The Garamantes of Fezzan - an Interim Report of Research, 1965-1973

Abstract

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.

Garamantian Agriculture: The Plant Remains from Zinchecra, Fezzan

“…Pliny and Ptolemy; Daniels 1970), but it is through archaeological evidence that we have gained a clearer picture of them. Large scale surveys and excavations have been carried out in Fezzan between 1965 and 1971 under the direction of C. M. Daniels of the Department of Archaeology, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, along the Wadi el-Agial, as part of his study of the Garamantes and their relationship with the Roman Empire (Daniels 1968(Daniels , 1969(Daniels , 1970a(Daniels , 1970b(Daniels , 1973(Daniels , 1977(Daniels and 1989. The capital of the Garamantes, Garama, has now been identified with the archaeological remains at Germa in the Wadi el-Agial, c. 700 km south of Tripoli and 170 km west of Sebha, the modern capital of Fezzan (Fig.…”

Excavation and Fieldwork amongst the Garamantes

“…Seven full seasons' fieldwork and excavation then followed from 1965-1973 inclusive, and one subsequent season in 1977. The objects of these were four-fold: to record as much of the el Agial remains by fieldwork and survey as possible; to excavate selected habitation and cemetery sites; to recover floral and faunal material against a time when this could be identified; to compare the el Agial sites and material with the wadi Chatti (Sciatti) to the north and the Murzuch-Hofra-Wadi Bergiug area to the south (Daniels 1968;1970a/b;1971a/b;1973;1975;. These are reviewed below; where, however, there is new information, or where only a minimal notice has been previously given, a slightly fuller account is provided.…”

The walls of medieval Zuwila

“…The first published plan of the Zuwila walls appeared in the summary of the results of the first Italian archaeological mission to Fazzan (Pace et al 1951, 416–19), but it amounted to little more than a sketch (see Figure 3). The most systematic study of the walls of Zuwila was carried out by the late Charles Daniels in 1968, but never published in his lifetime (see interim notices in Daniels 1968; 1989). It was worked up for publication in outline as part of the Archaeology of Fazzān series (Mattingly 2007, 283–85; also Edwards 2001).…”