Nil-Sahara

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dog; later a big dog, pecked over the surface and not carefully done, was added to
strengthen the agressiveness of the scene. In scene nO 3, carefully and deeply incised, the
antelope (40 cm) was later damaged in the process of pecking its head. Scene nO 4 is a poor
drawing, roughly pecked in outline ; the horns have been redrawn. Composition nO 5 (40 cm)
engraved on an obl ique rock in the bed of the wadi, shows three motionless antelopes,
incised. One of them with two transversal lines on its coat is being attacked from the side
by a dog thinly incised ; two others of poor style are a later addition. Let us finish with
the fine antelope nO 6 (25 cm), brought to a standstill by three dogs executed by the same
technique.
No pictures of antelope have been recorded upstream from Geddi.
One may well wonder why in a society where hunting was well developed technically and
important culturally, these dogs pursuing the giraffe and the antelope, the most highly
prized big game since Neolithic times, were not depicted (with the rare exception)
accompanied by hunters. Oogs on the leash appear on their decorated artefacts and on early
rock art.
Engravings of antelopes and gazelles were made in the Sudan until the Horse and Camel
Periods. In Chad, before the greatly increased motor traffic caused by the recent conflict,
the antelope oryx, a heavy and rather slow animal, lived in the southern sahel where it was
hunted by horsemen ; and every time a Tubu woman travelled alone, she had with her for her
safety an oryx horn hanging from her wrist. The addax moved northward as far as the Tadrart
where 1 found one of their horns. As to the gazelles, always on their guard and quick to
escape, they still break the solitude of the most arid areas by their long flying leaps,
furtive and surprising.