March 2014, the site was fully

documented using cross-polarized flash

lights, a basic photographic technique first

introduced in rock art studies by Hender-

son (2002). In all, 485 motifs have been ref-

erenced and indexed after image enhance-

ment by DStretch (Harman 2002; Le Quellec

et al. 2013).

For the present analysis of the surveyed

paintings, direct reference is made to the

styles and periods (Fig. 5) established by

Fig. 2 – Eastward

view of the Chéïré-1

shelter, opening at

650 metres of eleva-

tion, about 200 me-

tres above the bot-

tom of the nearby

Wadi Nohi. Paint-

ings decorate the

most accessible sur-

faces of the shelter

walls and the exter-

nal sides of the large

squared boulder

found toward the

shelter bottom.

Fig. 4 – Location sketch of the main decorated surfaces. The perimeter of the

painted panels is about twenty-seven meters. Scale is approximate since the

photo-mosaic is not orthorectified.

3


Bailloud (1997). These definitions proved to

be an effective tool in understanding the

new sites inventoried during time in the

south-west of the Ennedi highlands. How-

ever, many questions about the relative and

absolute chronology remain open to debate

(Yves and Christine Gauthier, 2006). Mov-

ing away from the Bailloud’s study area,

style variations and regionalization are rec-

ognized (Tilman 2015). From a practical

point of view, it is necessary to outline that

the sites described by Bailloud were sur-

veyed by direct tracing while only few

black and white photographs were shot.

The majority of these sites, hosting very

large compositions, have yet to be revisited

and fully documented anew with the com-

bination of modern digital technologies

available nowadays (Le Quellec et al. 2015).

Therefore, making reference to the Bailloud’

style definitions requires some caution.

The bottom walls paintings

At the shelter bottom, a two-meter thick

sandstone bed juts out, offering a promi-

nent surface densely populated with depic-

tions of humans, cattle and dogs. The over-

whelming majority of paintings shown on

the three main painted panels (A-B-C; Fig.

4) are in the Tamada style, which reference

site is located ninety kilometres west of

Fig. 3 – A sandstone slab with an elliptical hollow

found on the floor of the Chéïré-1 shelter, likely used

as a ground stone.



Fada. This style, referring to the Recent Bo-

vine Period, is the first artistic expression in

the Ennedi to include unmistakable depic-

tions of iron weapons, predating the intro-

duction of camels and horses in the region.

It must be remembered that the earliest evi-

dence of iron smelting in Sub-Saharan Af-

rica (northern Niger) dates back to the clos-

ing centuries of the II millennium BC, while

technology is firmly confirmed in West Af-

rica by the eight century BC (Holl 2009).

Surprisingly, the first archaeological evi-

dence for the Iron Age in the Ennedi date

back to around the IV century AD, with

“some hints” that the local Iron Age might

have begun at the inception of the current

era, being the findings related to an already

mature technology (Kedig et al. 2007; Jesse

et al. 2013).

The unmatched quality of the Tamada style

paintings found at the shelter bottom al-

lows for a generalized description of the

portrayed people, sometimes finely painted

as polychrome figures in red, white and

pale orange.

Gender distinction relies only on clothes,

accessories and weapons; no explicit depic-

tions of sexual anatomic features are noted.

Heads of men and women are shaped as

short sticks, generally lacking facial details

but with the eyes sometimes represented as

pairs of tiny white dots (Fig. 6-7 and 8-9).

Men and women are typically featured by

rounded hairstyles, usually painted in pale-

Dromedary Period

Recent Dromedary Period -

Ancient Dromedary Period Keymena Style

Gribi Style

Bovine Period

(Pastoral Period)

Final Bovine Period -

Recent Bovine Period

Koko Style

Fada Style

Tamada Style

Middle Bovine Period Hohou Style

Ancient Bovine Period Ebiki Style

Archaic Period

Guérola Style

Checked Style

Elikéo Style

Sivré Style

Mayguili Style

Fig. 5 – Synoptic table of the styles and rock art periodization established in the SW Ennedi by Bailloud (1997). In

the Bailloud’s terminology, “Bovine Period” stands for the term “Pastoral Period” commonly found in the litera-

ture. The oldest domestic bovine remains in the Erg Ennedi and Middle Wadi Howar (Sudan), part of the eastern

Ennedi drainage system, are dated to the dawn of IV millennium BC (Jesse et al. 2013). The inception of first mil-

lennium AD is accepted for the introduction of the camel in the Sahara and the Sahel, although in the Egyptian

Lower Nubia there is evidence for camel presence by the first millennium BC (Blench & MacDonald 2014). The

throwing knife depicted during the final stage of the recent dromedary period was developed in central Sudan

around the begin of the second millennium AD (Ehret 2002).

5


orange, often only visible as a faint halo.

