The Kingdom of the Garamantians

It took me some time of writing, but now I finally finished my small article about the Garamantians. In the first post I will summarize the Garamantian history while also shortly mentioning other aspects of Garamantian culture (Mostly architecture). In later posts I might add other stuff like more pictures and so on. I would like to thank David Mattingly who allowed me to post pictures of his works (See literature below).



The History of the Garamantians (Part 1)

The field of Libyan archaeology and historical studies isn't exactly the most popular, especially when it's dedicated to indigenous cultures. One of these indigenous cultures, also the most "famous" of them, were the Garamantians. The Garamantians were a Berber people in what is now known as Fezzan, which is either the indigenous Berber name for the landscape or an Arabic transliteration of Roman "Phazania".
The Garamantians were the successors of pastoralist cattle nomads who roamed the Sahara since the 7th millennium BC. These Saharan nomads are today renowned for their often very complex cave paintings, depicting varying scenes out of their life, like the hunt, the watch over the cattle herd or diverse anthropomorphic depictions. Here a beautiful example, found in Tassili, Algeria:



In general, these nomads are barely tangible from an archaeological perspective, but we have records of Ancient Egyptians clashing with some of them throughout the whole late second millennium – early first millennium BC. In the later phase they were even able to establish a dynasty in Egypt, known as the 22nd and 23rd dynasty, ruling parts of Egypt until they had been defeated by the Kushite king Piye / Piankhi in the late 8th century BC. However, just at the time Libyans had been exterminated in Egypt, something was happening in their initial homeland: The time which the scholars call the “Early Garamantian Period” (Ca. 1000-500 BC) had begun. This phase marks the first permanent settlements and forts in the Wadi al-Ajal, in what should later become the core of royal Garamantian territory. Archaeology had proven a strong material continuity between the Neolithic cultures and the early Garamantians in these sites, especially in Zinkhera, the most important early Garamantian site. Zinkhera also allows us to take a view on early Garamantian architecture: Apparently, the people were living in “rough stone-built (or stone-footed) oval huts, whose upper walls were perhaps made of mud and organic materials, and roofed with a thatching of palm fronds. Most of these structures were of simple form, compromising one or two oval or sub-rectangular rooms, sometimes with small enclosures associated (perhaps for animals)”.
A thing that goes hand in hand with settled populations is the introduction of agriculture. As surveys had proven, Garamantians in Zinkhera grew bread wheat, barley, grape vine, figs and most importantly, date palms.



Beside growing plants Garamantians also bred animals, in particular pigs, sheep & goats, bovines and, most noteworthy, donkeys and horses. Indeed, Garamantians are thought to be the initial introducer of the horse to Libya, and eventually the whole Sahara. Horses should become of very high importance for the Garamantians, since it allowed them to travel through wide landscapes in considerable speed.
The next phase in Garamantian history is the “Proto-Urban Phase” and spans from roughly 500 BC – 0 AD. This phase saw the shift of the hillfort of Zinkhera to the city of Garama down there in the valley, leading to the assumption that there was now a somewhat secured situation provided in the Fezzan. The foundation of Garama has been dated to 400-300 BC. In its early phase Garama only consisted of mudbrick buildings, but this should change soon.
In this period the Garamantians also introduced the foggara, so stone tunnels which connected natural water reservoirs with the Garamantian fields, allowing the Garamantians to grow even very “thirsty” plants like cotton (Which was introduced in a large scale during the later Garamantian phase). It is very likely that the foggaras were introduced via Egypt. The Garamantians were indeed now in relatively close contact to their northern neighbours, not only Egypt. For example excavators found several Phoenician potteries, beads as well as other objects which appear to be of Phoenician or Greek origin, like for example this bearded face, resembling glass pendants how they were found in Carthaginian territory:



Beside these finds, Garamantians also finally stepped into the light of historiography, with Herodotus (5th century BC) describing them as the habitants of the Fezzan, owning chariots and cattle with horns that big that the cattle has to graze backwards.
All these facts let one assume that the Garamantians had become the most important ethnicity of the Fezzan, that they had won suzerainty over the other Berber people of that region. We are still pretty ignorant about the details, but eventually it was during the course of this phase that the Garamantians did the final step from a bare confederation to a proper kingdom, with Garama as its capital. The first trustworthy mention of a Garamantian king is by Tacitus, who stated that Tacferinas, a Berber auxiliary who revolted against Rome during the early 1st century AD, united with the Garamantian king. Reports of the Garamantians being governed by kings stretch until the very end of the kingdom.
Probably it was also during this period that the Garamantians introduced the Berber script called Tifinagh, which is said to be a variation of the Phoenician alphabet. See here the currently only known written record certainly ascribed to Garamantians, an ostraca found in Garama (1st-Early 2nd century):



In conclusion, this phase set all foundation stones for the upcoming golden Age of the Garamantian Kingdom, with the most important ones definitely being the introduction of the foggara as well as the foundation of Garama, which acquired a “monumental character” during the first century BC. Such a “monumental character” is proven by the excavation of this temple (GER001.3), which was founded during that era and maybe was dedicated to Ammon:



Indeed, the Garamantian kingdom was well established enough to enter its Golden Age, a time we now call the “Classic Garamantian Period” (Ca. 0 AD – 400 AD). The start of this period is marked not by an internal development but an exterior one: In 46 BC, the Romans have conquered the Berber Kingdom of Numidia after the battle of Thapsus and therefore also annexed it easternmost territories in northern Libya. The Garamantian kingdom now faced the mightiest empire the western world has seen to this point. During the 20’s BC this Empire decided to go to war with diverse kingdoms to its southern borders: The Yemenite Kingdom of Saba, Kush in Nubia as well as Garamantia. The exact reasons are not determined, but eventually it was either simply a war ridden by Imperialistic motives or a reaction to Garamantian or Garamantian supported raiding activities in the “Africa Proconsularis” province. Be it as it may, in 21-20 BC the governor of that province, Cornelius Balbus, decided to strike against the last independent Berber kingdom. He assembled a force in Sabratha, a town west of modern Tripoli and marched south, towards Garama, which was reported by Pliny to be “very famous”. Although Pliny stated that Garamantian raiders filled the wells beside the caravan routs with sand the Roman army was able to cross the desert, first marching over Ghadamis and then south-east, towards Garama. After sacking the city the Romans returned north.



If the initial reason of this campaign was the permanent conquest of the Garamantians it wasn’t a success, even if Balbus was granted a triumphal procession in Rome. Only 5 years later the Roman governor of Crete and Cyrene had to take action against Garamantian raiders, though this campaign was probably restricted entirely to this province. Also from an archaeological view there are no hints for a Roman occupation of the Fezzan. That being said, conflicts between Romans and Garamantians, involved both directly or indirectly, should continue atleast until Justinian (Mid 6th century AD), eventually even until the Arabs conquered the whole region.
The invasion of Balbus aswell as the following wars and Garamantian raids are a concrete proof that Romans and Garamantians cared for eachother and were interested to keep close relations, military but also economical ones. Indeed, with Balbus invasion Garamantia was definitely integrated into the Mediterranean civilization, also achieved by the upcoming trade between those two states. Although already Herodotus (5th century BC) reported of some type of trade route we can certainly say that with the beginning of the close contacts with Rome the first extensive Sub-Saharan trade routes were established. See below a map depicting these trade routes running through the Fezzan, heavily orientating on the numerous oasis settlements:



From what we can say by archaeology the trade started to kick off from around the mid 1st AD century onwards. It seems that Garamantia would have exported wild beasts required for Roman arenas, ivory as well as slaves, all captured in the area around Lake Chad, described as “Agisymba” by Ptolemy. The amount of slaves traded with Rome was apparently rather limited. Meanwhile, slaves were kept within Garamantian territory in significant numbers, mostly to do the dirty and extensive tasks within the extensive Garamantian agriculture, like the construction of foggaras. As it seems the Garamantian hunting not only brought captured slaves back to Fezzan but also goods like cotton, sorghum, pearl millet and cowry shells.
Anyway, other exported goods were semi-precious stones like red carnelian, known in Romans sources as “Garamantian Carbuncles”, and eventually also salt, gold, natron, surplus agricultural produce and manufactured jewelry.
In exchange for their exported goods the Garamantians received oil, wine, eventually fish, glassware (Even though Garamantians produced glass on their own) and rotary querns, atleast for a limited amount of time before copying their design. Indeed, the amount of imported pottery is overwhelming and, remarkably, not only found in elite but even ordinary graves. Those are clear hints on what substantial role the trade with Rome played.
The influence of Roman and Mediterranean culture is not only visible in the imported goods, but also the fact that Garamantians started to implement Roman styles into their architecture. While the aforementioned temple GER001.3 was already founded during the 1st century BC, high status buildings made of stone became especially popular during the “Classic Garamantian Period”. The most spectacular Garamantian stone building in situ is this mausoleum at Qasr Watwat:



See here more stonework fragments from Garama:



Furthermore, here a hypothetical phase 7 (Ca. 100-200 AD) reconstruction of the colonnade of temple GER001.3, about which have talked earlier already:



Back then the stone buildings were plastered and painted with chalk and gypsum. Fragmentary remains of such were found in Garama:



See here a map depicting all stone buildings in the, so far, excavated area of Garama:



Not only Garama prospered during this era, but also other cities like Qasr ash-Sharabba, which even extended over a larger area than Garama, probably because it lacked external restrictions like Garama did with its moat. See here a layout comparison between the two cities during the Garamantian era:

The History of the Garamantians (Part 2)

The population in these cities was booming, the largest cities like the ones mentioned above wielded a population of around 2500, maybe even more. All in all, the Garamantian kingdom probably contained somewhere between 100.000 and 150.000 humans. For comparison: The population of 19th and early 20th century Fazzan was estimated to be around 24.000-34.000. Indeed, the Garamantian age was the golden era in the history of the region.
However, as every Golden Age the one of the Garamantians had to come to an end as well. The era of the Garamantian decline and fragmentation is described as “Late Garamantian Period” (Ca. 400-700 AD). Its start is marked by an increasing fortifying of Garamantian towns, while undefended villages were abandoned. In many cities there were built fort-like structures, called “Qasr’s” in Arabic. One such Qasr was established during the early “Late Garamantian Period” right in the center of Garama. See here a reconstruction of Garma during this phase:



Although the quality of the imported goods from the north was not necessarily declining the quantity definitely was. This can be based on the decline of the Tripolitanian cities, eventually through raids of the Berber Austuriani, and the Western Roman Empire in general. Another possible reason for the Garamantian decline might have been seismic events in the 360’s. The classical explanation of the Garamantian kingdom dying because of a massively declining water table is only partial true: While some regions were definitely affected by this problem Garama itself preserved a relatively high water table well until the 20th century.
We don’t know any details, which we actually barely do while talking about Garamantia, but it seems that the Kingdom was indeed fragmenting in this time, possibly in many petty kingdoms. However, the Garamantians were still able to threat the Romans in the north after they reconquered Tripolitania from the Vandals: During the mid 6th century, the Roman emperor Justinian made a peace treaty with diverse Berber peoples, under them also the Garamantians. It is also said that the Garamantians accepted Christianity during that time, but we totally lack any archaeological proof for that and despite that, Roman influence barely stretched far beyond the Tripolitanian coast at that point, therefore excluding large-scaled Roman aid by building up Christian infrastructure in that area. Except of that, Phazanian Christians are not mentioned when the Arabs conquered the region.
With the Arabs we also move to the final chapter of the history of the Kingdom of the Garamantians. Their first foothold in Africa was Egypt which they conquered in 640 AD. From there they sent forces into the South and West. While they were defeated in the South (Nubia), they made slow but steady progress in the West. The conquest of the Fezzan was described by Ibn ‘Abd-Al Hakam in the 9th century AD. In particular, he describes how ‘Uqba bin Nafi and his 400 riders conquered several Phazanian petty kingdoms like the kingdom of Zuwila and Waddan and also humiliated the Garamantian king:

