The Rock Painting Site of the Ait Ighil Cliff (Kabylia, Algeria)

The discovery of rock art in Greater Kabylia (Algeria) has been known for over sixty years, and the painted Libyan inscriptions in the Ifigha region were reported as early as 1900. Currently, there are 31 sites, most of which were discovered by R. Poyto and J.C. Musso. They are found in rock shelters, on rocks, and on sandstone blocks in the northern part of Kabylia. They include some engravings on slabs and walls, and numerous paintings preserved on the walls of the shelters. These include some human and animal figures, generally very rudimentary, linear drawings, lines, dots, ovals, crosses, partitioned rectangles, and a significant number of Libyan characters. The paint used is natural red ochre. The Ait Ighil site is one of these sites where rock paintings have been reported.
The aim of this research is to analyze these paintings and their meanings. The Ait Ighil site was chosen for the following reasons:
The site's wealth of rock paintings.
The threat of their disappearance.
Raising awareness among the relevant authorities to better promote this archaeological and historical potential.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Not applicable

The datasets used in this study are openly available at [repository link] and the source code is available on GitHub at [GitHub link].

This work did not receive any external funding.