Men are shown with larger coiffures than

women. The shape of this hairstyle, identi-

fied as “Afro” in the hairdresser jargon

used in the northern America for people of

African descent, is naturally assumed as

curled African hair when let to grow long

(Sherrow 2006). The French word intro-

duced by Bailloud (1997) to indicate this

hairstyle is “chèche”. Clearly, it is not possi-

ble to prove the rounded shape of the men

hairstyles is effectively due to an intricate

Fig. 6-7 – Six warri-

ors aligned in a row

are depicted on the

lower bedding sur-

face of the sand-

stone bed hosting

panel D. The fifth

warrior is clasping

with the same hand

a spear, a decorated

quiver and a bow.

Two running dogs

are shown to the left

of the aligned warri-

ors (DStretch ver-

sion in CRGB colour

space, white im-

ported from the

YYE colour space).



volume of natural curls but curls seem

sometimes depicted in women hairstyle, a

fact indicating natural African curly hairs

occurred among the portrayed people.

Men wear long recumbent feathers in their

hair or more rarely fan-shaped tufts of

feathers (Fig. 6-7). Exclusive to men are

lines of beads hanging from the lower lobes

of their coiffures and also hair decorations

in the form of dark coloured large dots (Fig.

8-9). These decorations, unprecedented in

the available documentation of the Ennedi

Fig. 8-9 – A row of

six finely depicted

warriors associated

to six variously

decorated shields,

vertically stacked to

their left. The first

warrior of the row is

superimposed on a

woman figure lean-

ing to the right

(DStretch version in

CRGB colour space,

white imported

from the YYE colour

space).

7


rock art, could have been produced in life

by smearing hair with coloured clays. Ban-

danas were likewise in use among men as

white lines painted on the forehead just be-

low the hair root and documented in two

cases (Fig. 8-9).

The sophisticated coiffures of men should

have required constant care; it is a known

fact that African hair quickly loses its

beauty if neglected (Sherrow 2006). Likely,

hair was a source of pride and an expres-

sion of cultural identity or social status sat-

Fig. 10-11 – A row

of aligned people

prevalently com-

posed by women.

Women hairstyles

a re s ome t i mes

marked by small

dots (second figure

from the left), likely

representing natural

afro-textured hairs

with tight curls in

corkscrews. Below

the fifth person of

the row from the

left, the draft of a

h u m a n f i g u r e

drawn in very thin

lines is recognizable


CRGB colour space).



isfying many purposes as historically ob-

served all over sub-Saharan Africa

(Batulukisi 2000). Tribal affiliation could

have been one of the most important pur-

poses of these elaborated coiffures, thus re-

gionalization in the coiffure attributes is ex-

pected, considering that the Ennedi is more

than 30,000 square km at full length. In fact,

the multiple sets of triangularly shaped pins

completing the men’s coiffures observed in

Tamada-1 and nearby shelters (Bailloud

1997) do not appear in Chéïré-1.

Fig. 12-13 – The

woman opening the

row of aligned peo-

ple to the left has a

pointed chignon or

pin at the coiffure

top. This woman

wears a white drape

over the long gown,

fastened on the

waist with a sash.

The warriors of the

row are armed with

spears, shields,

bows and quivers. A

running dog pre-

cedes the aligned

people to the left


CRGB colour space,

white imported

from the YYE colour

space).

9


The outlines of women coiffures are some-

times marked by small dots, perhaps repre-

senting natural afro-textured hair with tight

curls in corkscrews (Fig. 10-11). Chignons

sometimes enrich the women’s coiffures as

shown in one case (Fig. 12-13).

The men’s basic garment is a loincloth of

various colours, ending with a loose, short

band, generally depicted on their right side

(Fig. 6-7 and 9-10). The length of this hang-

ing band represents just another difference

between Chéïré-1 and the sites centred on

Fig. 14-15 – A war-

rior depicted near a

cow with swollen

udder. Wavy body

decorations painted

in white are visible

on the warrior’s

legs. In the gap

opened by flaking of

the rock surface on

the upper right of

the cow, a draft of a

bovine figure drawn

in thin red lines is

evidenced by image

e n h a n c e m e n t


CRGB colour space).



Tamada-1, where it is worn long to the an-

kle (Bailloud 1997).

Some warriors wear a white shirt with short

sleeves resembling a modern “T- shirt” (Fig.

6-7 and 8-9). Just the same, the naked torso

is the norm. Body decorations on the torso

are attested among men in the form of

white parallel vertical lines jointed by short

transversal segments and also as wavy lines

on the legs (Fig. 14-15). Similar decorations

on warrior legs have analogous examples in

the Nabara-1 and Enneri Doué-2 shelters

(Choppy et al. 2003). White leg bands com-

plete the men’s attire (Fig. 6-7, 12-13 and 14-

15).

The full panoply of the Tamada warriors is

composed of a spear with a leaf-shaped

spearhead (Fig. 8-9), a round shield (Fig. 12-

13 and 14-15), a bow and a quiver with a

top or cap adorned by a white appendix

with red stripes likely representing leather

tongues (Fig. 12-13). This interesting detail

is generally reduced to simple alternate

white and red stripes in the sketchiest

figures.

