"The local rock here erodes into the long slabs used to construct the monument, so this is a good example of available materials influencing design and structure. The basic design - a basket (or corbeille) type structure with the perimeter stones angled outwards, is common throughout the Sahara, although usually these monuments are much smaller. A string of these monuments, situated on a ridge, overlooks an old lake bed, which sometimes contains some water (see adjacent photo). Many of the slabs seem to have been exracted from bedrock exposed where a wadi transits from the ridge where the monuments are situated, to the lower elevation basin that contained the ancient lake.
Monument building suggests increased territoriality, and this makes sense if the people who built these structure wanted to demonstrate their association with, and rights to (even ownership of), the water resources in this locality. Monument building in the Sahara started as the region was becoming more arid, and was roughly contemporaneous with the megalithic period in Europe. There is abundant evidence from the arid belt of the northern hemisphere that there territoriality, organised conflict, and monument construction increased as the climate deteriorated after about 6000 years before present. This process of increasing territoriality and social organisation eventually led to the emergence of the first large urban, state-level 'civilisations', which emerged in river valleys in otherwise arid areas. In the Sahara the only river is the Nile - in the central Saharahn regions similar processes occured, on a smaller scale, around diminishing lakes, for example in the Fezzan region of Libya, where the Garamantian civilisation emerged. "
What's all this about? Is this another one of those strange monumetns that are fey inspired?
Slán
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