The Garamantes of the Fazzan

I’d like to pick up this time where we left off last time, with rock art.  One of the great mysteries of rock art is, who left these paintings?  Was it one group of people or many groups?  What was their culture like?  Historians aren’t sure, but after looking at a combination of artistic, archaeological, and DNA analysis they have concluded that many different peoples likely inhabited Libya in the prehistoric period.  One group was the Berbers. 

The mystery doesn’t end there.  No one really knows where the Berbers came from or when they arrived in Libya, but the general consensus is that they were one of the groups that made the transition from pastoralism to settled agriculture that we saw last time in rock art, and that they spoke a language related to Arabic, Ancient Egyptian, and Hebrew.  It is misleading, however, to speak of a single Berber people, as in a short period of time in the distant past the Berbers spread across much of North Africa and continue to inhabit large tracts of it today.  So in this post I am going to focus on one group of Berbers, the Garamantes. 

From about 1000 BCE to 600 CE the Garamantes were a force to be reckoned with in the Fazzan; however, if you were to read Greek and Roman accounts of them, you would get the impression that they were uncivilized bandits.  This cannot be further from the truth.  The Garamantes developed a complex, urban kingdom independent of the Greeks and Romans, and figured out enduring strategies for living in a harsh environment.  So while Greek and Roman archaeological sites might enjoy more press, we can learn a lot from the Garamantes about how states formed on the periphery of the Mediterranean world and how people adapted to a changing climate.

About 5000 years ago the Sahara began to change.  What had been a fertile savannah interspersed with lakes and oasis became much drier, as it is today.  As their world became drier, people living in the Sahara had to adapt and find new strategies for survival.  They abandoned more nomadic lifestyles and settled in wadis and oases, where water could be easily found.  Garamantian civilization arose in this context.

As the Garamantes turned to farming, they built towns and villages in Wadi al-Ajal (known today as Wadi al-Hayat).  The first sites consisted of easily defensible hilltop fortresses, such as Zinchecra.

Mattingly, D. (2003). The Archaeology of the Fazzan, vol. 1

These are some pictures of the extensive fortifications, taken by Professor David Mattingly and his team, that surrounded Zinchecra in antiquity.  These works suggest a society that could mobilize large amounts of labor for communal goals.  It is at this time too when the Garamantes started to bury their dead in cemeteries.  Thus from the combination of new types of settlement and burial practices we can conclude that with the Garamantes Libyan history had entered a new phase, one of civilizations.

As the Garamantes’ power and population increased, they moved from the hilltops to the center of Wadi al-Ajal, closer to their farms.  Here they built a capital city, Germa, that would proclaim their wealth and power to the world. 

Ancient Germa, taken by Franzfoto, Wikimedia Commons 

Today the city lies in ruins, but an ancient visitor, seeing the colonnaded streets, civic center with monumental buildings, and complex, multi-room homes, could be forgiven for thinking that he were in a city of the Roman Empire.  But despite a few expeditions against them, the Garamantes remained an independent state.  They preferred to trade with Rome, and their control of Saharan oases made them perfect intermediaries between sub-Saharan Africa and the wider Mediterranean world.  Caravans of horses and camels carried slaves and gold from the countries of the Sahel and beyond, as well as the Garamantes' own trade goods, such as salt, carnelian, and beads.

As the population of Wadi al-Ajal grew, the Garmantes developed a sophisticated irrigation system to support it.  A network of foggaras tapped into the subterranean aquifers and channeled water to the wadi center where farms grew a medley of Mediterranean crops, like dates, olives, and wheat.  Foggaras are tunnels that run from the foot of hills, where the water is higher, to lower areas where people have their farmers. 

Mattingly, D. (2003). The Archaeology of the Fezzan, vol. 1

As we can see in this schematic rendering, the Garamantes dug vertical shafts every 5 to 10 meters that would allow them to access the foggaras and connect individual segments. Over 550 foggaras have been found in Wadi al-Ajal alone and they vary in length from half a kilometer to over four kilometers.  This network of foggaras represents a colossal undertaking that would have required a highly organized society to complete.  They are surely the Garamantes' most impressive achievement, for, without them, their civilization would not have been possible.

The Garamantes did not long survive after the collapse of the Roman Empire.  This underscores the close connection between trade with Rome and the ability of the Garamantes to project power in the Fazzan.  About this time the foggaras also began to fall out of use, and settlements moved from the wadis to oases and wells.  Today most people rely on modern irrigation technology and few understand how the foggaras worked, but the achievement of the Garamantes means that we should take seriously how ancient peoples survived in harsh environments.  It is illustrative of this point that the population of the Fazzan did not return to the level of the Garamantian period until 40 years ago.  Clearly the Garamantes figured out a winning combination and, as the climate continues to change, we might learn a thing or two from them that will help us cope. 

For more on the Garamantes, see http://www.livius.org/articles/place/garamantes/