 Tomb of Tin Hinan miniature at the Bardo National Museum in Algiers. | |
 | |
| Location | Abalessa, Algeria |
|---|---|
| Type | monumental tomb |
| Beginning date | c. 4th-5th century AD [1] |
| Completion date | 1,500 years ago [2] |
| Dedicated to | Queen Tin Hinan |
The Tin Hinan Tomb (French : Tombeau de Tin Hinan) is a monumental tomb located at Abalessa in the Sahara, in the Hoggar Mountains of southern Algeria. [2] The sepulchre was built for Tin Hinan, the Tuareg ancient Queen of the Hoggar (Ahaggar).
Tin Hinan is the name given by the Tuareg to a 3rd- or 4th-century woman of prestige whose skeleton was found in a pre-Islamic tomb in the Ahaggar Mountains. Tin Hinan is sometimes referred to as "Queen of the Hoggar", [3] [4] and by the Tuareg as Tamenokalt [5] which also means "queen". [6] The name literally means "woman of the tents", [6] but is sometime translated as "Queen of the camp" (with the "camp" possibly referring to the group of tombs which surround hers) [7] or more metaphorically as "Mother of us all". [8]
The French explorer Henri Lhote argued that the Tin Hinan sepulcher is different from the surrounding tombs in southern Algeria, and is more typical of the architecture used by the Roman legionaries to create their fortifications in desert areas. He believed that the tomb was therefore likely built on top of an earlier Roman castrum, which was originally erected around 19 BC, when consul Lucius Cornelius Balbus conquered the Garamantian territories and sent a small expeditionary force to reach the Niger river. [9] [10] This hypothesis was discussed earnestly by James Wellard, [4] but it is rejected by most scholars today. [10] [11] [12]
The tomb was opened by Byron Khun de Prorok with support from the French army in 1925, and other archaeologists made a more thorough investigation in 1933. It was found to contain the skeleton of a woman on a wooden litter, lying on her back with her head facing east. She was accompanied by heavy gold and silver jewellery, some of it adorned with pearls. On her right forearm she wore 7 silver bracelets, and on her left, 7 gold bracelets. Another silver bracelet and a gold ring were placed with the body. Remains of a complex piecework necklace of gold and pearls (real and artificial) were also present. [1] Furthermore, a number of funerary objects were also found. These included a "Venus" statue (similar in style to the Venus of Hohle Fels with exaggerated sexual organs), a glass goblet (lost during World War II), and gold foil which bore the imprint of a Roman coin of emperor Constantine I issued between 308 and 324 AD. [13] A fourth century date is consistent with radiocarbon dating of the wooden bed, as well as with the style of pottery and other tomb furniture. The monument itself is constructed in an architectural style that was widespread in the Berber Sahara during classical times.
In the 1960s, the anthropologist E. Leblanc examined the skeleton within the Tin Hinan tomb. He observed that the remains were tall and lithe, with a narrow pelvis, broad shoulders and slender legs. Overall, the skeleton closely resembled those found in the pharaonic monuments of ancient Egypt. [14] The body found in the tomb is now in the Bardo Museum in Algiers. [15]
The Tomb of Tin Hinan is mentioned in the video game Amnesia: The Dark Descent and is visited in the 2020 sequel, Amnesia: Rebirth . According to documents found scattered throughout the game, the tomb supposedly contained two mythical orbs, which are important to the game's story.
[Lhote's] theory lacked foundation (La teoría carecía de fundamento).
Several hypotheses have been proposed concerning the origins of the [tomb] including that it was part of a Roman outpost fort (which it was not).
The Berber languages, also known as the Amazigh languages, are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They comprise a group of closely related languages spoken by Imazighen communities, who are indigenous to North Africa. The languages were traditionally written with the ancient Libyco-Berber script, which now exists in the form of Tifinagh.
Tifinagh is a script used to write the Berber languages. Tifinagh is descended from the ancient Libyco-Berber alphabet. The traditional Tifinagh, sometimes called Tuareg Tifinagh, is still favored by the Tuareg Berbers of the Sahara desert in southern Algeria, northeastern Mali, northern Niger and northern Burkina Faso for use writing the Tuareg Berber language. Neo-Tifinagh is an alphabet that was created in northern Algeria around the 1980s as an updated version. Neo-Tifinagh has been used since largely by Algerians and Moroccans for the symbolic promotion of the Berber language, while mainly using the Berber Latin alphabet in most publications. Neo-Tifinagh is often simply called "Tifinagh".
