Laas Geel Rock Art Complex
Laas Geel · Laas Gaal · Las Geel · Holy Rock Art
Early to Mid Holocene (7000–3000 BCE)·Early Pastoral Neolithic of the Horn (pre-Cushitic pastoralists)·🇸🇴 Somaliland, Maroodi Jeex (Woqooyi Galbeed), Somalia
About
About Laas Geel Rock Art Complex
Granite shelters 55 km northeast of Hargeisa preserving perhaps the Horn of Africa's best-preserved Holocene pictographs. Twenty shelters on a desert inselberg display vivid polychrome cattle with lyre horns and plaited ceremonial robes, humpless longhorns with decorative neck plastrons, canids and humans in white, yellow and red, dated to c.7000–3000 BCE (pastoral Neolithic). The cattle are fully domesticated African Bos taurus with udders and herders, among earliest evidence for cattle pastoralism in the Horn. Shelters 1 and 7 show a 10-m procession of decorated cows accompanied by herders praying with raised arms, under natural granite overhangs still used as rain shelters by herders.
Why it mattersEarliest dated cattle pastoralist art in Horn of Africa; key for African cattle domestication and dispersal debates.
Open questions
Mysteries & theories
Mysteries
- 01Whether plaited robes depict real textile or body paint
- 02Why humpless longhorns without hump dominate versus later zebu
Theories
- 01Rain shrine for pastoralists at reliable inselberg waterholes
- 02Clan cattle-brand gallery marking herd ownership
Theories are interpretations, not findings. The seal above tells you how much scholarly weight the place carries.
History
How it came to be
- Built
- c.7000–3000 BCE (Pastoral Neolithic peak c.5000 BCE)
- Period
- Early to Mid Holocene (7000–3000 BCE)
- Culture
- Early Pastoral Neolithic of the Horn (pre-Cushitic pastoralists)
- Builders
- Early cattle-herding communities of the Horn
- Purpose
- Rock-shelter aggregation art marking watered inselberg pasture and cattle-blessing ritual
- Abandoned
- c.3000 BCE with aridification; revered as awliyo shrine continues
- Rediscovered
- 2002 French archaeologist X. Gutherz; 2003 Sada Mire detailed recording
- Excavation
- Partially excavated
7000–5000 BCE
earliest cattle polychromes with plastrons
2002
Gutherz discovers shelters; Mire begins conservation
2007
Digital preservation by UCL; site fenced
On the ground
Structures & features
9.7800° N · 44.4450° E · 950 m · 3 mapped features
Shelter 7 Great Cow Procession
panel10-m polychrome cattle frieze with plastrons and herders
9.7805° N · 44.4455° EShelter 3 Dog-Human Panel
panelWhite humans praying beside canids over red cattle
9.7795° N · 44.4445° EInselberg Summit Cairns
summitStone platforms above shelters with pottery scatters
9.7810° N · 44.4460° E