Henri Lhote
Encyclopedia
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
author, explorer, ethnographer
Ethnography
Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...
, and "expert on prehistoric cave art" who described and is credited for the discovery of "important cave painting
Cave painting
Cave paintings are paintings on cave walls and ceilings, and the term is used especially for those dating to prehistoric times. The earliest European cave paintings date to the Aurignacian, some 32,000 years ago. The purpose of the paleolithic cave paintings is not known...
s" in an "assembly of 800 or more magnificent works of primitive art...in a virtually inaccessible region on the edge of the Sahara desert" Lhote was an early ancient astronaut theorist and considered the prehistoric art as evidence of paleocontact.
Tassili n'Ajjer
In 1933, a French soldier remembered as "Lieutenant Brenans" ventured into a deep wadiWadi
Wadi is the Arabic term traditionally referring to a valley. In some cases, it may refer to a dry riverbed that contains water only during times of heavy rain or simply an intermittent stream.-Variant names:...
in the Tassili-n-ajjer
Tassili n'Ajjer
Tassili n'Ajjer is a mountain range in the Algerian section of the Sahara Desert. It is a vast plateau in south-east Algeria at the borders of Libya, Niger and Mali, covering an area of 72,000 sq...
plateau
Plateau
In geology and earth science, a plateau , also called a high plain or tableland, is an area of highland, usually consisting of relatively flat terrain. A highly eroded plateau is called a dissected plateau...
in the southeast Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
. Although by the 20th century Tassili-n-ajjer was barren and devoid of large animals, there, upon the sandstone
Sandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
cliffs, he saw rock paintings and engravings of elephants, giraffes, rhinoceroses. He also saw images of strange human figures.
Lhote, a pupil of "the great expert on prehistoric cave art in France" Abbe Breuil, was in Algeria at the time and heard about the discovery. He met the soldier at Djanet
Djanet
Djanet is an oasis city in southeast Algeria. It is located in Illizi Province, 412 kilometers from Illizi. It is inhabited by the Kel Ajjer Tuareg people. It is the capital of Djanet District.-Transport:...
, learned all he could, then and mounted an expedition to investigate it. Lhote later wrote that he had never seen anything "so extraordinary, so original, so beautiful" as the art at Tassili n'Ajjer. Working with the support of the Musée de l'Homme
Musée de l'Homme
The Musée de l'Homme was created in 1937 by Paul Rivet for the 1937 Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne. It is the descendant of the Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro, founded in 1878...
, Lhote and his associates discovered about 800 paintings, many of which he later made images of with the aid of painters and photographers.
These images were presented in 1957 and 1958 at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and were, in the opinion of André Malraux
André Malraux
André Malraux DSO was a French adventurer, award-winning author, and statesman. Having traveled extensively in Indochina and China, Malraux was noted especially for his novel entitled La Condition Humaine , which won the Prix Goncourt...
. "one of the most defining exhibitions of the mid-century".
Ancient Astronauts
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
in 1958 and in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in 1959), Lhote called one particularly large and "curious figure" as "Jabbaren" and described him as the "great Martian
Martian
As an adjective, the term martian is used to describe anything pertaining to the planet Mars.However, a Martian is more usually a hypothetical or fictional native inhabitant of the planet Mars. Historically, life on Mars has often been hypothesized, although there is currently no solid evidence of...
god
Deity
A deity is a recognized preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by believers....
."
The popular press gave much attention to Lhote's hypothesis
Hypothesis
A hypothesis is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. The term derives from the Greek, ὑποτιθέναι – hypotithenai meaning "to put under" or "to suppose". For a hypothesis to be put forward as a scientific hypothesis, the scientific method requires that one can test it...
of a prehistoric close encounter
Close encounter
In ufology, a close encounter is an event in which a person witnesses an unidentified flying object. This terminology and the system of classification behind it was started by astronomer and UFO researcher J. Allen Hynek, and was first suggested in his 1972 book The UFO Experience: A Scientific...
and it was later incorporated into the '"sensationalist claims" made by Erich von Däniken
Erich von Däniken
Erich Anton Paul von Däniken is a Swiss author best known for his controversial claims about extraterrestrial influences on early human culture, in books such as Chariots of the Gods?, published in 1968...
that ancient extraterrestrial astronaut
Astronaut
An astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft....
s visited prehistoric Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
.