Bows and quivers are shown clasped in the

Fig. 16 – The men’s coiffures in Tamada style are very sophisticated: all the warriors but the first to the left wear

long recumbent feathers. Lines of beads hang from the lower lobes of their hairstyles. Decorations rendered as

large dark coloured dots are applied to the hairs. The three warriors in the row holding spears are shown with both

hands fully open and fingers widened. The warrior in the middle of the row is 33 cm tall.

11


same hand (e.g. Fig. 6-7 and 12-13). Effec-

tively, it is the bow to drive the identifica-

tion of the depicted ornamented objects as

quivers, an identification originally pro-

posed by Bailloud (1997). In this respect, it

must be remembered that African quivers

provided with sophisticated, bizarre deco-

rations or fancy caps, are very common in

ethnographic documentation (Boccassino

1960; Grayson 2007).

Quivers and bows seem exceedingly small

in relation to their owners, yet these objects

Fig. 17-18 – Family

scene composed by

two parents, two

girls and a boy. The

two girls overlap a

homestead flaked by

two small people

represented as verti-

cally stacked figures.

The father of the

family overlaps a

cattle figure with

r e t or t ed h orn s


CRGB colour space).



were not necessarily represented in true

scale. In fact, also spears appear to be rather

short as their length is half or less than half

the height of their owners. Such spears

were similarly shown in reduced scale. In

fact, the length of spears with iron leaf-

shaped blades, preserved in the Pitt River

Museum, part of a vast collection originat-

ing from different Sudanese ethnic groups,

are in the range of 1.5 – 2.2 meters

(according to a homogeneous sample of

twenty specimens excluding spears classi-

fied as ceremonial or spears provided with

butt-spikes). The length of spears with iron

bladed points, used by the San people both

for thrusting or throwing weapons, are in

the range of 1.5 – 2.5 meters (Knecht 1997).

Evidently, it would be impossible to hold a

spear from the butt with an open hand, as

conventionally shown by the most detailed

warrior depictions (Fig. 16). One can con-

clude that it is the association between

weapons and owners of real importance to

the artist and not the achievement of real-

ism in portraiture. Weapons were evidently

necessary to qualify the masculine world

and their scaled versions were sufficient.

Considering the stylistically homogenous

panels A, B and C, fifty-one over sixty-three

warriors (i.e. 81%) are “holding” spears in

their left hand (Fig. 6-7). In contexts of hunt-

ing or fighting, spears would have been

generally wielded by the right-hand and

shields by the left, as left-handedness is

seen only in a minority of the human popu-

lation, although estimates widely vary in

the 5-30% range, depending on handedness

definitions (Holder 2001; Puri 2013). By ex-

amining the ethnographic photographic col-

lections available on-line, thanks to the Pitt

River Museum, it is deduced that in every-

day life, spears can be held indifferently in

the left or right hand only when not in ef-

fective use.

Shields are embellished by different geo-

metric decorations such as crosses, concen-

tric circles, partition in regular quarters or

fields delimited by a sinuous boundary,

perhaps inherited from the natural patterns

of cattle hides (Fig. 8-9 and 12-13). These

decorations, which recall coats of arms,

would have been useful in identifying their

owners, especially during a fight.

The women wear full length skirts with a

sash fastened on the waist, made visible by

the hanging loose end (Fig. 12-13). The most

elegant women wear a white semi-

transparent drape which reaches the

ground, hanging on one side and covering

half of the skirt. Contrary to evidence from

the sites in the neighborhood of Fada, no

clear depictions of blouses are observed

among women. However, bosoms are never

discernible, indicating that women were

clothed from neck to feet.

Girls and boys, are easy recognizable as

they are depicted shorter than their parents

and with a delicate constitution (Fig. 17-18);

girls are just women in diminutive size.

Boys might present smaller and less elabo-

13


rate hairstyles in comparison to the adults.

Only small children are shown without at-

tributes betraying gender.

The standing pose for men and women,

portrayed as isolated figures or in group

scenes, is essentially invariant, with very

few exceptions, clearly a hieratic pose, im-

plying that no individual is engaged in any

specific action. However, this recursive

standing pose, typical of the figures in the

Tamada style, is not trivial. In fact, it de-

parts from the basic posture that a relaxed

person would assume when standing, as

the lower arms are twisted to make an out-

ward angle in comparison to the body. A

certain minimum voluntary physical effort

is required to stand this way. The specificity

of this pose is clearer when hands are de-

picted with stretched widened fingers, since

it is attainable only with the palms in view,

thumbs up. Therefore, this conventional

pose, replicated by thousands of paintings

in a number of sites, cannot be confused

with the static basic frontal pose, childish or

primitively rudimentary art recurs to sche-

matize a human in the simplest way possi-

ble. In the expressions of the later subse-

quent derivative styles, such as the

“sentinels” from the eastern Ennedi (Kedin

et al. 2007; Jacquet 2013), this specificity is

Fig. 19 – The right sector of panel A is decorated by an oversized depiction of a warrior in Tamada style, about 45

cm tall, i.e. three times taller than the other similar figures found on the same panel (Photo-mosaic, DStretch proc-

essed version in CRGB colour space).



diluted by stylization and oversimplifica-

tion of the human figure. The clue in under-

standing the origin of this conventional

pose must be sought in the earliest paint-

ings where it represents a novelty in the re-

gional art, i.e. in the Tamada style paint-

ings. In fact, the community portrayed

throughout the bottom walls of Chéïré-1 is

always shown in a pacific attitude, overtly

exhibiting its strength and wealth by its

many well-armed warriors and its cattle.

