'The Greatest Museum of Prehistoric Art in the
whole World'. Such was the description Henri
Lhote gave to the rock paintings of the Tassili-n-
Ajjer , the massif (a designated World Heritage Site)
that lies to the northeast of Ahaggar in the Algerian
Central Sahara. His expedition spent 16
months in the Tassili in 1956-7 making 'discovery
after discovery' and copying 'hundreds upon
hundreds of painted walls'.
Lhote's work is now recognized for its denigration
of almost all and sundry. He likened the
local people, the Tuareg, who made many of his
'discoveries', to wolves and living by the laws of
the jungle. Significantly, he made no reference
in his 'discovery claims' to Yolande Tschudi, the
Swiss ethnologist, whose work preceded his own.
Worse still, he undertook what might be regarded
today as the systematic vandalism of the sites,
not only by liberally washing the paintings to
restore their colour, but by collecting and removing
copious quantities of material artefacts from
the area.
Interpretación del Arte Rupestre Centro-Sahariano: una aproximación al estilo de Cabezas Redondas = Interpretation of Central Sahara Rock Art: an approach to The Round Head style