The Dogon lands (Bandiagara Plateau) lie in the neighbourhood of the town of Duenza. The Dogon tribes are believed to have been the original inhabitants of the Niger River Valley back in the time of the Great Egypt of the Pharaohs. For thousands of years, the Dogon have inhabited villages built of pink sandstone, built their granaries by cutting them right into the surrounding cliffs, and harvested their meagre crops on very small plots cut as terraces in inaccessible places on the ledges of the cliffs. Their homeland, the Dogon Plateau, has been designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO because of its unique human living conditions and the level of preservation of ancient human worldviews in local beliefs. Although most of the Dogon have migrated from their well-protected cliff dwellings to the plains below, the ancient villages are still inhabited and new villages are still being built in the cliffs.