“When he (‘Uqba) approached he sent a messenger, calling the inhabitants to accept Islam, which they did. He stopped six miles from the town and their king came out to see ‘Uqba. The latter sent his cavalry, which cut the king off from his retinue and then made him walk. He reached ‘Uqba in a state of exhaustion, for he was soft, and began to spit blood. He then asked: “Why have you treated me this way after I have obeyed you and come? ‘Uqba answered: “To teach you a lesson, for when you remember this you will not make war on the Arabs.” Then he imposed on the king a tribute of 360 slaves.”

The route of ‘Uqba conquering the whole Fezzan can be reconstructed like this:



However, the Arabic conquest didn’t meant immediate Islamization and Arabization of the Garamantians. Instead, it seems that a large-scaled Islamization didn’t occur in the Fezzan until the 11th-12th, so roughly around the time the Arabic Banu Hilal devastated the region. This date can be estimated by archaeology (First mosque in Garama and Zuwila founded during the 11th century, considerable amounts of found pig bones).
With the Arabs the Kingdom of the Garamantians very likely found its end after almost one millennium, even though there is one Arabic report of the area around the Wadi al-Ajal being separated from the Kingdom of the Banu Khattab (10th-12th century). If this was a direct continuity of the Garamantian Kingdom may be disputed.

What concluding can we say about the Kingdom of the Garamantians? Definitely that it was the first indigenous Libyan state. That it introduced / popularized several innovations in the Sahara, like horses & chariots, the script, large-scaled agriculture, stonework buildings and possibly more. In summary, I would describe it as a slave-based kingdom secured by the military and prospering by groundwater exploitation and booming trade with its northern neighbors.


Literature:

-David J. Mattingly, 2003: "The Archaeology of Fazzan. Volume 1. Synthesis"
-II II, 2013: "The Archaeology of Fazzan. Volume 4, survey and excavations at old Jarma (Ancient Garama) carried out by C.M. Daniels (1962-69) and the Fazzan Project (1997-2001)"
-Erwin Ruprechtsberger, 1989: "Die Garamanten"

AncientA said:

do you know if Garamantians had a navy ? and why would they fight overseas in a very far land !

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The only waters the Garamantians faced was the sand sea of the Sahara, so a navy can be excluded.

AncientA said:

again thank you, this thread is very informative.

which also made me go google some pre Islamic Berber civilization such as Numidia, really fascinating. !

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Reconstruction of the first mausoleum:

johnincornwall said:

Good work.
It's interesting - Bosch Vila asserts that berber Morocco also was far from fully Islamised until the rise of the fundamental Almoravids in the mid 11th century.

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Almost no region conquered by the Arabs during the 7th and 8th century was immediatly Islamized but it took hundreds of years. I am not expert on that field, but I would doubt that the Maghreb would be an exception. In fact, Berbers kept up many unislamic traditions well into the 20th century, like these tattoos for example:


Some say that these tattoos and their shapes are a Berber variation of the cross.

johnincornwall said:

Those Banu Hilal certainly were nuisance - even the Almohads had to try and come to terms with them to keep them quiet further west. As usual I can't remember where I was reading about them though, but it was quite recently. I think it was in a paper about mercenary traffic from castilla to the Almohads.

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Think you refer to this one (You also made a thread about it some months ago):
https://www.academia.edu/8603889/Th...ercenaries_of_Thirteenth-Century_North_Africa

A small look on Garamantian ethnicity: We certainly know that the Garamantian civilization was founded by Indo-European Berber migrants who settled in the Fezzan during the late Neolithic. There they either completely replaced or atleast intermixed with the indigenous and largely black populace. Sergio Sergi, an anthropologist of the 1950’s, examined several Garamantian skeletons and divided them into four categories:

1) “Euro-African Type I” = Pure Indo-European Berber
2) “Euro-African Type II” = Indo-European Berber with slight “.......” features
3) “Eurafrican Type” = Even mix of Berber and Sub-Saharan
4) “African Type” = Dominantly/pure “.......”

