UNESCO Ancient Civilizations of Africa (Editor G. Mokhtar)

Ancient Civilizations of Africa
be noted that the Peoples of the Sea, for their part, are only mentioned
once in an inscription at Karnak, as being in constant contact with the
Libyans during the reign of Merneptah in — 1227, and that this inscription
itself may be the result of an amalgam of several campaigns. 48 But even
if we grant that there were detachments of Peoples of the Sea among the
Libyans, can we go on to assert that these were the peoples who taught
the Libyans the use of chariots, firstin the confines of Egypt and then
throughout the Sahara?
This proposition has the support of some first-rate Sahara specialists, 49
although there are few similarities between the Aegean and the Saharan
portrayals of chariots, as is well demonstrated by an archaeologist of
classical antiquity such as G. Charles-Picard 50 and a specialist of the horse
such as J. Spruytte. 51 The Saharan chariots are seen in a horseman's
perspective and not in profile; the platform is not raised and rests on the
centre of the axle, well away from the wheels, thus limiting the passenger
load in practice to one driver, whose hands hold a kind of short whip
and not a weapon. The horses, mostly Barbaries, are harnessed by means
of a collar-yoke, not a yoke resting on the withers. Although they are indeed
shown in an extended position ('flying gallop'), neither their hocks nor
their knees appear. In the Aegean documents, moreover, the 'flying gallop'
is not the stance of harnessed horses. Thus the Saharan chariots would
seem to be strongly characterized as somewhat fragile 'sporting' vehicles.
Therefore, we should probably distinguish the Saharan chariots from the
war chariots of antiquity identified among the foes of Ramses III and later
among the Garamantes (four-horse chariots), the Arbytes, the Zoeces, the
Libyans in the service of Agathocles in the neighbourhood of Carthage,
the Pharusians and the Nigretes. Rather than assume a borrowing from the
Peoples of the Sea, we will be closer to the truth in allowing, with
W . Holscher, 52 that the Libyans borrowed the chariot from the Egyptians
who had used it ever since the Hyksos invasion four or fivecenturies earlier.
48. Similarly the figures'representations of Medinet-Habou mingle the Libyan assaults
of — 1194 and — 1188 with the invasion by the Peoples of the Sea in — 1191, see E. Drioton
and J. Vandier, pp. 434-6.
49. R. Perret, pp. 50-1.
50. G. Charles-Picard, 1958a, p. 46. It will, however, be noted that while the author's
comments on the originality of Saharan portrayals of chariots are entirely judicious, his
argument according to which this iconography was influenced by Roman imperial art is
unacceptable, as pointed out by G. Camps, 1960b, p. 21, note 46, and H. Lhote, 1953,
pp. 225-38. From the time of Ramses III to the time recorded by Diodorus, XX, 38, 2,
and Strabo, XVII, 3, 7, both of whose sources preceded the Roman empire, chariots were
used by the Libyans from the neighbourhood of the Syrtesto in southern Morocco; cf.
O. Bates, p. 139, and note 41 above.
51. J. Spruytte, 1968, pp. 32-42.
52. W . Hölscher, p. 40; G. Camps, 1961, p. 406, note 3. It is impossible to distinguish
a representation of a Libyan chariot under Ramses III from that of an Egyptian chariot.
See W . M . Müller, 1906^20, Vol. II, p. 121.
432