UNESCO Ancient Civilizations of Africa (Editor G. Mokhtar)

Ancient Civilizations of Africa
The relations between the African provinces and the peoples of
the Sahara
It has long been known that the Romans had three great Saharan
fortresses on the confines of the desert, in the south of Tripolitania: they
were those of Bu-Njem, Gheria el-Gherbia and Ghadames, which was
called Cidamus in ancient times. Until fairly recently they were regarded
merely as advanced post of the limes, but it has now been established that
they were situated on the borderline between the desert and a zone under
Roman control inhabited by sedentary peasants who lived in fortified
farms and were mainly engaged in the cultivation of olive-trees in the drainage
basins of the wadis. In this region, an original type of civilization
developed, bearing the mark of strong local traditions on to which Punic
influences had been grafted; the indigenous traditions and the Punic
imprint, illustrated, in particular, by the numerous inscriptions in local
alphabets, and by the survival of the Punic language up to the eve of the
Arab invasion, proved adaptable, however, to the new way of life introduced
by the Romans. The fortresses commanded the main routes linking the
coast with the Fezzan, the land of the Garamantes. As far back as —19,
Cornelius Balbus had attacked these Garamantes and, according to Pliny,
had subdued several of their towns and fortresses, including Garama and
Cidamus. Later, possibly in the reign of Domitian, an expedition led by
Julius Maternus set out from Leptis Magna and reached Garama; accompanied
by the king of the Garamantes and his army, the expedition then
travelled as far as the country of the Ethiopians and the region of
Agisymba where, we are told, rhinoceros were to be seen. This shows
that the Romans were primarily interested in the Fezzan in so far as this
permanent caravan base enabled them to approach the fringe of trans-
Saharan Africa. It also explains why the crises and reconciliations
recorded in laconic texts were a constant source of anxiety for the Romans
in their relations with the kingdom of the Garamantes. By adding their
findings to the scrappy information gleaned from such texts, the exploratory
surveys and archaeological digs of the last few years have gradually
widened our knowledge about the caravan routes leading to the confines
of black Africa, and have given us a clearer idea of the progress made
by the Romans in this direction; they have yielded copious details about
the military, civil and commercial aspects of life in this border country,
particularly at Bu-Njem. 37 In the firstplace, the trans-Saharan lands were
suppliers of gold: between Punic times and the Muslim-Arabic period,
various different routes were followed by the traders conveying the gold
from the placers in Guinea to the shores of the Mediterranean, but each
route left its own mark on the history of North Africa. The caravan
37. See in particular, in the Comptes-rendus de l'Académie des inscriptions for 1969, 1972,
197S, the communications by R. Rebuffat concerning the excavations of Bu-Njem (Goleas).
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