This conventional pose seems to effectively

Fig. 20-21 – A family

group; the father of

the family is fea-

tured by an ex-

tremely large coif-

fure (DStretch ver-

sion in CRGB colour

space).

15


express the relaxed, pacific mood of a

proud, self-reliant people.

Panel A

In the left upper quarter of Panel A (Fig. 4

and 19), undecipherable fragmentary fig-

ures in thick drawing lines, possibly be-

longing to an ancient pictorial layer, are evi-

denced by digital enhancement. In the mid-

dle left of the panel, overlapping white and

red cattle figures form a tight cluster, par-

tially obfuscated by weathering.

White bovine horns are seen on panels A, C

and B as apparently floating motifs. These

horns belong to cattle figures whose bodies

were originally painted in a brown dye

prone to disappear completely. An ex-

tremely faint brown bovine figure, identi-

fied near the upper border of panel A,

proves these isolated cattle horns, also indi-

cated as “phantom cattle” (see the statistic

by Choppy et al., 2002), are just imputable

to selective decay of pigments.

Toward the panel top, a herd composed of

four aligned cattle figures and a calf is pre-

sent. Standing warriors to the right of the

herd likely represent the cattle guards.

Enhancement of digital images reveal, in

the background of panel A, an oversized

warrior in Tamada style, forty-five cm tall,

i.e. about three times taller than the other

similar figures found on the same panel

(Fig. 19). This outstanding figure is shown

with down-stretched arms and a spear

drawn over his fully opened right hand. A

Fig. 22 – Panel B; the focal point of the composition is an oversized cow figure, twice larger than the other cattle

figures found on panel B. However, the dominant motifs adorning the panel are rows of aligned people.



large disk in solid red, shown as an isolated

motif to the left, likely represents his shield,

proportioned in size. To the lower left of

this oversized figure, a warrior holding a

stick and a spear makes for an interesting

case; as documented by Evans-Pritchard

among the Nuer people in South Sudan

(Morton 2004), spear and stick constitute an

alternative weaponry combination that can

effectively replace the more common spear-

shield combination.

The lower right corner of Panel A is deco-

rated by a family scene showing a man fea-

tured with an exceedingly large hairstyle,

accompanied by a wife with a curly coif-

fure, holding two children hand in hand

(Fig. 20-21).

Panel B

The focal point of panel B is occupied by a

buxom cow, facing to the right, approxi-

mately twice the size of the other cattle fig-

ures which appear on the same panel (Fig.

22 and 23). It is a finely painted animal with

a white swollen udder, evidenced by an

outline drawn in red and four protruding

teats. The sharp white horns with red horn-

points are shown according to their frontal

profile, a graphic convention commonly

seen in the Tamada styled cattle (Bailloud

1997). Less evident is a calf painted in light

brown, underneath the white chest floor of

the cow.

The forelegs of this large cow clearly over-

lap the fragmentary figure of a bovine,

which survives only by the white convolute

patches of its coat (Fig. 23). Cattle with simi-

lar convoluted patches are sometimes asso-

ciated with Tamada styled humans (ibidem).

Therefore, this fragment could be just an

Fig. 23 – The buxom

cow at the centre of

panel B, about 30 cm

large, is accompa-

nied by a calf de-

picted in pale

brown, shown be-

low the chest floor.

This cow overlaps

an earlier bovine

figure surviving

only for the convo-

luted white patches

of its coat.

17


evidence for a superimposition internal to

the style.

On the left side of panel B, three cattle herds

are identified; they are composed of cows

painted in red with white horns, or painted

as brindled animal in red and white, fea-

tured by swollen udders. Calves are de-

picted facing their mother or pleasantly

suckling from the udder (Fig. 24-25). The

hind and rear legs of the cattle figures are

drawn by smooth lines, sometimes accord-

ing to arched segments, conferring a won-

Fig. 24-25 – Cattle

figures in Tamada

style were first draft

in thin drawn-lines

then coloured by

infilling shapes with

solid colours; this

technique is attested

by the few extraordi-

nary drafts of hu-

mans and animals

left unaccomplished,

visible on lower

right of the image


CRGB colour space).



derful plasticity to the animal silhouettes.

The Tamada artists painted their cattle fig-

ures by first producing a draft in thin

drawn-lines, then by filling shapes with

solid colours, as proven by the extraordi-

nary unfinished painting left in draft state

on panel B (Fig. 24-25).

Cattle figures are clearly important in the

Chéïré-1 compositions. However, the domi-

nant motifs are rows of aligned people.

