Christian Dupuy L’Adrar des Iforas (Mali) à l’époque des chars: art, religion, rapports sociaux et relations à grande distance
ABSTRACT Contextual study of eighty-one depictions of complete or partial chariots, engraved on exposed rock faces located along the edges of six neighbouring valleys on the north-western flank of the Adrar des Iforas. All the chariots have only one shaft, and the majority do not appear to be yoked. The few vehicles which are, are pulled by a couple of oxen, side by side. Curiously, none of the harnessed chariots has a driver. The driver’s absence, combined with the location of the engravings on rocks not visible by passers-by, their bare style and the non-narrative vocation of associated expressions, together argue towards these works of art being dedicated to supernatural beings. The predominance of taurine figures in all these sites seems to indicate their primordial role on a symbolic level, and their correlated essential function in social exchange. Furthermore, parietal art demonstrates the transmission of beliefs and the circulation of luxury goods throughout the Sahara during the 2nd millennium B.C. The original architecture of some of the chariots suggests the existence of cartwrighters’ workshops to the west of the Nile Valley, perhaps as early as the 16th century B.C. The first millennium B.C. is characterized by the advent of a new ideology and the outlines of human figures, sometimes imposing and armed with spears, come into prominence. An exotic animal so far ignored by artists makes a timid appearance: the horse.
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posted
^^Would this also have any relation to the Garamantes of Libya who were also reknowned as great charioteers during the Imperial Roman era??..
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: ^^Would this also have any relation to the Garamantes of Libya who were also reknowned as great charioteers during the Imperial Roman era??..
Evergreen Writes:
1,600 B.C. predates the Garamante period. But certianly these Saharans and the Garamantes share a common heritage. This charioteer culture likely spread from the nile and possibly the so-called Nubian Nile area or the Siwa Oasis area. Worship of Amun is a common element as well.
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posted
^That's what I meant to say, was that the Garamantes descended from these people who adopted chariot technology, considering that the Garamantes were renowned charioteers by the time of the Romans.
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quote: Based on the Herodotus account that referenced the Garamantes hunting Ethiopian cave-dwellers,Sonja Magnavita and Carlos Magnavita stated:
Those taking Herodotus’ account verbatim might be disappointed that he remained silent on living merchandises potentially added to that gold (such as humans, i.e. slaves), but other parts of his text are conveniently interpreted with a view to slave raiding and trading: the Garamantes hunting the swift-footed Aithiopian Troglodytes on four-horse chariots. Whilst the chariots are identified in the form of Saharan rock art, the Troglodytes remain mysterious. Although the ancient Greek text does neither state whether these hunts were slave raids or not, nor where they actually took place, the frequent re-interpretation of this text passage was jointly responsible for the creation of the myth of Saharan slave raids against Black Africans in classical times. The scene – a drive-hunt on war-like chariots – gives rise to some speculation. Hunting people for other purposes than for enslaving them is admittedly hard to imagine, but nevertheless should be taken into consideration as long as speculation prevails.
Biological anthropology
quote: Marta Mirazón Lahr conducted research on skeletons from Fezzan dating to the Roman era and found that the skeletons most closely matched Neolithic Sahelian samples, from Chad, Mali, and Niger. Lahr associates these remains with the Garamantes, and concluded that the Garamantes had connections with both the Sahel and northern Africa.
Nikita et al. (2011) examined the biological affinities of the Garamantes using cranial nonmetric traits and the Mean Measure of Divergence and Mahalanobis D(2). They were compared to other North African populations, including the Egyptian, Algerian, Tunisian and Sudanese, roughly contemporary to them. Overall, three clusters were identified: (1) the Garamantes, (2) Gizeh and Kerma, and (3) Soleb, Alexandrians, Algerians and Carthagians. The analysis concluded that the Garamantes were isolated, with the Sahara playing a role as a barrier to geneflow. The distance between the Garamantes and their neighbors was high and the population appeared to be an outlier.
The remains of a young Sub-Saharan African woman, which has been dated to the 1st millennium BCE and possessed a lip plug that is associated with Sahelian African groups, was buried among other Sub-Saharan Africans that were part of the heterogenous Garamantian population. Power et al. (2019) states: "This ornament demonstrates that some Garamantes individuals shared aspects of their material culture with Sahelian societies more broadly, either through migration or contact, while their burial within Garamantes cemeteries shows their integration into the normative funerary rituals of contemporary Garamantian society. The combination of morphometric and isotopic work further reinforces the view that Garamantian society included individuals of diverse geographical origin, some of whom may have been first generation Trans-Saharan migrants." The craniometrics results also identified another sub-group within the Garamantes buried in the Wadi al-Ajjal. The morphology is observed widely among Mediterranean people.
