Laas Geel is a granite outcrop in Somaliland, in the north of Somalia an hour from Hargeisa, whose overhangs shelter about twenty alcoves painted with cattle five thousand years ago, their reds, whites and ochres barely dimmed, the best-preserved rock art in Africa, and it is walked up to from the plain with a guard from the ministry and read at eye level under the ledges. The paintings were known to the nomads, who took the place for the home of spirits, and were put on the map only in 2002 by a French mission that had come to dig for graves and looked up; the cows are painted in profile with wide striped necks, the site's signature, which nobody can explain, a collar, a decoration or a marking of the hide, and their horns curve forward over udders drawn full, while between them stand much smaller human figures with arms flung wide, some carrying a stick or a bow, the herders of a people who kept cattle here when the plain was green. Under the main shelter the painted cattle sit right at eye level, close enough to touch, though the unwritten rule is that no one does.
The art survives because of the rock's shape, an overhanging granite lip that has thrown off direct sun for five thousand years in a place where rain hardly falls, and because the nomads kept away. Climbing clear of the shelters, the plain opens below with two dry watercourses meeting at the foot of the granite, the reason for the name, which means the camels' well, and the reason the herders came. World Heritage status is granted to states, and Somaliland, independent in practice since 1991, is not recognised as one, so the finest rock art on the continent has no route onto the list and none of the funding that comes with it, and the shelters are guarded by a few men with a hut. Laas Geel is a herd painted under a rock, and the rock has kept it since before the pyramids.