The Bandiagara Escarpment

Burial chambers cut high in a 500 metre cliff by people who were there first

A sandstone wall runs about 150 kilometres across the Dogon country of Mali, rising some 500 metres above the sandy flats to its south. The cliffs belong to a longer chain that ends at Hombori Tondo, the highest peak in Mali at 1,155 metres.

Before the Dogon, the escarpment was home to the Tellem, and to the Toloy before them. The Dogon name for the Tellem means "we found them", or "those who were before us". The Tellem built houses at the foot of the cliff and straight into its face, and cut caves high in the rock to bury their dead well above the flash floods that sweep the area. Excavations in those rock cells have turned up bones, fabrics, baskets, beads and pots. Many of the structures still show on the cliff, and the Dogon still use some of the Tellem granaries. They also hoist their own dead by rope into the old houses high on the wall.

The Dogon arrived in the 14th century near the village of Kani Bonzon and spread out across the plateau, the escarpment and the plains of the Seno-Gondo. Local oral history tells of natural tunnels winding through the cliff, known only to the Dogon, who used them to ambush and repel attackers, and credits them with keeping the French colonial powers at a distance.

UNESCO inscribed the Cliff of Bandiagara, Land of the Dogons, in 1989 for its geology, archaeology and ethnology together with its landscape. The listed area covers 400,000 hectares and 289 villages across plateau, escarpment and plain. Houses, granaries, altars, sanctuaries and togu na, the communal meeting shelters, cling to the rock, and old traditions carry on in masks, feasts and ceremonies for the ancestors.

Local guides have led walkers along a chain of trails between the villages, with hostels in each one providing food and a bed. The World Monuments Fund put the escarpment on its 2004 watch list to draw attention to uncontrolled tourism, and looting of ancient artefacts has been widespread. Since the 2012 war in Mali the region has turned dangerous. Armed groups operate there, Malian security forces have turned travellers back, and in March 2018 an attack on a hotel used by UN staff in Bandiagara town killed several people. UNESCO has announced work with partners to rehabilitate the site and support the communities hit by the conflict.