Script
quote: The Garamantes may have used a nearly indecipherable form of proto-Tifinagh. Blench (2019) states: One of the most problematic aspects is the language and inscriptions attributed to the Garamantes...Sites in the vicinity of Jarma, the Garamantian capital of what is now known as Fazzan, have abundant inscriptions (Fig. 14.7). 67 They are found cut or painted on dark grey amphorae, in the tombs of Garamantian cemeteries, such as those of Saniat bin Huwaydi.68 A recent project under the auspices of the British Library has digitised most of the known inscriptions and these are described in Biagetti et al.69 Although the inscriptions are in Berber characters, only some are decipherable. Various reasons for this have been suggested; either the messages were deliberately coded, so that only specific readers could understand them. Alternatively, they may have had a ‘ludic’ nature. The most exciting possibility is that they were in a non-Berber language, perhaps Nilo-Saharan or something unknown.
posted
All of the early bio-anthropological studies I remember on the Garamantes describe them as "North African Mediterraneans" which is not only a loaded term, but I think despite the distinction between North Africans and Sub-Saharans, there is much variation between each group.
quote: Slave-raiding Based on the Herodotus account that referenced the Garamantes hunting Ethiopian cave-dwellers,Sonja Magnavita and Carlos Magnavita stated:
Those taking Herodotus’ account verbatim might be disappointed that he remained silent on living merchandises potentially added to that gold (such as humans, i.e. slaves), but other parts of his text are conveniently interpreted with a view to slave raiding and trading: the Garamantes hunting the swift-footed Aithiopian Troglodytes on four-horse chariots. Whilst the chariots are identified in the form of Saharan rock art, the Troglodytes remain mysterious. Although the ancient Greek text does neither state whether these hunts were slave raids or not, nor where they actually took place, the frequent re-interpretation of this text passage was jointly responsible for the creation of the myth of Saharan slave raids against Black Africans in classical times. The scene – a drive-hunt on war-like chariots – gives rise to some speculation. Hunting people for other purposes than for enslaving them is admittedly hard to imagine, but nevertheless should be taken into consideration as long as speculation prevails.
The Garamantes were an empire and like many empires slave raiding was not uncommon. That Herodotus descriptions of Garamantes hunting Ethiopian Troglodytes have been distorted into something racial as superior caucasoids hunting negroes is funny considering that the Romans described the Garamantes and related Phanians as 'Nigritai'.
quote:Biological anthropology Marta Mirazón Lahr conducted research on skeletons from Fezzan dating to the Roman era and found that the skeletons most closely matched Neolithic Sahelian samples, from Chad, Mali, and Niger. Lahr associates these remains with the Garamantes, and concluded that the Garamantes had connections with both the Sahel and northern Africa.
Nikita et al. (2011) examined the biological affinities of the Garamantes using cranial nonmetric traits and the Mean Measure of Divergence and Mahalanobis D(2). They were compared to other North African populations, including the Egyptian, Algerian, Tunisian and Sudanese, roughly contemporary to them. Overall, three clusters were identified: (1) the Garamantes, (2) Gizeh and Kerma, and (3) Soleb, Alexandrians, Algerians and Carthagians. The analysis concluded that the Garamantes were isolated, with the Sahara playing a role as a barrier to geneflow. The distance between the Garamantes and their neighbors was high and the population appeared to be an outlier.
The remains of a young Sub-Saharan African woman, which has been dated to the 1st millennium BCE and possessed a lip plug that is associated with Sahelian African groups, was buried among other Sub-Saharan Africans that were part of the heterogenous Garamantian population. Power et al. (2019) states: "This ornament demonstrates that some Garamantes individuals shared aspects of their material culture with Sahelian societies more broadly, either through migration or contact, while their burial within Garamantes cemeteries shows their integration into the normative funerary rituals of contemporary Garamantian society. The combination of morphometric and isotopic work further reinforces the view that Garamantian society included individuals of diverse geographical origin, some of whom may have been first generation Trans-Saharan migrants." The craniometrics results also identified another sub-group within the Garamantes buried in the Wadi al-Ajjal. The morphology is observed widely among Mediterranean people.
I've read the Mahr and Nikita papers. What's interesting is that in the latter paper not only are Egyptian Gizeh grouped with Nubian Kerma into one cluster but that the Garamantes form their own cluster distinct from other North Africans. As for Sub-Saharan remains, again Garam was an empire in the Central Sahara similar to Kush being an empire in the Eastern Sahara with Sub-Saharan subjects.
Let's not forget the Sahara is dotted with oases that served as rest stops and trade ports for the trans-Saharan caravan. A major reason why Garama became an empire was because it took control of these oases and thus caravan trade ports.
quote:Script The Garamantes may have used a nearly indecipherable form of proto-Tifinagh. Blench (2019) states: One of the most problematic aspects is the language and inscriptions attributed to the Garamantes...Sites in the vicinity of Jarma, the Garamantian capital of what is now known as Fazzan, have abundant inscriptions (Fig. 14.7). 67 They are found cut or painted on dark grey amphorae, in the tombs of Garamantian cemeteries, such as those of Saniat bin Huwaydi.68 A recent project under the auspices of the British Library has digitised most of the known inscriptions and these are described in Biagetti et al.69 Although the inscriptions are in Berber characters, only some are decipherable. Various reasons for this have been suggested; either the messages were deliberately coded, so that only specific readers could understand them. Alternatively, they may have had a ‘ludic’ nature. The most exciting possibility is that they were in a non-Berber language, perhaps Nilo-Saharan or something unknown.
Interesting. Because Tifinagh is used by Berber speakers we are too used to the idea of the original Garamante language being Berber as opposed to something else. By the way even some of the Saharan languages grouped into the Nilo-Saharan phylum have a very tenuous position there to begin with.
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quote:Originally posted by Firewall: Some updated info about the Garamantes.
