Credited to Senegal. The megalithic zone is shared between central Senegal and the Gambia. Two of the four World Heritage groups, Sine Ngayene and Wanar, are in Senegal; Wassu and Kerbatch are in the Gambia. The division is purely a modern national one.
How it began
The stone circles stand in a band about 100 kilometers wide along some 350 kilometers of the River Gambia, in central Senegal and the Gambia. Excavated burial mounds associated with them have produced material dated between the 3rd century BCE and the 16th century CE. UNESCO describes the circles and mounds as a vast sacred landscape created over more than 1,500 years by a prosperous, highly organized and lasting society. Sine Ngayene and Wanar, two of the four main groups, lie in present-day Senegal.
How it works
The builders quarried laterite with iron tools and shaped it into nearly identical cylindrical or polygonal pillars, on average about 2 meters high and weighing up to 7 tons. Each circle has between 8 and 14 pillars and a diameter of 4 to 6 meters, and stands near burial mounds. Pillars also occur in double circles, in rows to the east of a circle as frontal stones, and as lyre-shaped stones. The surfaces are smooth.
What lasted
A 1982 study recorded 1,145 sites, and counts across the region reach about 29,000 stones in 17,000 monuments at 2,000 individual sites. UNESCO states that the finely worked pillars show precise and skillful stone working, and that the zone is unmatched anywhere in size, consistency and complexity.
Where it stands today
Four groups, Sine Ngayene and Wanar in Senegal and Wassu and Kerbatch in the Gambia, together covering 93 stone circles and numerous burial mounds, were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2006. The megaliths are sometimes divided into the Wassu circles in the Gambia and the Sine-Saloum circles in Senegal, but this is purely a national division.
