The voracious Sahara, which comes year after year on fertile lands, has managed to absorb over the centuries many archaeological evidence that the history of mankind is much more extensive and multifaceted than the one that history textbooks still draw for us. And this is especially true of Africa, its dusty sands of the time of mysterious civilizations, which had nothing to do with the black population. One of such perished civilizations in Africa are the garamants, mysterious light-skinned people who have terrified the surrounding territories for one and a half thousand years.
BLUE EYED AND LIGHT SKIN
Who are they, where did they come from and where did they disappear - scientists still have no definite answer to these questions. The rock carvings depict the Garamantes as long-legged people, dressed in white robes and red cloaks, and demonstrate that in their type, clothing, rituals and weapons they differed sharply from typical representatives of the Saharan aborigines, and this clearly indicates that the Garamantes are an alien tribe. Some scholars argue that garamantes may even be from the European north, because most of the people depicted have blue eyes! The only thing that almost all researchers agree with is that garamantes appeared in Africa in the II millennium BC.
This time, according to the evidence of archeology, was the time of natural disasters. The lands of the Aegean coast were shaking especially strongly then. And the images of the garamantes, without any doubt, are similar to the drawings in the Mycenaean art, in particular, the island of Crete and mainland Greece.
The "Aegean" origin of the Garamantes is indicated by the images of horse chariots: their design exactly coincides with the type of chariots from the Aegean region. The very style of the image, called "flying gallop", when the horses seem to be flattened in the air, is also often found on the monuments of the Aegean culture.
And a number of cultural phenomena among the Garamantes can also be explained either by the direct "Aegean" origin of this people, or by a very long and stable contact with the Aegean region. Scientists also note that the suffix "-ant" in the name of the tribe is clearly of Pelasgic origin.
In this regard, some historians are inclined to believe that the Aegean newcomers gradually mixed with the local Libyan tribes and, migrating deep into the Sahara, more and more assimilated with the Libyan population. Gradually, what the Russian historian Yu. K. Poplinsky designated as a synthesis of "an ethnic superstratum (Aegeans) and an ethnic substrate (Libyans), as a result of which a new ethnos arose - the Garamants."
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But what about the blue eyes and fair skin of the garamantes? The Aegean region was mostly dark-eyed and dark-skinned, with a typical southern European appearance. And if really the Aegean newcomers mixed with the local Libyan tribes, then there was simply no one for them to “brighten up”, and even more so to acquire blue eyes.
Perhaps the explanation for the appearance of blue-eyed and fair-skinned garamantes is contained in a famous Greek legend. According to her, the daughter of the Cretan king Minos Akakallida, settled by her father in Africa (in Libya), gave birth to the son of Garamant from the god Apollo, from whom one of the Libyan peoples, the Garamants, went. And Apollo, as you know, was associated with the North and Hyperborea, and there are already a great many blue-eyed and fair-skinned people.
THROUGH EGYPT, WELL?
But if we nevertheless take into account the hypothesis of the Greek-Aegean origin of the Garamantes, then the question arises: how did they end up in the depths of Africa, and even becoming the rulers of the Sahara? Through Egypt, proponents of this hypothesis argue.
They indicate that in the XIV-XII centuries BC. e. in the Balkans, the process of migration to the south of the peoples of the northern Balkan regions began. Part of the population of mainland Greece, the islands of the Aegean Sea and Crete gradually joined this process. They moved to Asia Minor, Egypt and the lands to the west of Egypt. In the Egyptian documents of that time, there are references to the campaigns and attacks of the so-called "Sea Peoples". Ramses II managed to defeat these extremely aggressive tribes, which forced them to migrate deep into the Sahara and merge with the Libyan tribes.
Quite a harmonious hypothesis, except for the fact that until now the "peoples of the sea" belong to the category of unsolved secrets. No one can say with certainty what kind of tribes were included in the Egyptian chronicles as "the peoples of the sea." And there is absolutely no convincing evidence that these peoples belonged to Greece, and even more so there is no evidence that the Garamants are the descendants of the "sea peoples" scattered across the Sahara.
So the origin of the garamantes is covered in darkness. Blue-eyed and fair-skinned, settled almost in the middle of the Sahara, they remain the mysterious civilization of the African continent.
FREE AND AGGRESSIVE
However, quite enough is known about the garamants. They were written about, in particular, by the omnipresent Herodotus in the 5th century BC. e.
He described them as a large tribe armed with war chariots and attacking neighbors with enviable regularity. Another historian, Tacitus, characterizes the Garamantes as "a fierce tribe that terrorized their neighbors with their raids." There is also evidence from Pliny the Elder, Ptolemy, Virgil and other authors about the Garamants as a warlike tribe that managed to create an empire over a vast area - from the Mediterranean coast to the countries of Sudan with a Negroid population.
Their state and capital were called Garama. Power was in the hands of the nobility. The main occupations, in addition to raids, were sedentary livestock raising, agriculture and trade.
Garama was a gigantic city that stretched across the desert for 5 kilometers, surrounded by a powerful wall, with a citadel where the royal palace was located. From the west and from the south, Garamu was surrounded by plantations in a semicircle, and from the north, rows of dunes approached the city. Four gates led into the city itself, clearly oriented to the cardinal points.
The fact that Garama was a large state is evidenced by the number of graves found. More than 4,500 graves have already been excavated.
The garamants buried their dead in a bent position, and on the eastern side of the grave they erected steles either in the form of an obelisk or in the form of horns, and tables were placed in front of them for ritual food offerings. The fact is that garamants of noble origin gladly met the death of a relative or friend, and his burial turned into a ritual celebration with a plentiful meal.
And in general, the garamants were distinguished by very free morals, and one of the customs of their life was that when a child reached a certain age, men gathered and announced the father of the one to whom this child was most similar.
FEAR US
The basis of the military power of the Garamantes was their well-formed army of cavalry and cavalry. It also included pathfinder units, engineering units (including practically professional saboteurs trained to fill wells) and units intended for conducting hostilities behind enemy lines (something like special forces).
In addition, the Garamantes had a custom of giving refuge to any fugitive without asking who he was, where he was fleeing from, and why. Therefore, both deserters from the Roman and Berber troops, as well as real bandits and fugitive criminals, found refuge with the Garamantes. All of them gladly joined the "banner" of the Garamant army. And it is not surprising that the garamantes were known far beyond the borders of their empire as desperate robbers.
They easily made successful raids not only on their neighbors, but also on the rich Phoenician and Roman coasts. They controlled all caravan routes passing through Central Sahara and connecting the Mediterranean coast with Sudan, charging tribute from the caravans for travel. True, in exchange, the blue-eyed warriors provided their protection to the caravans.
THE LAST WORD FOR SUGAR
The happy life of Garama and the Garamantes ended at the beginning of our era. In the 19th year, the Roman legionaries took Garama. The warlike tribe, of course, did not accept defeat, and the Garamant troops continued to spoil the nerves of the Romans, and so much so that at the end of the 1st century, the Romans were even forced to conclude a kind of "friendship" agreement with the Garamans. Which, however, did not prevent the Garamants in the II-IV centuries from being the main striking force of all the uprisings of the North African tribes against Rome.
Garamantes appeared in Africa in the 2nd millennium BC.
However, against the new force that had gained power by the 7th century - the Arabs - the Garamants turned out to be rather weak. The Arab conquest around 669 brought the end of the Garama civilization. The entire structure of the Garamant society was destroyed, the supreme power disappeared, and the troops and the main sources of income passed into the hands of the Arab victorious.
Since then, there has been no news of the harmants. There were people - and disappeared. Well, the sands of time did their job …
Aventine Rossi