by 160 feet, which featured imrpessive walls and watch towers. It has been suggested that this outpost was the transshipment point for salt coming from the Mediterranean and on its way into tropical Africa in exchange for gold, ivory and exotic animals to be slain by the gladiators of Rome.

A Real Queen of the Desert

In the oasis of Abelessa, not far from Tamanrasset, one of the Sahara's best known spots, thanks to the Paris-Dakar Rally, holds another of the desert's mysteries: the ruined fortress of Tin Hinan, whose architecture does not resemble the crude structures raised by the desert dwellers. Archaeologists are still at a loss to identify the builders of this city, but in 1926, a Franco-American archaeological team managed to discover a rectangular chamber filled coveredwith soil, which in turn concealed six slabs of considerable size. Beneath these stone behemoths lay the remains of Tin Hinan, the legendary queen considered by the Tuareg to be the founder of their people.

The legendary queen's mummy was covered in the tattered remains of a leather outfit. Tin Hinan wore seven sivler bracelets on one arm and eight on her left arm; a ring and a leaf-shaped dagger covered her chest area. Her right foot was surrounded by spheres of antimony and the rest of her body was surrounded with pearls of various colors.

James Wellard, author of The Great Sahara, cites one Dr. Leblanc of the University of Algiers School of Medicine as having described the queen's mortal remains thus: "A woman of the white race...the formation