20 skeletons were preserved well enough for categorization:

Type I = 6/20
Type II = 5/20
Type III = 6/20
Type IV = 3/20

So besides type I and type II being very numerous they were also the oldest and most long-lasting types found in the necropolises he studied. This populace was probably the “purest” of the Berbers which once migrated into the Fezzan. Such an Indo-European Berber can be seen on a wall carving in Zinkhera, very likely first millennium BC.



Over the time, as Sergi argued, the Berbers started to interbred with type III and especially type IV individuals. Nevertheless, some type I and type II individuals were even found in late Garamantian burials. Were they recent migrants from Roman Africa? Or do these individuals indicate “that intermixing of the races was not completely open and may have been structured within Garamantian society”? A proper answer is not possible, but atleast we know, thanks to more recent anthropological studies in Fewet, a village in the South-West of the Garamantian realm, that Sergio Sergi’s theory of a continuous intermixing of ethnicities was probably correct. At Fewet, many individuals were found with Mediterranean-type crania, but also with typical “.......”, so low and flat noses. This and the “high variability in the interorbital breadth (d-d) in Fewet females apparently indicates a certain amount of gene flow along a North-South African gradient”.
If the intermixing theory is correct, and indeed it seems absolutely plausible, then the intermixing was very likely promoted by the massive slave trade which prospered after the first contact with Rome. As already stated in the OP it seems that the Garamantians not only traded the slaves further north, but also kept them within their realm in large numbers to have enough cheap manpower to maintain the extensive agriculture.
Last but not least it should be mentioned that even today the Fazzan remains an ethnically diverse region. This graphic illustrates that diversity:



We can assume that the Garamantian populace wouldn’t have looked too different from them.

Hannibal89 said:

Questions.

1. If the Arabs are not fully responsible for the decline of the Garamantians what were some other factors besides that and a few areas with a declining water table.

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As I have mentioned in the article it was probably a combination of declining trade with a declining Roman Empire, seismic events during the mid 4th century plus the water table thing. These factors were very likely the main reasons for a political fragmentation of the Garamantian kingdom, which rests were then destroyed by the Arabs.

Hannibal89 said:

2. Are the Garamantians the ancestors of the Tuaregs? I have heard that before and was wondering if you knew.

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Likely that they are one, but unlikely THE ancestor of them.

Scaeva said:

Why were some of the skeletons classified as "pure Indo-European" Berbers?

Berber is an Afro-Asiatic language that is native to Africa. How was it known also, that any European ancestry reflected in these skeletons, wasn't pre-Indo-European in origin?

Indo-Europeans migrated into Europe rather late, much later in fact, than the emergence of the Afro-Asiatic group of languages (including proto-Berber) in North Africa.

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Yeah, it was pretty late when I wrote that one so i mixed up "Indo-European" with "Caucasoid". Sadly I cant edit it anymore.

Edit: Corrected version can be found here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/show...ramantians&p=15061085&viewfull=1#post15061085

Now that we have talked about such relatively dry things like history and architecture it's time to get a better view on Garamantian material culture. Here some pictures which will give you an idea on how some of the objects looked like which the Garamantians produced and used.

At first, here we have an assemblage of Garamantian pottery:


Carnelian beads ("Garamantian carabuncles"):


Anthropomorphic clay figurines:


Cowrie shells, very likely coming from the South (Interesting note: Cowrie shells were a popular currency in West and Central Africa):


Gold objects found in Garama (Don't know if the left medaillon is imported or locally produced):


Garamantian glasswork:


Jewelry made of bone and ivory:


A very interesting attribute of Garamantian funeral culture is that Garamantians put an altar infront of their graves, shaped as a four fingered hand:


Reconstructed Garamantian grave from the museum of Garama:


After the latest surveys scolars were also able to assemble "the largest collection of ancient textiles from the Sahara outside Egypt and Sudan", also containing "quite elaborate sewn or plaited leatherwork". Here a fragmentary woven textile:

Last but not least a short view on Garamantian warfare. The introducing words concerning this topic are: The sources are catastrophic compared to those of other ancient civilizations. Anyway, we still have a few hints which give at least a small idea about the art of Garamantian warfare. The first and probably most famous are the several rock carvings & paintings depicting chariots.