Garamantes
Slave-raiding
quote: Based on the Herodotus account that referenced the Garamantes hunting Ethiopian cave-dwellers,Sonja Magnavita and Carlos Magnavita stated:
Those taking Herodotus’ account verbatim might be disappointed that he remained silent on living merchandises potentially added to that gold (such as humans, i.e. slaves), but other parts of his text are conveniently interpreted with a view to slave raiding and trading: the Garamantes hunting the swift-footed Aithiopian Troglodytes on four-horse chariots. Whilst the chariots are identified in the form of Saharan rock art, the Troglodytes remain mysterious. Although the ancient Greek text does neither state whether these hunts were slave raids or not, nor where they actually took place, the frequent re-interpretation of this text passage was jointly responsible for the creation of the myth of Saharan slave raids against Black Africans in classical times. The scene – a drive-hunt on war-like chariots – gives rise to some speculation. Hunting people for other purposes than for enslaving them is admittedly hard to imagine, but nevertheless should be taken into consideration as long as speculation prevails.
Biological anthropology
quote: Marta Mirazón Lahr conducted research on skeletons from Fezzan dating to the Roman era and found that the skeletons most closely matched Neolithic Sahelian samples, from Chad, Mali, and Niger. Lahr associates these remains with the Garamantes, and concluded that the Garamantes had connections with both the Sahel and northern Africa.
Nikita et al. (2011) examined the biological affinities of the Garamantes using cranial nonmetric traits and the Mean Measure of Divergence and Mahalanobis D(2). They were compared to other North African populations, including the Egyptian, Algerian, Tunisian and Sudanese, roughly contemporary to them. Overall, three clusters were identified: (1) the Garamantes, (2) Gizeh and Kerma, and (3) Soleb, Alexandrians, Algerians and Carthagians. The analysis concluded that the Garamantes were isolated, with the Sahara playing a role as a barrier to geneflow. The distance between the Garamantes and their neighbors was high and the population appeared to be an outlier.
The remains of a young Sub-Saharan African woman, which has been dated to the 1st millennium BCE and possessed a lip plug that is associated with Sahelian African groups, was buried among other Sub-Saharan Africans that were part of the heterogenous Garamantian population. Power et al. (2019) states: "This ornament demonstrates that some Garamantes individuals shared aspects of their material culture with Sahelian societies more broadly, either through migration or contact, while their burial within Garamantes cemeteries shows their integration into the normative funerary rituals of contemporary Garamantian society. The combination of morphometric and isotopic work further reinforces the view that Garamantian society included individuals of diverse geographical origin, some of whom may have been first generation Trans-Saharan migrants." The craniometrics results also identified another sub-group within the Garamantes buried in the Wadi al-Ajjal. The morphology is observed widely among Mediterranean people.
Script
quote: The Garamantes may have used a nearly indecipherable form of proto-Tifinagh. Blench (2019) states: One of the most problematic aspects is the language and inscriptions attributed to the Garamantes...Sites in the vicinity of Jarma, the Garamantian capital of what is now known as Fazzan, have abundant inscriptions (Fig. 14.7). 67 They are found cut or painted on dark grey amphorae, in the tombs of Garamantian cemeteries, such as those of Saniat bin Huwaydi.68 A recent project under the auspices of the British Library has digitised most of the known inscriptions and these are described in Biagetti et al.69 Although the inscriptions are in Berber characters, only some are decipherable. Various reasons for this have been suggested; either the messages were deliberately coded, so that only specific readers could understand them. Alternatively, they may have had a ‘ludic’ nature. The most exciting possibility is that they were in a non-Berber language, perhaps Nilo-Saharan or something unknown.
Of course you got that from wikipedia on the Garamante article, but the point is that the core elements of what became "Garamante" culture originates within the Sahara itself and was once widespread. And this culture connected various parts of North, North East, and West Africa long before the Garamantes existed. This nonsense of the Garamantes being some kind of "outlier" is just Europeans trying to claim this culture is some kind of Eurasian transplant. And this is why most of the fundamental facts about the history of cattle domestication, chariots, nomadism, pottery and so forth all showing a "sub saharan" origin are downplayed in European discussions of ancient "North Africa". But facts are facts and the Garamantes have for a long time been promoted by Europeans as the exclusive users of Chariots in ancient North Africa. And this is why European scholars often focus on them and not the evidence that has been well documented that these chariots predate the garamantes by many years.
