Five thousand years a go, cattle herders walked across these plains,
looking for a place to cover them from the beating sun.
They’d have walked this route many times, and they'd known each rock outcropping by heart.
These would have been the landmarks of their world, as useful to them as stars to a sailor.
But for all the hundreds of times they’d walked this path, this time was different.
This time, they hadn’t come to find greener pastures, this time they hadn't come to give grass to their animals.
This time, they'd come to change the course of history.
They’d come to make themselves artists.
They’d come to paint Laas Geel.
Greater Somalia is one of the least studied places on the planet.
War, poverty, and a lack of international focus has meant
that this region is severely underfunded in archaeological studies.
Those that do take place, often take place on the back of a single woman.
Her name is Dr. Sada Mire, and she has single-handedly changed the face of Somali archaeology forever.
Primarily on her own, walking out into a hostile, arid landscape armed with nothing more than her education,
Dr. Mire has found and catalogued over 100 different rock paintings,
burial sites, and points of historic interest.
Her work is nothing short of miraculous.
It is her research that led me to this region.
It's her research that led me to this specific story.
She’s living proof that one human can still fundamentally alter history.
Or at the very least, our understanding of it.
But today’s story isn’t about Dr. Mire, as much as I would love to tell you more about her.
It isn’t even about a site that she personally found.
No, today’s story is on another individual who changed the course of history.
Someone whose name will never be known, and in truth probably was never all that important.
Someone who simply felt the need to alter the landscape to better suit their imagination.
A simple herder, long dead.
The genius behind the paintings of Laas Geel.
To be clear, we know virtually nothing about the artists beyond
what we can glean from the many rock paintings we find around the region today.
There are no written records, no coincidentally similar folk legends,
no time capsules buried in the dirt.
There’s just these paintings, and the stories that we can see within them.
But in looking deeper into these walls, some things are clear.
From these inscriptions we can tell that this region would have been much more lush
when paint was put to rock.
The amount of animals, and the sheer variety, imply a greener landscape than what we have now.
A virtual garden of Eden for a herder such as this one.
From these works of art, we know that at least 5000 years ago,
someone with an incredibly close connection to animals felt it necessary to spend a great deal of time and effort
collecting paints, finding a location where the natural erosive effects of the sun and wind wouldn’t be a factor,
and then setting about putting their world into order.
These were artists painting what they knew, not imagining a world yet to come.
Whoever stopped here and put brush to rock was trying to stylistically capture their world,
and in some way, to let others see it as they did.
Perhaps they did because they felt a spiritual connection to the art.
A religious offering on their rock that in theory provided safety to their herds.
Perhaps they did as a border, or a road sign of sorts, letting other herders know
to whom these pastures belonged.
Or perhaps they did it simply because they wanted to see their world reflected back at them.
We don’t know, and in all likelihood we never will.
But I do know that on these walls we see a variety of animals, as well as herders, hunters,
and caravans carrying goods.
We see a pastoral, mixed economy involving trade with other regions.
We see soldiers carrying shields and spears.
We see cows, dogs, monkeys, camels, antelopes, giraffes, and other animals common to the area.
In these locations, we even see a lunar calendar, providing those educated few
with a better awareness of the earth’s cycles.
We know from the decorations painted on herd animals that there would have been ceremony
in these artists' world.
The most elaborate paints are saved for a strip on the necks of cows, perhaps depicting
that they were painted themselves, or potentially that they’d been draped in cloth.
Maybe this was an early form of branding, letting everyone know who owned which animals.
After all, being a herder is a risky business if you can’t prove whose animal is whose.
But perhaps it was just for show, in the same way that camel hair is shaved into elaborate patterns today.
Yet, despite everything else that it potentially was, and for all that it teaches us about this lost world.
The thing that interests me most is simply that it was done at all.
These are works of art hanging in a gallery.
These rocks are an ancient Louvre, and the herders who painted this, would have felt the same way.
I believe for all the archaeologists, radiologists and tourists who’ve come to make sense of Laas Geel,
the people most capable of understanding what went on here would have to be artists themselves.
Because as I see it, the desire and drive behind the production of art never changes.
The same core principles that make a YouTuber want to produce a more elaborate video,
with better editing and more beautiful scenery, are the same principles
that led these herders to find more vivid paints and less exposed outcroppings.
As I see it, for everything else that this is, it's just an art gallery.
Whoever produced this wanted people to recognize what they’d made.
It was not meant to be hidden, but to be seen.
To survive through the eras.
It was meant to be a reminder of the lives those humans lived in their time,
and the respect to the animals that made it possible.
Laas Geel is by no means unique.
The artists who painted it weren't unique.
There are hundreds of similar works of art that have survived in the region that surround it,
each with their own similarities and differences.
For the most part, Laas Geel has become famous for its proximity to Hargeisa,
likely the safest city for tourists in all of Greater Somalia.
It isn’t so much unique as it's accessible.
But it doesn’t have to be unique to be an inspiration.
It’s a historic work of art, hanging in an ancient Louvre.
It’s beautiful.
The artists who painted these walls, wandering through these plains with their herd in tow,
almost certainly did so in the hopes that one day others would come and marvel at what they’d achieved.
And if I could somehow speak to them, deep in the past, I’d let them know just how incredible they were.
How important each and every drop of paint.
It's not that they were the best, or the first, or the most original.
It’s simply that they chose to act.
That they dared to create something more beautiful than a blank canvas.
Art is incredible, regardless of why it was made.
Regardless of the artist.
Regardless of the intent.
Art lets us see through time.
It lets us understand ourselves, not as we were, but as we could have been.
When I look at these rock walls with the paint put on them by unnamed people thousands of years ago,
I’m reminded how little I matter.
The point is not to be an artist.
The point is to create art.
This is Rare Earth.