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Mauritania is a dry, dusty place in the Sahara Desert. It is an Islamic Republic controlled by Moorish tribes. It struggles with many of the ills that plague Africa; poverty, corruption, frequent droughts, and more. It was not always this way. Once there were grasslands, giraffes, lions, ostriches, and myriads of other animals now long gone. It was once controlled by other tribes from other people groups with other customs and other struggles. There are few remnants of that time. There are some pools in the middle of the desert with small populations of crocodiles. In these canyons, there are sometimes monkeys. And sometimes paintings or carvings from a time and people erased by the desert and by history. A few of them are presented here. I intend to add to them as I'm able.
These (right) are located in the Adrar region NW of Atar. Discovered by Theodore Monod.
These are also located in the Adrar region in the town of Oudane. They are thought to be giraffes (left) and a cow. When tourists began to show interest in these carvings, local people tried to make them more visible by "freshening up" the carving. Thus the bright carvings on the right side of the larger picture.
While not technichally man made, these images of either mineral patterns or plant-life adorn a number of rocks in a very parched area of the Adrar and speak of a time when water was much more abundant.