Agoza, Chad, Africa - Ancient Border Point - Extreme Northern Latitude of the Lion - LexiLine Journal 357

I received an inquiry relating to Agoza which indicated that I needed to post some more information about it. Agoza is merely the site of ancient ruins which have thus far not been dated.

For background, see my postings at
http://www.megaliths.net/ancientneareast.htm and
http://snipurl.com/h1lk viz.
http://archaeopundit.blogspot.com/2004_03_01_archaeopundit_archive.html#107929913155694335

Please note that Arabic Qasr means "fortification" and that this word was used to mark ancient border points. Qasr has become Agoza by loss of the ending r, i.e. QAS-r = aGOZa.

Agoza is located in the Ennedi region, where ancient prehistoric rock art has been found.
See http://www.archaeoafrica.de/

As noted at that website, which also has a nice clickable map of "archaeology in Africa", parts of this region of Africa and the Darb El Arba'in Desert are among the least explored regions
http://snipurl.com/h1mr viz.
http://www.tec.army.mil/research/products/desert_guide/laxopcom/biblio.htm
of our planet, but we do have evidence of nearby prehistoric inhabitation....
See http://www.geog.ox.ac.uk/~knicoll/mi/nika.pdf
I myself have never been there.

The ruins at Agoza are referred to at:

http://snipurl.com/h1n0 viz. http://66.249.93.104/search?q=cache:Qcfac2LEq4wJ:www.globalcoordinate.com/items/1137124.aspx+agoza+ancient&hl=en

http://www.viovio.com/travel/101613725 and

http://www.traveljournals.net/explore/chad/map/m1613725/agoza.html

and its location is found given at

http://atlas.splad.com/atlasville_41534.html

Note that there are some differences in latitude for the location of Agoza given by the various soruces.

A map of the actual location is found at http://www.reiseklinikken.com/ChaDistribution.pdf
which resolves the issue, showing that Agoza is above 18° north latitude.

The ruins are located near the mountain of Tagoulicha - see http://snipurl.com/h1lj viz.
http://www.traveljournals.net/explore/chad/map/m1633000/tagoulicha.html

and the Depression du Mourdi
see http://www.haberlah.com/fu/sahara.html

The larger area is called the Erdi Plateau.

Thr area known as the Erdi Plateau is interesting because it
represents the highest latitude at which the African lion has been
found.

As written at
http://snipurl.com/h1k1 viz.
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLG,GGLG:2005-23,GGLG:en&q=chad+lion+plateau+erdi

"The extreme latitudes of the lion range are:
Highest latitudes
- Northern Hemisphere
The African lion has been extirpated from all the former high latitudes where it used to live, both in the Northern (North Africa) and Southern Hemisphere (the Cape). Rock paintings also attest to the former presence of lion deep inside what is now the Sahara Desert. The famous Theodore Monod reported in Northern Chad that a lion was shot in 1927 in the region of Erdi Dji (as far North as 19°N, just where the 3 borders Chad, Libya, Sudan meet), and another lion was shot in 1940 near Mourdi (18°30'N) (Smithers, 1983). Now lions are still present in Central Africa up to 15°N (Hoinathy Honimadji, pers. comm.; J. Tubiana, pers. comm.). The Northernmost lion populations are probably:
(i) The few remaining individuals of Boucle du Baoulé National Park in Mali (if
they still exist);
(ii) The small relict population of Kapka mountain range, a non-gazetted area in North-Eastern Chad (the Ennedi mountain range seems to have lost its lion
population), and;
(iii) The population of Dinder National Park, Sudan, and of the neighbouring area in Ethiopia."

Where the current borders of Chad, Libya and Sudan meet is must a bit north of Agoza, the ancient border point. These modern borders are not quite accurate. See
http://www.law.fsu.edu/library/collection/LimitsinSeas/IBS015.pdf

There is also an ancient ruin at Qunianga Kebir (Qunianga Serir) to the northwest, of which a picture photo exists at http://www.archaeoafrica.de/G_Wanyanga.html

Very interesting.