Ancient Keyhole Tombs in Central Sahara

Since we have Google Earth a lot of formerly unknown prehistoric monuments have been found all over the world.

The Sahara desert is full of such artifacts of different shapes.

Throughout the whole of the Tassili N'Ajjer, down to the Hoggar Mountains, there are elaborately constructed stone monuments, whose shape resembles keyholes. Therefore they are called "Monuments en trou de serrure" or "Keyhole monuments". According to current knowledge, these keyholes are probably the oldest of the known Sahara monuments. Dating has shown an age of up to 7,000 years. However, their function remains unclear somtimes. Some of them were clearly graves, others had no evidence of funerals.

See more pictures of ancient Keyhole Monuments in the Sahara Desert, here on my website >

Collection on Google my maps here >

Placemarks:

Keyhole 0001-1000.kmz (69.25 KB)

Keyhole 1001-2000.kmz (77.12 KB)

Keyhole 2001-3000.kmz (73.28 KB)

Keyhole 3001-.kmz (6.93 KB)

Agree, the_world_is_remarkable*! (;

So as these ancient monuments in the Sahara.

Thanks for very nice example screenies and great database of this type here!

Welcome around!

G

*also I have englishized your nick as 'remarkmarble' and 'worlderful'... ( :

Nov 21, 2020 23:18:58 GMT syzygy said:

Agree, the_world_is_remarkable*! (;

*also I have englishized your nick as 'remarkmarble' and 'worlderful'... ( :

Good morning syzygy,

thank you for liking my post.

I had seen yours before and thougt, why not share all the related placemarks, I collected within the past fifteen years.

As next I would post Goulets and Antennas, and later Desert Kites in Jordania and Saudi Arabia.

Maybe somebody else, except of us, is interested in it.

How you've been able to englishize my nickname, which normally not even gemans understand realy?

I guess you are German or at least bi-lingual.

If I had to decide, I would prefer: 'remarkmarble'.

Thank you for englishizing and have a nice sunday.

( Time to visit my archaeological website > )

Nov 22, 2020 10:11:49 GMT bemerkenswelt said:

..., why not share all the related placemarks, I collected within the past fifteen years...

-15 years? -why not? -just the same by me with my mounds!

Only, that I do not have such cool homepage as you do! - Really: congrats for the site and many thanks for sharing all you have explored through the years!

I know some Africa experts with 30.000+ markers of pre-islam, (proto-berber?) monuments, but with not much care of representation. I think was a big work for you making such amount of screenshots, but that is what gives the advantage of your database.

I have noticed low-resolution stripes on GE with no markers on them. When I bump into such low-res areas I do not stop the search for further pieces, only I start ZoomEarth (and/or Bing, and/or ArcGIS) with alternative satellite imagery so as I can continue mapping (giving hi-res ZE-links in low-res GE-placemarks' descriptions).- This way you might find placemarks by me, those are new to your collections - Please feel free to include them into your dataset!
(citation: syzygy@GEC 2020)

All for the types you will find placemarks (sorry, nomenclature would need a major update), and even for more...
What do you know (think) for example about the ones, I dub 'rondelloids'? (purple-star placemarks in my collections) As my latest knowledge these are not studied before, also research is anchored by now because of the unfavorable political situation of the area. (?)
...

Nov 22, 2020 10:11:49 GMT bemerkenswelt said:

...How you've been able to englishize my nickname, which normally not even gemans understand realy? I guess you are German or at least bi-lingual.

Nope - only, that I am hungarian ( : also I like (word)-jokes very much and frequently I do "nick-analytics" by new-members. I have known the word "Welt" (I have seen it on German made maps), and typing "bemerkensw.." into GTranslator, it offers the phrase "bemerkenswert" I did not know before, but it was easy then...

In high-school (some 25 years ago) I had 4 unpleasant years of having German-language lessons 2 times a week, but I have "resisted"... sorry, since I have never could forgive your language that evil "Der, Die, Das"! ..((( :

***

2 more Africa related (non-archaeological) placemark collections of mine from around the board:

Desert mosques by Emedi - Immidir Plateau, Algeria

Aviation landmarks in the Sahara


See You!

G