The Garamantes exercised a powerful hold upon the Mediterranean imagination during the early and high Empire (Daniels 1970; Desanges 1962; Merighi 1940; Romanelli 1959; Ruprechtsburger, forthcoming). Remote and beyond the southern limits of the African provinces, they represented the mythical south, only accessible after perilous desert travel; they were inextricably interwoven in people's minds with swarming serpents, fabulous fountains and precious stones, with the silent noon tide of the terrifying desert and such inhuman creatures as men with no voices or no heads, strapfoots, Goat-Pans and Satyrs (Pliny, N.H. 5.1.7).The reality of Roman contact with them was no less exotic. The last entry of all in the Fasti Triumphales (CIL I2, p. 50) on the Arch of Augustus in the Roman Forum commemorates a triumph celebrated on 27th March 734 A.V.C. (19 BC) by L. Cornelius Balbus, ex Africa: below, the stone surface remains rough and no further names follow. But Balbus' honour was much more noteworthy for he was not even a Roman by birth (PIR2 C1331; Thomasson 1960, 11). Like his famous uncle, Caesar's Balbus, he was a full-blooded Spaniard hailing from Cadiz (Gades) — and the only foreigner ever to be accorded a triumph, the Elder Pliny informs us (N.H. 5.5.36). His rise to fame came about through a steadfast devotion to Caesar's cause, for which he was ultimately rewarded by Augustus with consular rank (Velleius 2.51.3), and became Proconsul of Africa in ?20 BC (Syme 1939, 80, 235, 325, 339, 367).

SummaryThe Garamantes inhabited Fezzan, now the Saharan province of the Libyan Arab Republic, their capital, Garama, lying c. 105 miles west of Sebha in the wadi el Agial. After an unruly early history they appear to have become pacified and open to Roman influence. Before Garama was founded the tribe inhabited the promontory fortress of Zinchecra c. 2½ miles to the south-west, where excavation has revealed three main periods of occupation. The earliest consists of rock-scooped hearths, the second of rough dry-stone and frond shelters with stone-lined hearths. The third is more complex with buildings ranging from rough shelters to well-built mud-brick ‘houses’, the latest of which date to the first century B.C. and employed dressed stone in their basal courses. At the start of this period a complex of enclosure banks and walls was thrown around the base of the spur. Finally the site was abandoned to cemeteries.

The Garamantes were the inhabitants of Southern Libya. Their capital Garama (‘clarissimum … caput Garamantum’) lies partly under the now deserted mud-brick Arab town of Germa in the Wadi el Agial some hundred miles west of Sebha. The oldest pottery so far recovered from the site dates to the late fifth and fourth centuries B.C., but earlier occupation, stretching back to the ninth century B.C., has been found on the nearby fortified spur-site of Zinchecra. The surrounding escarpment slopes, which form the southern side of the wadi, are dotted with literally thousands of graves, which vary from simple crouch-burials in shallow cists, sometimes covered by a stone cairn, to elaborate stepped ‘chouchet’-type monuments of stone or mud brick, square or circular in shape, mud-brick pyramids 10–15 feet high and even ashlar-built mausolea of which the so-called ‘Germa mausoleum’ is the most complete surviving example. The sedentary agricultural practice of the people is attested by the many hundreds of foggaras (underground water channels with down-shafts, akin to the Qanats of Persia) which tap the aqueous strata against the escarpment side and carry their water into the wadi centre. The foggaras and burials, taken together, show that approximately eighty miles in length of the Wadi el Agial were intensely cultivated and inhabited, and recent work has shown that sites similar to Zinchecra and Garama existed at various points along this eighty-mile length, the Garamanticae Fauces, or Valley of the Garamantes.Work in the Wadi Bergiug, Murzuch-Zuila area of oases to the south has shown that similar remains exist there, while it can reasonably be argued that the third great band of oases, the Wadi Chatti on the north of the el Agial, almost certainly contained similar occupation.

In 1977 it was decided to concentrate all efforts on the cemetery of Saniat ben Howedi and answer certain questions unanswered in 1973. In that year it appeared that where the cemetery mound stood at its highest, upper and lower tombs existed. Work had been concentrated on the upper layer and some 30 tombs were dug. They were all found to be either circular drum-like structures, 6–8 ft in size, or larger, square constructions 10–12 ft across, with a central circular shaft. The tombs, for the most part, faced east and had stele, or ‘hands’ and offering tables on their principal side. Sometimes these were placed within an area enclosed, or partly surrounded by a low mud-brick wall, which contained other vessels, clearly intended as offerings for the deceased.Although the skeletons had survived (where the tombs had not been robbed), finds were sparse, consisting mainly of lamps, jug/flagons, local imitations of fine red ware plate/dishes, with the occasional genuine fine red ware plate. Dating was difficult, but where possible it suggested the third—fourth centuries (if not the fifth).Investigation showed that where the mound was not present the circular and later square tombs appeared to have been built either against, or directly on top of, earlier tombs. Two of these earlier tombs were excavated and found to contain a mass of late first-century pottery, in a somewhat damaged state. This consisted of amphoras, fine red ware bowls and dishes, mostly of northern Italian manufacture, imported and local coarse ware vessels, as well as glass and faience bowls. In each tomb a saddle quern, broken, and a smashed soft chalk rubber were found, suggesting that the occupants had been female. The skeletons, unfortunately, had survived in neither case. One tomb, no.15 in the cemetery numbering system, faced west, the other, no.17, faced east. Both had survived intact from antiquity, but the objects within them, especially no.17, were, in many cases, badly shattered (see the Fourth Annual Report of the Society, p.35).

No abstract