Such rows in Tamada style were distin-

guished as a motif per se in the rock art in-

Fig. 26-27 – A row of

five warriors and

two smaller indi-

viduals, may be

boys are superim-

posed on a faint

human featured by a

pear shaped body

(silhouette evi-

denced by a white

dotted line drawn

on the digital im-

age). This figure is

typical of the Hohou

style, referred the

middle bovine pe-

riod (DStretch ver-

sion in CRGB colour

space).

19


ventories by Choppy et al. (1996-2003); with

the over twelve sites counting this motif in

the Archeï sub-region, none have more than

three rows. In Chéïré-1, eleven rows are

counted, making the site exceptional in the

entire Ennedi. Even more astonishing, these

rows seem orderly laid in relation to the

depicted cattle herds, forming a surpris-

ingly tidy composition (Fig. 22).

The only scene apparently out of order on

panel B is a miniature herd scene, facing to

the left, with the cattle keeper drawn in

miniature size (Fig. 24-25), located on the

middle-right of the panel.

All the humans portrayed in rows on panel

B are stylistically indistinguishable, irrele-

vant of the scene they belong to. In fact,

they may have been portrayed by the same

painter, a much skilled one. In fact, there

are just few isolated Tamada warriors in

Chéïré-1 displaying those genres of subtle

differences in body proportions which

could claim for a different artist’s hand.

On panels A, B and C, the men outnumber

the women by seventy-five to twenty-four

(i.e. 75%). Apparently, the portrayed society

was biased towards the masculine gender.

It is only the first scene of aligned people on

the upper left corner of panel B, composed

of six women associated to a single man, to

represent making this bias manifest (Fig. 10-

11). This row, prevalently composed of

women, is followed underneath by three

warriors, two wearing white shirts. To their

right, a fourth figure with open legs is visi-

ble on enhanced images as a draft, made of

very thin drawing lines only.

In the lower left corner of panel B, a grace-

ful family composed of five people is

shown (Fig. 17-18); the father and mother of

Fig. 28 – The third

man of the row, may

be a youngster by

stature, is shown in

the full attire and in

the same pose of the

fellow or accompa-

nying adult to his

left side.



the family are flanked by two girls and a

boy (considering height and thin proportion

as indication of young age) with a diminu-

tive hairstyle topped by two divergent

white feathers. In the background of this

family group, a homestead enclosing food

containers is schematically represented. The

father of the family overlaps a small cattle

figure with calves.

The first upper group scene of aligned peo-

ple, located between two fractures on the

middle of panel B, is constituted by five

Fig. 29-30 – A cluster

of three women as-

sociated to U-shaped

objects enclosing

dots, likely food

containers. These

women are superim-

posed by cattle and

may be a goat (to the

left) painted in

white. Left of the

women group, near

the lower edge of

the panel, two small

sitting figures are

shown; one is in

frontal view holding

an object resembling

a drum, the second

one is by profile, in

s i t t i n g p o s e


CRGB colour space,

white imported from

the YYE colour

space).

21


warriors and two shorter individuals of thin

constitution, possibly youngsters, these lat-

ter equipped with proportionately short

spears (Fig. 26-27). Digital enhancement of

this group scene reveals in the background

a faded human featured by a narrow chest,

oversized hips and thick legs. The pear-

shaped body of this figure is truly distinc-

tive of the humans painted in the Hohou

style. This figure is in very good match with

the well-preserved figures in the Hohou

style surveyed in the Archeï-7 site (see Ne-

gro et al. 1996; Choppy et al. 2002). These

apparently fat figures, hallmark of the Mid-

dle Bovine Period, express a totally differ-

ent aesthetic of the human body in compari-

son to the overlapping paintings of the Re-

cent Bovine Period. It is interesting to note

that a time lapse of roughly one and a half

millennium is postulated between the late

Neolithic and early Ion Age in the Ennedi

(Kedin et al. 2007), to which the Hohou and

Tamada styles can be respectively related.

Below the first row of aligned people, a sec-

ond row begins to the right with a woman

hand in hand with a boy, followed by six

warriors and one more boy armed with a

“toy” spear (Fig. 12-13). This row is pre-

ceded by a running dog, facing to the right,

evidently part of the group scene, since the

association between dog and aligned people

is a constant in Chéïré-1.

Along the lower border of the triangular

space bounded fractures at panel B centre-

left (Fig. 22), a small homestead depiction

with a sitting boy and a girl outside is fol-

lowed to the right by a row of four warriors

with a much shorter individual, possibly a

youngster, shown in the full warrior attire

(Fig. 28).

Fig. 31 – Aligned

cattle figures with

forward pointing

horns. This nice herd

of brindled cattle is

superimposed on

remains of red cattle

figures, evidence of

an older layer of

uncertain attribu-

tion.



Fig. 32 – Two kneeling women

grinding or preparing some food

are represented near a home-

stead enclosing food containers.

These containers evoke the large

pottery vessels still in use today

for food storage, placed within

the fences of the traditional

homesteads in the traditional

villages south of the Ennedi.

