A hundred and fifty kilometres of sandstone cliff standing 500 metres over the sand flats, with villages built into the base of it and, higher up the rock face, older dwellings and burial chambers cut by the Tellem, who were here before the Dogon arrived in the fourteenth century near Kani Bonzon. The Tellem put their dead high in the cliff to keep them out of the floods, and those chambers are still up there in places nobody can easily reach. Dogon tradition holds that natural tunnels through the escarpment were used to get away from attackers. UNESCO listed it in 1989 for its archaeology, its ethnology and its geology together, which is unusual. It has to be said plainly: since the 2012 conflict this region has become dangerous, travel has been described as extremely inadvisable, and Malian security forces have turned tourists back. This entry is a record, not an invitation.
Mopti Region, Mali
See it on the map