According to the Encyclopædia Britannica
Encyclopædia Britannica
The Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert...
a "vivid dance scene" that Lhote discovered in 1956 can be attributed on stylistic grounds to Neolithic hunters that lived in the Sahara circa 6000 to 4000 BCE. Mainstream scientists regard the "great Martian god" and other rock art figures that are similar to it as representations of ordinary humans in ritual
Ritual
A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value. It may be prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. The term usually excludes actions which are arbitrarily chosen by the performers....
mask
Mask
A mask is an article normally worn on the face, typically for protection, disguise, performance or entertainment. Masks have been used since antiquity for both ceremonial and practical purposes...
s and costume
Costume
The term costume can refer to wardrobe and dress in general, or to the distinctive style of dress of a particular people, class, or period. Costume may also refer to the artistic arrangement of accessories in a picture, statue, poem, or play, appropriate to the time, place, or other circumstances...
s rather than the representations of extraterrestrial lifeforms.
The value of Lhote's scholarship was also challenged by The Journal of North African Studies, an academic journal
Academic journal
An academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation for scrutiny of new research, and the critique of existing research...
affiliated with the University of East Anglia
University of East Anglia
The University of East Anglia is a public research university based in Norwich, United Kingdom. It was established in 1963, and is a founder-member of the 1994 Group of research-intensive universities.-History:...
:
Following a highly publicised expedition in the 1950s, the Tassili-n-Ajjer mountains of the Central Sahara (Algeria) were presented to the world as 'the greatest museumMuseumA museum is an institution that cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities...
of prehistoric art in the whole world'. Many of the claims of the expedition's leader, Henri Lhote, were misleading, a number of the paintings were faked, and the copying process was fraught with errors. The 'discovery' can only be understood within the political and cultural context of the time, namely the Algerian Revolution, France's attempt to partitionPartition (politics)In politics, a partition is a change of political borders cutting through at least one territory considered a homeland by some community. That change is done primarily by diplomatic means, and use of military force is negligible....
AlgeriaAlgeriaAlgeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
, and the prevailing views of the Abbé Breuil, the arch-advocate of foreign influence in AfricaAfricaAfrica is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
n rock art. The expedition's methods caused extensive damage to the rock art while the accompanying looting of cultural objects effectively sterilized the archaeological landscape. Any restitution process must necessarily include a full recognition of what was done and the inappropriateness of the values.
Namesakes
The "Ouan Lhote Area" and the "Henri Lhote Arch" in Tassili National ParkTassili n'Ajjer
Tassili n'Ajjer is a mountain range in the Algerian section of the Sahara Desert. It is a vast plateau in south-east Algeria at the borders of Libya, Niger and Mali, covering an area of 72,000 sq...
are named after him.
Selected publications
- Aux prises avec le Sahara, (Les œuvres françaises, Paris, 1936).
- Le Sahara, désert mystérieux, (Editions Bourrelier, Paris, 1937; 1949).
- L'extraordinaire aventure des Peuls. Présence Africaine. Paris. Oct.-Nov. 1959. pp. 48–57
- Les Touaregs du Hoggar, (Payot, Paris, 1944; 1955; A. Colon, Paris, 1984).
- Le Niger en kayak, (Editions J. Susse, Paris, 1946).
- Dans les campements touaregs, (Les œuvres françaises, Paris, 1947).
- La chasse chez les Touaregs, (Amiot-Dumont, Paris, 1951).
- A la découverte des fresques du Tassili, (Arthaud, Paris, 1958, 1973, 1992, 2006).
- L'épopée du Ténéré, (Gallimard, Paris, 1961).
- Les gravures rupestres du Sud-oranais, (Arts et Métiers graphiques, Paris, 1970).
- Les gravures rupestres de l'Oued Djerat, (SNED, Algiers, 1976).
- Vers d'autres Tassilis, (Arthaud, Paris, 1976).
- Chameau et dromadaire en Afrique du Nord et au Sahara. Recherche sur leurs origines, (ONAPSA, Alger, 1987).
- Le Sahara, (Grandvaux, 2003).
External links
In FrenchFrench language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
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