The Tuareg people are a large Berber ethnic group that principally inhabit the Sahara in a vast area stretching from far southwestern Libya to southern Algeria, Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso. Traditionally nomadic pastoralists, small groups of Tuareg are also found in northern Nigeria.
The Tuareg languages constitute a group of closely related Berber languages and dialects. They are spoken by the Tuareg Berbers in large parts of Mali, Niger, Algeria, Libya and Burkina Faso, with a few speakers, the Kinnin, in Chad.
Lucius Cornelius Balbus was a Roman politician and general of Punic origin from Gades. Although from a family of naturalized foreigners he did valuable services for the early Roman Empire and also contributed to public architecture of its capital.
The Hoggar Mountains are a highland region in the central Sahara in southern Algeria, along the Tropic of Cancer. The mountains cover an area of approximately 550,000 km.
The Garamantes were an ancient civilisation based primarily in present-day Libya. They most likely descended from Iron Age Berber tribes from the Sahara, although the earliest known record of their existence dates to the fifth century BC. Little remains of their civilization, as their epigraphy is nearly indecipherable; much of what is known comes from contemporaneous Greek and Roman foreign accounts and modern archaeological findings.
Tassili n'Ajjer is a national park in the Sahara desert, located on a vast plateau in southeastern Algeria. Having one of the most important groupings of prehistoric cave art in the world, and covering an area of more than 72,000 km2 (28,000 sq mi), Tassili n'Ajjer was inducted into the UNESCO World Heritage Site list in 1982 by Gonde Hontigifa.
Amenukal is a title for the highest Tuareg traditional chiefs; the paramount confederation leader.
Tin Hinan was a 4th-century Tuareg queen. Her monumental tomb is located in the Sahara, at Abalessa in the Hoggar region of Algeria.
The year 1925 in archaeology involved some significant events.
Henri Duveyrier was a French explorer and geographer, known for his exploration of the Sahara.
Charles Eugène de Foucauld de Pontbriand, Viscount of Foucauld was a French soldier, explorer, geographer, ethnographer, Catholic priest and hermit who lived among the Tuareg people in the Sahara in Algeria. He was assassinated in 1916. His inspiration and writings led to the founding of the Little Brothers of Jesus among other religious congregations.
Kel Ahaggar is a Tuareg confederation inhabiting the Hoggar Mountains in Algeria. The confederation is believed to have been founded by the Tuareg matriarch Tin Hinan, whose monumental tomb is located at Abalessa. The official establishment is dated to around 1750. It has been largely defunct since 1977, when it was terminated by the Algerian government.
Abalessa is a town and commune in Tamanrasset Province, in southern Algeria, coextensive with the district of the same name. According to the 2008 census it has a population of 9,163 up from 6,484 in 1998, with an annual growth rate of 3.6%. Abalessa is located along the ancient Trans-Saharan trade route, 80 kilometres (50 mi) west of the city of Tamanrasset, the capital of the province. The postcode of the town is 11120.
The Kel Awey are a Tuareg clan confederation. From the 18th century until the advent of French colonial rule at the beginning of the 20th century, they were a dominant power in the Aïr Mountains of north central Niger.
Henri Lhote was a French explorer, ethnographer, and discoverer of prehistoric cave art. He is credited with the discovery of an assembly of 800 or more works of primitive art in a remote region of Algeria on the edge of the Sahara desert.
"Count" Byron Khun de Prorok was a Hungarian-American amateur archaeologist, anthropologist, and author of four travelogues. He has come to be regarded as a tomb raider, or grave robber, opening up graves and tombs and removing remains and artefacts against the wishes of those laying claim to them.
Between the first century BC and the fourth century AD, several expeditions and explorations to Lake Chad and western Africa were conducted by groups of military and commercial units of Romans who moved across the Sahara and into the interior of Africa and its coast. The primary motivation for the expeditions was to secure sources of gold and spices.
Paul Flatters was a French soldier who spent a long period as a military administrator in Algeria. He is known as leader of the Flatters expedition, an ill-fated attempt to explore the route of a proposed Trans-Saharan railway from Algeria to the Sudan. Almost all members of the expedition were massacred by hostile Tuaregs. The survivors resorted to eating grass and to cannibalism on the long retreat through the desert. After a brief outburst of public indignation the fiasco was forgotten.