Lost Cities of Libya's Oases

Brendan_ · November 8, 2011

Not that there aren't already more than enough interesting cultures in 0 A.D.'s time frame to history-nerd out on, but I found this quite interesting.

http://www.livescience.com/16916-castles-lost-cities-revealed-libyan-desert.html

In the most inhospitable parts of the Sahara, satellite photos and subsequent ground explorations have found remarkably well-preserved remains of fortified oasis farming settlements of a civilization I'd never heard of and which Romans considered nomad troublemakers at the edge of Roman North Africa-- the Garamantes.

The Garamantes seem to have used chariots, built pyramids (though small), and to have mummified their dead-- oddly similar to the Ancient Egyptians. But a Garamantes mummy was found dating to 5500 BC, earlier than the oldest Egyptian mummies found.

Around 2,500 BC, as the Sahara's climate changed from fertile with rivers and lakes, and desertification steadily encroached on their lands, the Garamantes found a way to survive where no one else could. Their construction of underground irrigation channels called foggara supplied by "fossil water" that had been sealed in limestone strata allowed them to flourish, using slaves to work their fields. Slaves also mined for pretty rocks in the mountains (amazonite, if the Greeks are correct).

All of this led the Garamantes to become great traders with their Mediterranean contemporaries and slave raiders to other Africans.

They also had their own written alphabet.

Their kingdom lasted from around 400 BC to 600 AD, though very much in decline, most likely due to the non-renewable water supply being depleted over the centuries. With little to trade and nowhere to go, they provoked a crushing Roman response, and faded into history, their cities ultimately conquered by the desert.

http://ilbonito.wordpress.com/2007/11/12/whispers-in-the-sand-a-message-from-a-lost-civilization/