Emedi's grave?

[syzygy]

Now here is this one I just cannot put right... mound with stone ring, then all the other dots and lines, the P P P on top...?!



ZoomEarth link


PPP - Algeria.kmz (893 B)

As my guess it's (at least partially) made by (or completely tribute to(?)) the same lonely touareg, who made these fascinating desert mosques, but really have no clue, what is this supposed to be?

I can imagine that this is a burial mound of a highly respected person (of Emedi, the lonely touareg himself?(!)) and some complex, religious symbol. As the shape of a prayers-carpet and probably the dots and lines are only styling patterns, but the 3 "p"-s and the "gate"-shape under the central "p" are obviously not.

Also the shapeless extension of the dotted pattern I don't dare to explain so far... 

Any ideas would be fine!

Thanks!

G

[chriss]

I would say it could be another tamesguada mosque of Emedi, though it looks a bit looser than his constructions.
When you look at the alignment the mihrab (altar niche) points ESE, vaguely to Mecca.
These desert mosques are of course Islamic, not to be confused with pre-Islamic tombs (crescents, keyholes, etc).
Sometimes they can just be a line of stones made in a few minutes.

By the way you will find many more tombs in this area than marked on your 3367 kmz (I don't know if this is the latest and most complete.)

The work never ends!

[syzygy]

Jun 28, 2021 16:25:33 GMT chriss said:

... 
These desert mosques are of course Islamic, not to be confused with pre-Islamic tombs (crescents, keyholes, etc).
Sometimes they can just be a line of stones made in a few minutes.

By the way you will find many more tombs in this area than marked on your 3367 kmz (I don't know if this is the latest and most complete.)

The work never ends!

No way mine is the most complete list! I know about more 30-40.000'ers with much more organized kmz structures.

Even in my main - Eurasian burial mounds collections with 27.852 marks I add in descriptions that I am not to sign each individual object, but sites - e. g. : one marker for a burial field with hundreds of kurgans.

It is slightly different by Africa as here only I "sweep" to find lesser known structures (just think of the aviation marks, Emedi's mosques or the 'rondels') while also giving a palette for different kinds of old, built structures of the Sahara.

In my 'mosques' kmz collection I have left a line item, pointing to Mecca, approving Emedi did well orientation!

Well, yep - strange the loose style from Emedi... 

Probably it is a tribute to him, built by others? What are the "P"s could be?... Search for the answers never ends and the number of questions just keep increasing! ( ;


Thanks for comments and great site photo!

Edit:
The 'gate' under the central 'p' 'opens to Mecca'...

Had he such numerous acquintances who could have filled that quite a spacious (30X70 meters) desert mosque at his funeral? (it was around 2005 as far as I know) What if each stone 'dot' represents one participian from the burial ceremony? - Just now I have thought, while know nothing about local burial traditions, so please forgive me if the theory is 'a priori' mistaken! 

[tafrawti]

It definitelty has a Mihrab niche so possibly started off as a small prayer mosque and then maybe had additional space added later. 
I'm not sure what the "P" shapes are though. 

The Eid congregation prayers are often performed outdoors even if a large mosque is available, it's possible that the nomads were in this area around Eid, or there was some large gathering like a wedding nearby and an existing smaller mosque ground was enlarged. 


edit: the reason for Eid prayers being performed outdoors is due to huge number of people that turn up making fitting them all in an indoor mosque impractical - of course, if there is no mosque building at all it will be outdoors anyways!
I was thinking that Eid prayers tend to be large gathering events with almost 100% attendance of the local population.