It is assumed that it were the Garamantians who introduced the horse and therefore also the chariot to the Sahara (Consensus is the early first millennium BC), and Herodotus mentions how Garamantians make use of chariots for hunting “Ethiopians”.
Confirms the usage of chariots being used for war, right? Well, probably not so much, since we face several problems: The carvings never depict the chariots in action against humans, the carvings are mostly found far away from oasis sites, often outside of the Garamantian heartlands as well as the, for chariots mostly unsuitable, terrain, preventing long-distance travelling. Concerning the last problem it had been suggested that, since there are actually also a few “stretches of gravel plain which would have been an ideal surface for chariots”, the chariots might have been disassembled, then transported via donkey-, horse- or camelback and then rebuilt in the mentioned stretches of gravel plain. Of course this is speculation, though if one recalls Herodotus claim that the Garamantians hunted “Ethiopians” with their chariots one could see the Garamantians using chariots at least in the far south of their domain and even beyond, in the dry plains of the Sahel zone near Lake Chad. However, for any concrete conclusions we need to find actual archaeological remains of chariots to determine what role they really played in Garamantian warfare.

While the usage of chariots is dubious it is certain that the Garamantians, and also pretty much all Berber people, made great use of cavalry. Equid cavalry had been the most important during the whole existence of the Garamantian kingdom. Already Strabo attests the importance which horse-breeding had for the Gaetulians and Garamantians, and the camel, introduced in around 0 AD, couldn’t challenge the relevance of the horse in warfare, though it was “increasingly used as baggage carrier”.
In general, cavalry probably fought very similar to their cousins in Numidia, so as lightly equipped but well skilled horsemen, primarily equipped with javelins and small shields.



For melee they probably either used spears or swords, possibly of local manufacture. On an Egyptian painting from the late second millennium BC (See last picture) can be found a sword already resembling the “Takouba” type how it should become very popular over all of the Sahara and the Sahel zone during the Middle Ages.



The infantry formed the other branch of the Garamantian warbands. Just like for the cavalry the spear and javelin were the preferred offensive weapons, while small shields were used for defense. Again rock carvings are our most important type of source (Although there was actually found an iron spearhead in Garama, described as being “leaf shaped”, having “central carinations, creating four rounded facets” and with a section having a “rounded diamond shape”) :



It is interesting to note how on carvings and drawings spears replaced the Neolithic bows and arrows entirely. Meanwhile, it is highly unlikely that the Garamantians used any type of metal bodyprotection. The Sahara would be the most unsuited place to use such. There was found a small figurine depicting a head with a Phrygian helmet, but it was probably imported:



Considering the concrete appearance of Garamantian warriors we are badly informed, since the carvings are of a rather crude detail. Therefore, it might be helpful to take a view on a few paintings from Egypt:



They date from around 1000 BC, but they show Libyan fashion and, in the case of the last painting, weaponry in good detail. We see feathers, which are also confirmed by Garamantian carvings, cloaks made of cow skins and under them basic loincloths. All of the Libyans appear to be barefooted.
Now those paintings date to the era before the formation of the Garamantian kingdom and the first deep trading contacts with the Mediterranean. While this Garamantian pottery



confirms that loincloths were still a thing we know that, thanks to the recent excavations, Garamantians would also manufacture richly coloured garments made of wool or cotton. Based on discovered textile fragments from Kissi, in what is modern Burkina Faso, it has been speculated that they had been imported from Garamantia. If so, this would also confirm trading relations between the late Garamantian kingdom and the kingdom of Ghana, both truly the first states of the Sahara and Sahel zone outside of Nubia.