Because this is the narrative they want to promote about the evolution of culture and technology in ancient Africa:
quote: The first step towards trading slaves is, of course, catching them. At least initially, the Garamantes appear to have done their own slaving. This is what we can deduce from Herodotus, who famously remarks that they hunted the Troglodyte Ethiopians on four-horsed chariots.46 David Mattingly makes the interesting suggestion that the representations of Garamantian chariots that are widespread across the Sahara were created not by the Garamantes themselves, but by their victims, groups of earlier pastoral people who used the rock shelters in which the drawings are found (Mattingly 2003: 89). He notes that the chariots could not have been used on the full route across the desert and they could easily have been dismantled and reassembled at appropriate points
All that Glitters is Not Gold: Facing the Myths of Ancient Trade between North and Sub-Saharan Africa In: Landscapes, Sources and Intellectual Projects of the West African Past Authors: Sonja Magnavita and Carlos Magnavita
general acceptance of some basic features, thus creating what can be called a ‘factoid,’ i.e., “a speculation or guess that has been repeated so often it is even- tually taken for hard fact.”3 The most widely accepted and often evoked factoid or myth is certainly a traffic – or even trade – in gold and slaves from West Africa toward the North in classical times. Although often called ‘slave trade,’ what is actually meant is a sort of exploitation of sub-Saharan Africa rather than a reciprocal transfer of goods or services. In contrast to this, the concept of a ‘silent trade in gold,’ as drawn on Herodotus’ mid-first millennium bc ac- count of Carthaginians bartering with others somewhere on the Atlantic coast of northern Africa,4 gives allusion to an explicitly balanced and non-fraudulent exchange of goods, i.e. gold versus various (unnamed) items of acceptable value. Those taking Herodotus’ account verbatim might be disappointed that he remained silent on living merchandises potentially added to that gold (such as humans, i.e. slaves), but other parts of his text are conveniently in- terpreted with a view to slave raiding and trading: the Garamantes hunting the swift-footed Aithiopian Troglodytes on four-horse chariots.5 Whilst the chariots are identified in the form of Saharan rock art, the Troglodytes remain mysterious. Although the ancient Greek text does neither state whether these hunts were slave raids or not, nor where they actually took place, the frequent re-interpretation of this text passage was jointly responsible for the creation of the myth of Saharan slave raids against Black Africans in classical times. The scene – a drive-hunt on war-like chariots – gives rise to some speculation. Hunting people for other purposes than for enslaving them is admittedly hard to imagine, but nevertheless should be taken into consideration as long as speculation prevails. Thus, hunting for sport, amusement, or for threatening neighbouring people that could for their part be potential instigators, these are possibilities that should not be ruled out, especially when the manoeuvre of transporting the thus captured slaves back to the Garamantian homeland
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Herodotus on Ancient Africa: There is no Sub-Saharan Study of Antiquity and the Middle Ages
quote: In this episode Dr. Rebecca Futo Kennedy guides us into not only ancient Africa but also specifically North Africa and brings up the history of a commonly used and misused term that we constantly see today and that is the term "Sub-Saharan."
She not only gives us a history of the term but how it is used to often whitewash or erase black Africans and their presence in North Africa and its history.
posted
^ I cited Dr. Kennedy's blog before in a thread on the Suppliant Women that I think is deleted now. But here is her blog again: Colorlines in Classical North Africa.
She is absolutely correct. To the Greco-Romans Libya/Africa was never divided into a 'North' and 'Sub-Sahara' as modern Eurocentrics do.
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in the north the Wadi ash-Shati with the Wadi az-Zallaf, where the main town is Adri;
in the center the Wadi Irawan and Wadi Al-Ajal (a.k.a. Wadi al-Hayat), where the main cities are Jarmah (derived from Garamantes) and Sebha;
in the west, the Wadi Tanezzuft, where the main towns are Ghat, Barkat, and Fewet;
and in the southeast the Wadi Barjuj, to Ghadduwah, Zuwaylah, and Murzuq.
The country has not always been a desert. Between about 10,000 and 6,000 BCE, the country was more like a savanna, and there were perennial lakes. There were people living here, who are known as the makers of the Wild fauna art, named after the animals represented (e.g., Wadi Mathendous). Tools were made of flint stone. The sixth millennium, however, witnessed great droughts, and the area was completely abandoned. The lakes disappeared, leaving large fields of salt - one of the main articles of future Garamantian trade.
The story repeated itself after 5,000 BCE, when the monsoon brought rain from equatorial Africa to the north. There were new lakes, new people with better tools, and there were new artists; their rock carvings are known as "pastoral". Between 3,500 and 2,000 BCE, however, the monsoon started to retreat and the vegetation gradually disappeared, a process that probably was sped up by overgrazing. The lakes disappeared again, prompting humans and animals to move to the habitable niches and to the edges of the desert. Among these niches were the four fertile areas mentioned above. The people living there, the Garamantes, had access to water - Lake Ubari is one of the surviving lakes - and were to become famous as cattle breeders and salt traders. However, for centuries, we hardly hear about them, because they were living in isolation, beyond the Gebel as-Soda. Only when the horse and the dromedary had become domesticated, after c.1500 and c.200, was contact made with other civilizations. This is the age when the Berber languages appear to have spread to the west, which proves increased trade contacts.
Lifestyle The oldest capital of the Garamantes appears to have been Zinchecra, situated on a mountain spur south of the Wadi Al-Ajal. It was inhabited from 900 BCE to the first century CE, but was replaced by Garama, three kilometers to the northeast. Between the two towns are the tombs of Al-Hatia, which resemble little pyramids, and are believed to be royal mausoleums. However, this hypothesis has not been without criticism.
The Greek researcher Herodotus of Halicarnassus (fifth century BCE) describes the country as follows: There is a hill of salt, a spring, and a great number of fruit-bearing date-palms, and the men who dwell here are called the Garamantes, a very great nation, who carry [humid] earth to lay over the salt and then sow crops. ... Among them also are produced the cattle which feed backwards, because they have their horns bent down forwards, and ... cannot go forwards as they feed, because the horns would run into the ground. Except for this, and the firmness of their hide, they do not differ from other cattle. With their four-horse chariots, these Garamantes hunt the Cave-dwelling Ethiopians, who are the swiftest of foot of all men. The ruins of this second capital, Garama, have been found beneath the medieval caravan city, and must have covered at least 20 hectares. This city dates back to the beginning of the fourth century BCE, and archaeologists have found temples, a market, houses, and baths, some of them built of natural stone. This city was surrounded by a giant wall and a ditch.