Fig. 33 – Panel C; paintings in the Tamada style form more rarefied compositions in respect of what is seen on

panel B, but superpositions internal to the style are anyway recognized.

23


In the lower-centre of panel B, within a

square flat space delimited by small relief

rock irregularities, six differently decorated

shields stacked in a column are depicted to

the left of six warriors (Fig. 8-9). In this case,

the relation between shields and warriors is

self-evident. On a lower register, a cluster of

three women is shown with open hands

and widened fingers (Fig. 29-30). To the left

of these three women, two “U” shaped ob-

jects enclosing large red dots, are shown.

Likely, these objects represent food contain-

Fig. 34-35 – Collared

running dogs fea-

tured by small

pointed ears, sharp

muzzles and curled

up tails (DStretch

version in CRGB

colour space).



ers. The women group overlaps a partially

preserved human featured by large hips,

testifying the presence of an older layer of

paintings (Fig. 29-30). A herd of cattle and

may be one goat figure painted in white, are

revealed by enhanced images in overlap-

ping relation with these figures.

The lower-centre of panel B hosts a row of

five slender warriors with very impressive

coiffures, depicted with fully open hands

regardless of the spears they are holding

(Fig. 16). These warriors clearly overlap a

fragmentary bovine figure preserved only

by the convoluted patches of its coat. These

five warriors are sided to the right by four

sequenced cattle figures, aligned on the

same imaginary base line (Fig. 31). The un-

common forward pointing horns and colour

scheme coats make this herd especially at-

tractive.

The lower left border of Panel B is deco-

rated by a group of four warriors, two girls

and two boys (Fig. 22). The first warrior to

the left is followed by two running dogs,

vertically stacked; the upper one is painted

in red and the lower one in pale orange.

The silhouettes of two kneeling figures and

one homestead provided with food contain-

ers are shown on the lower right corner of

panel A (Fig. 32). The best proportioned fig-

ure, wearing a long white drape on her legs,

is clearly a woman. Both figures are in the

act of preparing some food; kneeling

women working bent on ground stones are

also common motifs in other sites where

Tamada style paintings are found, counting

the best examples in the Gotobelé site

(Bailloud 1997).

Panel C

To the right of panels A and B, the surface

of the sandstone bed jutting out at the shel-

ter bottom, makes a ninety degree angle,

leaving place for the ensuing panel C (Fig. 4

and 33).

On the upper corner of Panel C, a small hu-

man wielding a stick with stubby arms is

shown as an isolated motif. Men brandish-

ing knobbed sticks in such posture are

iconic of the Hohou style (e.g.: Sivré-1,

Soboro-23, Hohou and Archeï-7 sites).

The two figures attributable to the Hohou

style identified in the shelter, constitute

very limited evidence for paintings refer-

able to the Middle Bovine Period. Consider-

ing the regional context, the scarcity of mid-

dle bovine paintings in Chéïré-1 could be an

original fact, not necessarily explained by

painting decay, as the much better pre-

served figures in Hohou style present in the

gigantic Tarkey-1 and Archeï -7 sites are

scattered throughout large surfaces, never

forming dense compositions such as the

ones typical of the more recent periods.

On the lower left of the panel, traces of un-

decipherable paintings are followed by a

faded warrior in Tamada style, superim-

posed on faint cattle figures. These weath-

ered figures are followed by three running

25


dogs and a row of six slender warriors (Fig.

33). Two of the dogs are collared (Fig. 34-

35). They are featured by short pointed

muzzles and ears, thin curled-up tails, re-

calling the modern African Basenji breed of

primitive dogs. A fourth faint dog, evi-

denced by digital enhancement to the right

of the fresh-looking ones, suggests that

older scenes in Tamada style might have

inspired the painter of the scene, still visible

in bright colours.

To the right of the warriors row preceded

by dogs, i.e. towards the shelter exterior,

warriors in Tamada style are painted as iso-

lated figures among red cows with white

horns. Homogeneity of hue and similarity

of details suggest that all these figures are

part of a single herd scene, with the warri-

ors possibly overseeing the cattle. Quite in-

terestingly, within the large gap opened

near the right upper border of the panel by

the natural peeling of the rock, enhance-

ment of digital images reveals a draft of a

bovine figure (Fig. 14-15).

A very noticeable scene, made visible by

digital processing at the outer border of the

panel, shows four “packed” cattle figures,

two enclosed within a fence, and two stand-

ing just outside (Fig. 33).

The lower wall at the shelter bottom

Below the sandstone bed hosting panels A,

B and C, a lesser compact sandstone is ex-

posed down to the shelter floor on a reced-

ing irregular surface, quite difficult to ac-

cess. Deeply weathered paintings form rare-

Fig. 36 – On the recessed surface below panel B, faint cow figures painted in white preserve traces of the original

drawn lines. The cow at the center is about 45 cm wide (DStretch version in LRE colour space).



fied compositions.

