Mr. Moggridge (in Jour. Anthrop. Inst. Gr. Br. and I., VIII, p. 65) observes that one of the designs, q, reported by Dr. Von Haast from New Zealand (see Fig. [133]), was the same as one which had been seen on rocks 6,900 feet above the sea in the northwest corner of Italy. He adds:
The inscriptions are not in colors, as are those given in Dr. Von Haast’s paper, but are made by the repeated dots of a sharp pointed instrument. It is probable that if we knew how to read them they might convey important information, since the same signs occur in different combinations, just as the letters of our alphabet recur in different combinations to form words. Without the whole of these figures we can not say whether the same probability applies to them.
SECTION 4.
AFRICA.
The following examples are selected from the large number of petroglyphs known to have been discovered in Africa apart from those in Egypt, which are more immediately connected with the first use of syllabaries and alphabets, with symbolism and with gesture signs, under which headings some examples of the Egyptian hieroglyphics appear in this work.
ALGERIA.
In the Revue Géographique Internationale (a) is a communication upon the rock inscriptions at Tyout (Fig. 140) and Moghar (Fig. 141) translated, with some condensation, as follows:
Fig. 140.—Petroglyphs at Tyout, Algeria.
On the last military expedition made in the Sahara Gen. Colonieu made a careful restoration of the inscriptions on the rocks, whose existence was discovered at Tyout and Moghar. At Tyout these inscriptions are engraved on red or Vosgian sandstone, and at Moghar on a hard compact calcareous stone. At Moghar the designs are more complicated than those at Tyout. An attempt has been made to render ideas by more learned processes; to the simplicity of the line, the artlessness of the poses which are seen at Tyout, there are added at Moghar academic attitudes difficult to render, and which must be intended to represent some custom or ceremony in use among the peoples who then inhabited this country. The costume at Moghar is also more complicated. The ornaments of the head recall those of Indians, and the woman’s dress is composed of a waist and a short skirt fastened by a girdle with flowing ends. All this is very decent and elegant for the period. The infant at the side is swaddled. The large crouching figure is the face view of a man who seems to be bearing his wife on his shoulders. At the right of this group is a giraffe or large antelope. In the composition above may be distinguished a solitary individual in a crouching attitude, seen in front, the arms crossed in the attitude of prayer or astonishment. The animals which figure in the designs at Moghar are cattle and partridges. The little quadruped seated on its haunches may be a gerboise (kind of rat), very common in these parts.
In the inscriptions at Tyout we easily recognize the elephant, long since extinct in these regions, but neither horse nor camel is seen, probably not having been yet imported into the Sahara country.