Botanical samples have shown that the inhabitants produced wheat, dates, olives, grapes, and several other crops, which were irrigated by foggaras (or qanat). The center of the city was, it seems, the camp of the army; it was not only used to control the oases along the roads to Lake Chad, but also to fight against the desert tribes in the east and northwest. Archaeologists have also discovered cemeteries with, taken together, about 120,000 graves, which corresponds to a city of about 10,000 people, comparable to Pompeii.
Herodotus' reference to chariots has been confirmed archaeologically, and it seems that the desert tribes could at times be very aggressive indeed. The territories of the Punic ports in the far north, like Sabratha, Oea, and Lepcis Magna, were at times threatened. These conflicts, however, were never extremely serious, because the Garamantes did not want to settle down on the coastal plains; besides, the people of the desert and the Punics needed each other. There were nomads traveling back and forth with their herds; in the winter and spring, they were in the south, but in the summer, they moved to the north, where they worked as wage workers on farms, gathering olives. Their dromedaries were used to plow and the manure was quite useful too. There was some trade as well. Dairy products and meat were bartered for cereals and oil. Ivory, gold, other products from Sub-Saharan Africa, and of course salt were exchanged with the products of the urban artisans. There was also some exchange of knowledge. The stories that were told in the Mediterranean ports about the golden apples of the Hesperides contain information about the female warriors who guarded the gold of the Senegal river.
The Garamantes and Rome At the end of the second century BCE, the Romans appeared on the scene, taking control of the Punic ports, and although they were, as the crow flies, 700 kilometers north of Garama, their arrival had an enormous impact, because the Romans were not the kind of people who acquiesced to the perennial raids of the nomadic Garamantes. According to the Roman poet Lucan, the first conflict took place when the Garamantes joined the Numidian king Juba I during the war between Julius Caesar and the Senate.note Juba's army defeated the Roman commander Curio, but was in turn defeated by Caesar.
The Garamantes in Juba's army may have been a group of nomads, but the Romans now realized that the Garamantian threat could be serious, and in 19 BCE their general Lucius Cornelius Balbus marched against the Phazanians and Garamantes.note The war may have been very difficult, but on his return, Balbus could afford a splendid triumph; he also constructed a theater on the Field of Mars. It is possible that this attack on the Garamantian homeland caused great upheavals, which resulted in the abandoning of Zinchecra and the transfer of the royal residence to Garama. Another conflict took place in 15 BCE, when the governor of Cyrenaica, Publius Sulpicius Quirinius, attacked a group of Garamantes that had joined forces with the Marmarides, a tribe living east of the Garamantian heartland.note The next campaign was 22 CE, when Garamantes - probably nomads, perhaps the official army - joined Tacfarinas' war against Rome.note In 69, Garamantes were in the army of the city of Oea, which attacked Lepcis Magna (more...). It is possible that the execution of Garamantes taken captive during a punitive raid is shown on a mosaic in the Dar Buc Ammera villa.
We are not informed about conflicts in the second century, but Rome still regarded the Garamantian threat as serious. In 203, three forts were built (Ghadames, Gheriat al-Garbia, Bu Njem), to keep the nomads away, and in 400, the Numidian rebel Gildo could recruit Garamantes.note Again, we do not know whether they were nomads moving between Garama and the north, or soldiers of the official army. It would be wrong, though, to conclude that the Garamantes and Romans were always at each other's throats. The Romans needed gold, salt, slaves, ivory, and exotic animals for their gladiatoral contests (e.g., ostriches and rhinoceroses); the Garamantes needed metal, ceramics, olive oil, and other products that were found by archaeologists. Usually, the relations were good, and the Bu Njem ostraca suggest that there was an understanding that runaway slaves from the Roman cities who reached Garama, were returned (ostracon 71). The Garamantian warriors had become tradesmen, and it is indicative of the now friendly relations that the Romans believed the Garamantes to be descendants from no less a forefather than Apollo,note and that the city converted to Christianity in 569. Decline It may have been the close tie between Garama and the Roman cities that caused the end of the desert city. When the Vandals conquered Sabratha, Oea, and Lepcis Magna, the demand for the Garamantian products fell, and Garama seems to have suffered. Another factor may have been that the level of the groundwater in the land of the Garamantes dropped, making it more difficult to maintain the qanat system. Nevertheless, the city was still alive when the Arabs conquered it in the mid-seventh century.
Garamante royal tombs (?)
-------------------- Mahirap gisingin ang nagtutulog-tulugan. Posts: 26489 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: ^ I cited Dr. Kennedy's blog before in a thread on the Suppliant Women that I think is deleted now. But here is her blog again: Colorlines in Classical North Africa.
She is absolutely correct. To the Greco-Romans Libya/Africa was never divided into a 'North' and 'Sub-Sahara' as modern Eurocentrics do.
Thanks for sharing this. This concept is something i’ve been exploring a lot lately and as silly as it’s sounds it’s only just recently dawned on me just how much modern concepts are projected on to the past. It’s actually a lot more insidious than i realized. An ancient term gets treated as if it’s a 1:1 translation of a modern term, and the implication becomes that the [ancient] term carries the same context as the modern one; and that exclusion of that ancient term implies the exclusion of it’s modern interpretation, in the ancient context. It subtly reinforces the idea that modern concepts reflect some universal truth, clearly known to all people throughout history.