On the left sector of the lower wall, ten cat-

tle figures, distributed in three clusters, are

counted. Five poorly preserved humans of

different size and execution are distin-

guished. One of these, wearing a long

feather in his hair and holding a spear ter-

minating with a large spearhead, is charac-

teristic of the final stage of the Recent

Dromedary Period, described by Bailloud

Fig. 37-38 – Fighting

scene involving two

warriors; dynamic

postures are simply

exceptional in the

T a m a d a s t y l e


CRGB colour space).

27


(1997) without a formal name for the style.

On the right sector of the lower wall, red

cattle figures are followed by a badly pre-

served scene composed of an animal draft

and eight aligned humans, drawn in a

pretty schematic manner. The ornamented

quiver held by the eighth figure to the right

allows for an attribution of these sketchy

paintings to the Tamada style. This group is

followed to the right by a white cow, a war-

rior and the representation of a compart-

mentalized homestead inhabited by a

woman, a girl and a boy. The homestead is

followed to the right by a woman and a

warrior and a further woman painted in red

(Fig 36). Underneath these figures, three

partially preserved oversized white cow

figures are present. Their body proportions,

posture and especially well-evident draw-

ing lines are distinctive of the Tamada style.

Three more cattle figures, painted in the

conventional red and white colour scheme

Fig. 39 – Panel D; paintings from the ancient and recent dromedary periods are superimposed on paintings in the

Tamada style. (DStretch version in CRGB colour space).

Fig. 40-41 – A camel shown in flying gallop stands

out on the upper right of panel D. The camel tail over-

lap a warrior in the Tamada style with a quiver in the

left hand, painted as a miniature. From the muzzle to

the tail end the camel figure is 70 cm large (DStretch

version in CRGB colour space).



common to the main panels, adorn the last

portion of smooth surface available at the

extreme right of the lower shelter wall.

The western shelter wall

The first noticeable paintings found on the

western side-wall of the shelter, almost in

the outside, are two faded opposing hu-

mans shown amid cattle and humans

painted as miniatures (Fig. 37-38). Image

enhancement reveals a fighting scene; the

fighter to the right is driving his spear in

the thigh of his adversary. Both warriors are

equipped with rounded white shields; the

internal side of the left warrior’s shield is in

view, exposing the central grip or strap in-

dicated by a thin white trait. This dynamic

scene has no known analogy in the rock art

referable to the Tamada style. Certainly, the

diffusion of rounded shields, not much of

use in hunting or cattle herding, testifies the

real need of a defensive weapon in tribal

warfare.

Panel D

Proceeding more towards the shelter inte-

rior, on the surface of the sandstone bed

constituting panel D, a few cattle figures in

solid white and of uncertain attribution, are

followed by a mounted camel painted in

white and red (Fig. 39 and 40-41). The camel

is shown in flying gallop, adorned with a

two-pole saddle. Streamers are hanging

from the saddle front. The camel rider is

grasping the saddle front pommel with one

hand while holding a spear and a squared

white shield with the other hand. This

mounted camel is a good replica of the

many mounted camels in flying gallop per-

fectly preserved in Archeï-7 (Negro et al.

Fig. 42 – Caravan

scene; two mounted

camels are provided

with saddle blan-

kets, a third un-

mounted camel is

shown with the

reins tightly knotted

to the saddle front

pummel. The camel

to the left, from the

muzzle to the tail, is

18 cm large.

29


1996; Choppy et al. 2003). These mounted

camels are peculiar of the Gribi style and

represent the hallmark of the Ancient

Dromedary Period.

On the middle right of panel D, a caravan

scene, composed of two mounted camels

and a saddled un-mounted camel, stands

out (Fig. 42). A rectangular void shape, visi-

ble on the sides of the mounted camels, pos-

sibly represents a saddle blanket. The reins

of the mounted camels are held loose while

the reins of the un-mounted animal are

tightly tied to the front pummel of the sad-

dle. The elements of this well preserved

caravan scene perfectly match the Keymena

style paintings, marking the last stage of the

Ancient Dromedary Period.

A fourth, galloping mounted camel painted

Fig. 43-44 – Warrior hold-

ing a shield and a quiver.

This figure in Tamada style

is 35 cm tall (DStretch ver-

sion in CRGB colour

space).

Fig. 45-46 – Rider on horseback brandishing a stick or a sort of sword. This rider overlaps a bovine figure. To the

right a homestead plenty of food containers is shown (DStretch version in CRGB colour space).



in red is shown on the lower left of the cara-

van but is too deeply eroded to decipher

details. To the lower right of the caravan

scene, a mounted galloping camel survives

only for its sitting rider.

The ancient and recent dromedary periods

paintings decorating panel D, are superim-

posed on faded humans and cattle figures,

mostly attributable to the Tamada style.

