578

Site
Site name
RA01/50
Toponym(s) of the site

Ti-n-Abrukin

Description

A rock shelter along the left bank of the Wadi Atkarni, a left branch of Wadi Teshuinat located around the middle of its course. The site, known since the 1960s as Ti-n-Abrukin, has been partially reproduced on two canvases in the Mori Collection. The site shows a rich palimp- sest of paintings and petroglyphs grouped into thirteen panels cov- ering the shelter’s rear wall. The artworks date to almost all known chronological periods with the exception of the Wild Fauna. The highest number of subjects date to the last three millennia and include the final phases of the Pastoral, the Horse/Bitriangular, and Camel styles. Some recent paintings representing Tuareg subjects are also visible. The paintings are extremely damaged by natural processes and an- thropogenic actions such as repetitive wettings and graphite tracing employed by Mori’s painters to simplify reproduction. On the left side of the wall the most prominent scene is a giraffe hunting scene in the Horse/Bitriangular style with a white bitriangular human with red skirt and shoes running above a red chariot and following a white giraffe. Two additional small red chariots were roughly painted on two panels located on the left (Panel 1) and right (Panel 12) end sides. On the lower left portion of the wall several panels con- tain late motifs of a caravan with camels and possibly shrubs and trees (Panels 2, 6). At the top of the right wall there is a highly faded scene with at least three red Round Heads humans (Panel 11). These motifs have been reproduced in a synoptic canvas of Round Heads subjects together with motifs from Ghrub I (Site ID 580) and Ghrub II (Site ID 592). On the lower portion of the wall there are other panels with bitri- angular humans and Camel scenes with stylized humans and camels (Panels 10 and 12).