To be honest the part [in the video above] about Greeks not even really having a concept of “Sub-Saharan” Africa (thinking the land past the desert was uninhabitable) is something i just started to consider earlier today. Ironically i was looking at a map you posted when it dawned on me.
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posted
I admit, I'm used to thinking of "Aethiopia" as addressing the kingdom of Kush first and foremost, even if it does literally translate to "land of the burnt-faced people". I guess that, when the Greeks and Romans spoke of "Aethiopians" outside of Kush, they were referencing people that physically resembled Kush's more South Sudanese-like citizens. That might make it somewhat synonymous with our modern stereotype of the "sub-Saharan African", but it wouldn't necessarily include all peoples we would call Black or black-skinned (or what the Greeks called "melanchroes") today.
Alternatively, "Aethiopian" might simply refer to the very darkest-skinned peoples the Greeks knew, without necessarily including less dark skin tones that are nonetheless commonly associated with our idea of "Black people". Had you presented them with a typical San or Eritrean person, they may not have thought of them as "Aethiopian".
posted
Anyway, as far as the Garamantes are concerned, I do imagine them to be primarily dark-skinned Saharan Africans, with perhaps some West or Central African admixture from further south. They could have also had some admixture with lighter-skinned people from the Libyan coast, although I dunno just how light those other people actually would have been (I suspect the lighter-skinned "Libyans" you see in some Egyptian representations are of people from the Cyrenaican coast rather than the desert interior).
quote:Originally posted by Breadlum: Thanks for sharing this. This concept is something i’ve been exploring a lot lately and as silly as it’s sounds it’s only just recently dawned on me just how much modern concepts are projected on to the past. It’s actually a lot more insidious than i realized. An ancient term gets treated as if it’s a 1:1 translation of a modern term, and the implication becomes that the [ancient] term carries the same context as the modern one; and that exclusion of that ancient term implies the exclusion of it’s modern interpretation, in the ancient context. It subtly reinforces the idea that modern concepts reflect some universal truth, clearly known to all people throughout history.
To be honest the part [in the video above] about Greeks not even really having a concept of “Sub-Saharan” Africa (thinking the land past the desert was uninhabitable) is something i just started to consider earlier today. Ironically i was looking at a map you posted when it dawned on me.
Yes, it is absolutely ludicrous that scholars have tried to interject their modern racial views and prejudices onto ancient authors. It is like when the Egyptologist Henry Breasted translated the Egyptian word for Nubian nhsw as "negro"! LOL Even though Nubians actually were close kin of the Egyptians. Then there is also the Greek myth of Phaethon nearly crashing the sun on Earth which explains why all the southern nations (those south of the Mediterranean) had their lands turned to desert and the inhabitants' skins burnt black. The myth itself shows that the Greeks (and Romans) generally viewed the Mediterranean Sea as the main divider with black peoples being native south of that zone hence black people in Southwest Asia and in India.
quote:Originally posted by BrandonP: I admit, I'm used to thinking of "Aethiopia" as addressing the kingdom of Kush first and foremost, even if it does literally translate to "land of the burnt-faced people". I guess that, when the Greeks and Romans spoke of "Aethiopians" outside of Kush, they were referencing people that physically resembled Kush's more South Sudanese-like citizens. That might make it somewhat synonymous with our modern stereotype of the "sub-Saharan African", but it wouldn't necessarily include all peoples we would call Black or black-skinned (or what the Greeks called "melanchroes") today.
Alternatively, "Aethiopian" might simply refer to the very darkest-skinned peoples the Greeks knew, without necessarily including less dark skin tones that are nonetheless commonly associated with our idea of "Black people". Had you presented them with a typical San or Eritrean person, they may not have thought of them as "Aethiopian".
The etymology of 'aethiope' to mean "burnt face" was a later Greek explanation albeit a rather forced one on Greek word play. The truth is 'aethiope' is actually not a Greek word at all but an exonym adopted by the Greeks. The irony is that the word was orginally applied probably to ancient Canaan since Greek myths say Aethiopia was the land of King Kepheus, his queen Cassiopia, and their daughter Andromeda who married the hero Perseus. This Ethiopia had as its capital Joppa and was located directly east of Libya (Africa), therefore the most likely location was the Canaanite city of Yaffa. How then did the name get applied to people just south of Egypt?? Also, I find it interesting that Greek sources say that Egyptians, Libyans, Nubians, and even Arabians and Canaanites share common ancestry. I should start a separate thread on this topic because it is a significant one that tends to get ignored because it debunks the claims of black people being native only to south of the Sahara.
quote: Anyway, as far as the Garamantes are concerned, I do imagine them to be primarily dark-skinned Saharan Africans, with perhaps some West or Central African admixture from further south. They could have also had some admixture with lighter-skinned people from the Libyan coast, although I dunno just how light those other people actually would have been (I suspect the lighter-skinned "Libyans" you see in some Egyptian representations are of people from the Cyrenaican coast rather than the desert interior).
I do recall that the Garamantes were described as dark though not as dark as the swift-footed Aethiopians they enslaved. I believe the Romans described them as "bronze" in complexion which the Roman mosaics seem to confirm.