Two faded warrior figures, comparable in

style and details to the figures adorning the

shelter bottom panels, are portrayed in the

space between the white mounted camel

and the caravan scene. The warrior to the

left, holding a spear, is preserved in the up-

per half of the body only (Fig. 39). The bet-

ter preserved one to the right wears a tunic

ornamented by a “V” shaped motif (Fig. 43-

44). He is shown holding a quiver and a

rounded shield decorated with a red cross

Fig. 47-48 – An exceptionally large cattle herd; the most detailed animals are featured by short spiral horns and

wattles hanging from the throat. Long tails prove this herd is made of cattle, not goats (DStretch version in CRGB

colour space).

Fig. 49 – Panel E; a mounted camel, quietly walking, is preceded to the right by two ostriches and a rider on horse-

back painted in red. The camel and the rider are superimposed on herding scenes in the typical Tamada style

(DStretch version in CRGB colour space).

31


on a white background.

Past the caravan scene to the right, the

panel is decorated by sparse small-sized

humans including warriors and women,

some tending cattle or depicted as isolated

figures as well as two schematic representa-

tions of inhabited homesteads. These fig-

ures in Tamada style are superimposed by

riders on horseback; two are painted in

white and one is lightly scratched. The

painted two, apparently opposed in a fight,

are brandishing a fighting stick or a sort of

basic throwing knife (Fig. 39 and 45-46).

Just above the first section of panel A, on

the lower surface of a sandstone bed, a flock

of eighteen cattle figures is shown (Fig. 39

and 45-46). Five of them are characterized

by brindled coats. The most detailed ones

are featured by short spiral horns and wat-

tles hanging from the throat of their long

necks. The long tails prove that these ani-

mals are cattle and cannot be confused

Fig. 52 – Photo-mosaic of the barrier boulder (upper) sides exposed toward the shelter exterior. Riders on horse-

back brandishing maces or knives are superimposed on giraffes, which are in their turn superimposed on cattle

figures (DStretch version in CRGB colour space).

Fig. 50-51 – A pair of ostriches running with the beaks open are superimposed on a homestead and on a warrior

armed with a spear (DStretch version in CRGB colour space).



with goats. In the upper part of the over-

hang more affected by weathering, just

above these large herd, digital processing

revives some faded figures which include

two cows, a running dog and a standing

warrior armed with a spear. The sketchy

style of this warrior allows for an attribu-

tion to the Late Dromedary Period.

Towards the shelter interior, on the lower

bedding surface bounding panel D, an iso-

lated scene composed of six aligned warri-

ors is shown (Fig. 6-7).

Panel E

Panel D terminates with a crest, leaving

space toward the shelter interior to panel E

(Fig. 49). Five men with spears amid a cattle

herd, executed as a miniature scene by few

brush strokes, are the first noticeable paint-

ings beyond the crest. This scene is fol-

lowed to the right by a very rough large hu-

man with a round head, painted in solid

red, appearing quite naïf and fresh.

On the upper middle border of panel E, a

mounted white camel is depicted in a qui-

etly walking gait, facing to the right. Two

bicolored ostrich figures, running with

open beaks, are shown ahead of the camel.

The advancing leg of the leading ostrich is

superimposed on a homestead inhabited by

a woman while the receding leg is superim-

posed on a warrior armed with a spear (Fig.

50-51).

Along the sloping median line of the head-

bed constituting panel E, three cattle herd

scenes are shown. The first one includes

women and warriors, the second one a girl,

the last one a running dog and a present

warrior (Fig. 49).

The last decipherable figure, recognizable

on the upper right of panel E, is a rider on

horseback partially overlapping a faded

cow.

The barrier boulder

The shelter bottom is partially obstructed

by a huge squared boulder forming a sort of

protective barrier (Fig. 2). Its steep faces ex-

posed towards the outside are covered by

faded paintings (Fig. 52). Near the boulder

apex, enhanced digital images reveal two

men sided by a dog and three cattle figures

in Tamada style. Two giraffes are shown

below these paintings. The speckled coat of

the fragmentary one to the left is schema-

tized by cross lines. The second one is very

different in style; it was evidently painted

in solid red with a sort of gross paintbrush,

leaving evident traces of the strokes. This

second giraffe overlaps a faint bovine figure

and is superimposed by a rider on horse-

back, painted in the linear style typical of

the terminal phase of the Recent Drome-

dary Period. Two other similar riders on

horseback, holding the reins with one hand

and brandishing a short weapon with the

other, follow more to the right, along with a

camel. On the lower half of the boulder, a

horse and a fragmentary human are distin-

guished amid undecipherable large red

33

patches. Undecipherable red daubs of ochre

are also noted on the side of the boulder

facing west.

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Acknowledgments

The visit of the Chéïré-I painted shelter was a

dream made true thanks to a team of Saharan

travellers composed by Paolo Carmignoto,

Carlo Freddi, Ettore Grugni, Pascale Hegy and

Michele Soffiantini.

Christian Dupuy and Jean-Loïc Le Quellec are

thankfully acknowledged for their helpful com-

ments on an earlier version of this paper, sub-

mitted to a public web session opened on the

site www.academia.edu during the 20 of March

– 20 of April 2015 period.

the chéïré-1 painted shelter (ennedi, chad)

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