OPEN KITES IN THE SAHARA

 
   
Across the Sahara you find kite-like game traps that look the same and even resemble those in the Sinai and the Negev. Was there a cultural connection?

Nothing was known of kites in the Sahara until August 2018, when a team of Italian archaeologists documented some in the Libyan Northern Sahara: See Publication. Inspired by this to search, I also found the remains of old game traps in the centre of the Sahara in August 2019 while flying over Algeria. After that, more and more finds followed and today my collection stretches from Libya down to Mauritania and into the north-east of Mali.

Bild "SAHARA:antiquity-120px.jpg" The world's first scientific study of kites and kite-like game traps in the Central and Western Sahara has now been published in the renowned Antiquity Journal by Cambridge Press.

This work by a group of French archaeologists around the known kite researcher Olivier Barge was done in cooperation with archaeology.bemerkenswelt.de and is based on my finds from the last three years.


Goto Photo Galleries:

KITES IN LIBYA
KITES IN CENTRAL SAHARA

KITES IN WESTERN SAHARA
KITES IN MALI


Bild "SAHARA:Desert-Kites_Sahara-Saudi_Arabien_02.jpg"
These kites in Algeria and Saudi Arabia are 4,000 kilometres apart and yet look very similar. Pure coincidence, or was there a connection?

 
   
The kites found so far in the Sahara differ from the  desert kites of the Middle East in that they lack the central collecting enclosure. Relatively short guide fences lead here in a funnel shape directly to one or more small catch boxes. See in Google Maps >


Download placemarks of about 1.350 Sahara kites >




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