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quote:I do recall that the Garamantes were described as dark though not as dark as the swift-footed Aethiopians they enslaved. I believe the Romans described them as "bronze" in complexion which the Roman mosaics seem to confirm.
I believe Tukuler once quoted a source as saying the bronze or yellow coloring might have been paint smeared on prisoners.
quote:Originally posted by Firewall: Some updated info about the Garamantes.
Garamantes
Slave-raiding
quote: Based on the Herodotus account that referenced the Garamantes hunting Ethiopian cave-dwellers,Sonja Magnavita and Carlos Magnavita stated:
Those taking Herodotus’ account verbatim might be disappointed that he remained silent on living merchandises potentially added to that gold (such as humans, i.e. slaves), but other parts of his text are conveniently interpreted with a view to slave raiding and trading: the Garamantes hunting the swift-footed Aithiopian Troglodytes on four-horse chariots. Whilst the chariots are identified in the form of Saharan rock art, the Troglodytes remain mysterious. Although the ancient Greek text does neither state whether these hunts were slave raids or not, nor where they actually took place, the frequent re-interpretation of this text passage was jointly responsible for the creation of the myth of Saharan slave raids against Black Africans in classical times. The scene – a drive-hunt on war-like chariots – gives rise to some speculation. Hunting people for other purposes than for enslaving them is admittedly hard to imagine, but nevertheless should be taken into consideration as long as speculation prevails.
Biological anthropology
quote: Marta Mirazón Lahr conducted research on skeletons from Fezzan dating to the Roman era and found that the skeletons most closely matched Neolithic Sahelian samples, from Chad, Mali, and Niger. Lahr associates these remains with the Garamantes, and concluded that the Garamantes had connections with both the Sahel and northern Africa.
Nikita et al. (2011) examined the biological affinities of the Garamantes using cranial nonmetric traits and the Mean Measure of Divergence and Mahalanobis D(2). They were compared to other North African populations, including the Egyptian, Algerian, Tunisian and Sudanese, roughly contemporary to them. Overall, three clusters were identified: (1) the Garamantes, (2) Gizeh and Kerma, and (3) Soleb, Alexandrians, Algerians and Carthagians. The analysis concluded that the Garamantes were isolated, with the Sahara playing a role as a barrier to geneflow. The distance between the Garamantes and their neighbors was high and the population appeared to be an outlier.
The remains of a young Sub-Saharan African woman, which has been dated to the 1st millennium BCE and possessed a lip plug that is associated with Sahelian African groups, was buried among other Sub-Saharan Africans that were part of the heterogenous Garamantian population. Power et al. (2019) states: "This ornament demonstrates that some Garamantes individuals shared aspects of their material culture with Sahelian societies more broadly, either through migration or contact, while their burial within Garamantes cemeteries shows their integration into the normative funerary rituals of contemporary Garamantian society. The combination of morphometric and isotopic work further reinforces the view that Garamantian society included individuals of diverse geographical origin, some of whom may have been first generation Trans-Saharan migrants." The craniometrics results also identified another sub-group within the Garamantes buried in the Wadi al-Ajjal. The morphology is observed widely among Mediterranean people.
Script
quote: The Garamantes may have used a nearly indecipherable form of proto-Tifinagh. Blench (2019) states: One of the most problematic aspects is the language and inscriptions attributed to the Garamantes...Sites in the vicinity of Jarma, the Garamantian capital of what is now known as Fazzan, have abundant inscriptions (Fig. 14.7). 67 They are found cut or painted on dark grey amphorae, in the tombs of Garamantian cemeteries, such as those of Saniat bin Huwaydi.68 A recent project under the auspices of the British Library has digitised most of the known inscriptions and these are described in Biagetti et al.69 Although the inscriptions are in Berber characters, only some are decipherable. Various reasons for this have been suggested; either the messages were deliberately coded, so that only specific readers could understand them. Alternatively, they may have had a ‘ludic’ nature. The most exciting possibility is that they were in a non-Berber language, perhaps Nilo-Saharan or something unknown.
Some Updates on the Society
Garamantes
Society
quote: In the 1960s, archaeologists excavated part of the Garamantes' capital at modern Germa (situated around 150 km west of modern-day Sabha) and named it Garama (an earlier capital, Zinkekara, was located not far from the later Garama). Current research indicates that the Garamantes had about eight major towns, three of which have been examined as of 2004. In addition they had a large number of other settlements. Garama had a population of around four thousand and another six thousand living in villages within a 5 km radius.[citation needed]
Nikita et al. (2011) indicated that the skeletons of the Garamantes do not suggest regular warfare or strenuous activities. "The Garamantes exhibited low sexual dimorphism in the upper limbs, which is consistent to the pattern found in agricultural populations and implies that the engagement of males in warfare and construction works was not particularly intense. [...] the Garamantes did not appear systematically more robust than other North African populations occupying less harsh environments, indicating that life in the Sahara did not require particularly strenuous daily activities."[9]
Tichitt culture may have made cultural contributions (e.g., architecture, ceramics) to Garamantian culture, which was then subsequently reconstrued and innovated by Garamantes as these contributions were incorporated into Garamantian culture.[10] Archaeological ruins associated with the Garamantian kingdom include numerous tombs, forts, and cemeteries. The Garamantes constructed a network of tunnels, and shafts to mine the fossil water from under the limestone layer under the desert sand. The dating of these foggara is disputed, they appear between 200 BC to 200 CE but continued to be in use until at least the 7th century and perhaps later.[11] The network of tunnels is known to Berbers as Foggaras. The network allowed agriculture to flourish, and used a system of slave labor to keep it maintained.[1]
Language
quote: Linguist Roger Blench (2006) stated: “The Garamantes, whose empire in the Libyan Fezzan was overthrown by the Romans, wrote in a Libyan script, although we have no evidence they spoke Berber. What they did speak is open to conjecture; the most likely hypothesis is a Nilo-Saharan language, related either to Songhay or to Teda—the present-day language of the Tibesti.”[16]
Source wikipedia
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quote:Giuseppe Sergi (1951) analysed human skeletal remains from the Fezzan dating from the end of the Pastoral period up to the Roman period in the first centuries AD. Sergi concluded that the Garamantes were mostly of 'Mediterranean' type, similar to modern Berbers, which he termed 'Euroafrican'. He also found an influx of 'Negroid' types and an increase of 'mixed' types dating mostly from the Roman period. In a review of the skeletal evidence analysed by Sergi, M.C. Chamla (1968) found that 46.6% of the individuals were of 'Eurafrican' type (closely related to Berbers), 26.6% were of mixed Eurafrican-Negroid type, and 26.6% were of 'a more predominantly Negroid' type.
