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The Sahara Dessert

Expedition Sahara

Thousands of Deaths

Rock carvings and fossils

Maaike Kallenborn in Algeria
Rock carvings and fossils
In Taghit, Algeria, we find rock sculptures of elephants, deer, lions and oxen. Carvings tell the unbelievable story of the green hills and the beautiful clear waters that once existed. The first proof that the Sahara has once been a Garden of Eden.

Maaike pictured an antelope with a calf and recognizes different styles, like the artists joined different courses. There are sculptures made out of two or three lines who perfectly pictures the animal and even his character. Others are more squares or just a sketch. She wanders around looking for a text, a name, a map or something similar. The people who once lived along the borders of the Sahara Sea were well educated. Conform the Greek historian Herodotus they built ships, navigated the world and wrote books!

This prehistoric proves that wildlife and mankind once inhabited the Sahara dessert. Animals migrated through the savannas and the woods. Eating grass or each other. All gone and turned into sand. What kind of disaster has happened?

Maaike finds a point of an arrow, a fossil of a fish and some shelves. Carefully we examine the subjects. Our imagination pictures hunters sharpening their knives and women polishing the arrow points made out a special kind of stone: feather light and incredible strong. We vision a village where children prepare dinner and take care for the youngest. Finally the hunters leave to catch a deer, an ox or a wild boar.

People say that once – a long time ago - seafarers landed in Maroc and traveled through the Atlas Mountains to build their boats on the sandy beaches of the Sahara Sea. On their way to Egypt they paused at Taghit, the Hoggar Mountains and many more places.

 

Leaving the rock carvings we examined the plains, all covered by layers of salt. No one ever examined whether this salt has the same chemical structure like the salt we find in our oceans. We feel that we are getting closer and closer to answer the question whether the Sahara Sea once existed the moment we find hundreds of square kilometers of shelves and fish bones. All carefully hidden in many layers of pebble stones. To be more precise: billions of shells and fish bones buried in 10- to 20-meters of pebbles.

Crossing the Dessert
Next: The Secret Stone

Transport

Around Lake Chad


A unique 22 year-old Mercedes Unimog with a 4-stroke diesel engine became the beating heart of the Sahara expedition. It is more an agricultural vehicle than a smart-ass off the road type. A truck fined by the interstate police because of its limitation of speed: 35 miles an hour. In the desert however the vehicle with eight shifts in the normal gear and eight in the 4x4 high- as well in the low gear, proved to be an excellent survivor. With three kilometers an hour and full-pulling traction upon all wheels, the truck fought it’s way through the dunes, the mud and the mountains. The Unimog is equipped with hydraulic front and back steering wheels, which makes it possible to turn on the spot. It includes a special-made radiator and oil-cleaned air filters in the intake. Quite nice and to be honest it was all what we could afford for 7.500 US dollars! The truck, in which we slept, carried spare parts, food, kitchen utilities, safety equipment like flares, GPS, binoculars, clothing and the digital equipment like satellite transmission, camera's, and computers. Furthermore in a trailer we carried a Yamaha 4-stroke cross motor. Not directly a Paris-Dakar machine, but it came close in all features. Also in the trailer we carried 500 liters of gasoline, 50 liters of petrol, 350 liters of water, axes, safari stuff and even a dinghy with a 25 hp Yamaha outboard engine!



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