Stone Circles of Senegambia

The Stone Circles of Wassu are still all standing in 2025! They even feature in Gambia’s tourism promotion video (“The Smiling Coast of Africa”) that is shown at Banjul airport and of course on the 50 dalasi banknote. We went there at the end of a long day of driving and sightseeing, it’s right near the main northern road to Janjanbureh. Official opening hours are 8-17, but we arrived at 6 pm and the woman selling tickets and the local guide were still there (maybe my guide had phoned ahead to announce our arrival). The site clearly is more equipped for receiving tourists than when Solivagant visited in 1984. There’s a small exhibition but the main findings are at the National Museum in Banjul.

The Wassu site has 11 separate stone circles, all considered to be burial sites for individuals or groups of people. It has the tallest stone (2.59m) of all components. They are dated to 750 AD, while the dating of the Senegalese sister site Sine-Ngayene after recent archaeological research has been pushed back as far as 950 BCE. No excavations at Wassu have been done recently, but the local guide told us that they had put in a request for funding to excavate the one circle that is a bit different from the rest (pictured). It has a horizontal stone slab in the center of the circle. 

All standing stones now have a collection of small stones on top, added by visitors who see …

The Senegambia region is actually home to the largest concentration of stone circles in the world. The WHS is made up of four different inscribed areas. We visited Sine Ngayène in Senegal which is located about 15 km from the Gambian border at Farefenni/ Medina Saback. This is the densest cluster of stones and it also features a double circle, evidence of burials and nearby is the quarry from which the rocks were originally hewn, (ICOMOS states that it wants these quarry sites to be included in an extended site, I think it would be an exceptionally worthy extension.)

The site itself sits just outside the village of Sine Ngayène. The advisory body report talks about the great addition of a small information/ visitors centre and fences around the outside to protect the stones from grazing animals. When we arrived in the village it soon turned out that the visitors centre was not open. We were then quickly joined by the majority of the male population of the village. They had possession of the key from the village elder and we proceeded to negotiate an entrance fee, we ended up paying 10,000 CFA (€15 approx in Dec. 2009). I don’t think they received that many visitors, and quickly took an interest in the “luxuries” we had, I have never seen someone so interested in an Advisory body report or set of maps, and they quickly shuffled these away, seemingly more interested in the paper than its content. They turned out …

It was great to note the addition in 2006 of the Sene-Gambian Stone circles as we had paid an interesting visit there back in 1984. Much of our travelling took place before UNESCO conceived of “WHS” (or at least before it “took off”) and it can be very annoying to discover that a “new addition” is only a few miles or even yards away from a place already visited (especially if we are unlikely ever to return!). Conversely there is a slightly smug pleasure in discovering that all the effort to visit some obscure site in days past has, in a sense, been additionally “rewarded” by the selection of that site as being of “universal value”!

We travelled up-country from Banjul for around 5 hours by “bush taxis” to reach Georgetown. (Now renamed Janjanbureh). This is situated on an island in the Gambia River and its crumbling reality significantly belied its rather grandiose name (In 1983 this overgrown village only had a population of around 7000). The Government Rest House provided clean and comfortable accommodation and the bureaucracy and social interaction with local officials whilst gaining permission to stay in it added to the experience. I understand that a hotel (“Bird Safari Camp” - complete with “the only swimming pool in the area”!!) has now been built just outside the town.

The nearest Stone circles are at Wassau on the north bank so another ferry journey was required. On the far side a motley collection of bush taxis …