Francesca Ricci et al. (2013) analysed skeletal samples from the Garamantian site of Fewet in the Fezzan and found that they were similar to the Mediterranean 'Euroafrican' type identified by Sergi, but with some evidence for gene flow from (probably) sub-Saharan populations, "similarly to what Sergi (1951) suggested discussing the possible hybridization between the “Mediterranean” Group I and the “Negroid” Group IV." This gene flow was more evident in the female skeletons, suggesting an influx of non-local females possibly from the Sahel region.
Marta Mirazón Lahr et al. (2010) conducted research on skeletons from Fezzan dating from the Roman era and found that the skeletons clustered most closely with Neolithic Sahelian samples from Chad, Mali, and Niger, and secondarily to Roman Egyptians from Alexandria and Nubians from Soleb. 1st millennium BC samples from Algeria and Tunisia were somewhat more distant but still rather close to the Fezzan skeletons. Lahr et al. concluded that the Garamantes had connections with both the Sahel and northern Africa.
Efthymia Nikita et al. (2011) examined the biological affinities of the Garamantes using cranial nonmetric traits and the Mean Measure of Divergence and Mahalanobis D(2). They were compared to other North African populations, including the Egyptian, Algerian, Tunisian and Sudanese, roughly contemporary to them. Overall, three clusters were identified: (1) the Garamantes, (2) Gizeh and Kerma, and (3) Soleb, Alexandrians, Algerians and Carthagians. The analysis concluded that the Garamantes were isolated, with the Sahara playing a role as a barrier to geneflow. The distance between the Garamantes and their neighbors was high and the population appeared to be an outlier.
The remains of a young sub-Saharan African woman, which has been dated to the 1st millennium BC and possessed a lip plug that is associated with Sahelian African groups, was buried among other Sub-Saharan Africans that were part of the heterogenous Garamantian population. Power et al. (2019) states: "This ornament demonstrates that some Garamantes individuals shared aspects of their material culture with Sahelian societies more broadly, either through migration or contact, while their burial within Garamantes cemeteries shows their integration into the normative funerary rituals of contemporary Garamantian society. The combination of morphometric and isotopic work further reinforces the view that Garamantian society included individuals of diverse geographical origin, some of whom may have been first generation Trans-Saharan migrants." The craniometric results also identified another sub-group within the Garamantes buried in the Wadi al-Ajjal, with a morphology that is widely observed among Mediterranean people.
According to David Mattingly et al. (2003): The Garamantes contained a significant component of light-skinned Libyans and some at least of these people were buried in monumental graves. This picture differs from the situation in the Sahara in the late Neolithic, as Chamla's work suggests a higher proportion of negroid types at that date, which might suggest that the creation of Garamantian civilisation involved the in-migration of at least some part of the population from regions to the north or northeast. The cemeteries contain a substantial number (over 50 percent) of individuals of either mixed blood or full negro physionomy. Some of these individuals may have been in poorer graves, but not all of them, suggesting that some individuals of mixed race or black skin were prominent within Garamantian society. Given the literary testimony of Garamantian raids against their 'Ethiopian' neighbours, it is likely that some of the negroes present were slaves or descendants of slaves. The maintenance of strong non-negroid traits into late and post-Garamantian contexts would seem to indicate that intermixing of the races was not completely open and may have been structured within Garamantian society.
Source Wikipedia
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So the impression I've gotten is that the early Garamante crania were 'type B' while later crania tend to be 'type A'. Though it is interesting that the nonmetric data even from the type B crania show no close relation to Egypto-Nubians as well as Carthage crania meaning they were their own distinct population of North Africans.
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Even though Nubians actually were close kin of the Egyptians. Then there is also the Greek myth of Phaethon nearly crashing the sun on Earth which explains why all the southern nations (those south of the Mediterranean) had their lands turned to desert and the inhabitants' skins burnt black. The myth itself shows that the Greeks (and Romans) generally viewed the Mediterranean Sea as the main divider with black peoples being native south of that zone hence black people in Southwest Asia and in India.
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