Photo: Satellite image with archaeological interpretation of the relief: fortifications are in black, fields are green, and residential area is red-brown.
Garamantes are a mysterious African tribe. For a long time they were considered simply underdeveloped nomads. However, over the years, new and new facts are revealed that prove that the garamants created a highly civilized state and owned advanced technologies for their time
3 thousand years ago, for example, they could perform first-class operations on turtles. This strange ancient people lived in the Sahara desert and at the same time had Caucasian features.
Scientists recently analyzed satellite images as part of the TRANS-SAHARA project funded by the European Union. The program is aimed at studying the processes of the folding of states, as well as migration and trade in the central Sahara in the 1st millennium BC. e. - the middle of the II millennium AD e.
In the Libyan part of the desert, over a hundred fortified farms and villages with buildings resembling castles, as well as several cities, have been found. Most of the settlements date back to the first half of the 1st millennium AD. e. Most likely, they were built by the Garamants. Judging by new data, their civilization was more advanced than ancient sources reported.
Castle-like complexes had four-meter walls built of adobe bricks. The remains of individual houses, cemeteries with stone pyramids, fields, wells and a developed irrigation system were also found. Archaeologist David Mattingly and his group managed to make sure with their own eyes that all this really exists and belongs to the pre-Islamic era before the start of the civil war in Libya.
Study co-author Martin Sterry notes that, apparently, the climate in the region has not changed for two thousand years: at the beginning of the new era, it was just as arid and inhospitable. However, despite this, Libya was densely populated and agriculture flourished.
Until now, historians considered the Garamantes to be a nomadic tribe that was at a low stage of development and could only occasionally bother the border guards of the Roman Empire. It turned out that they created a state, owned a written language and advanced technologies of their era. In addition, Mr. Mattingly calls them the pioneers of oasis agriculture in Libya and the trans-Saharan trade.
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Researchers hope that the new Libyan authorities will see this discovery as an important historical symbol and the study of Garamantes will receive an unprecedented impetus.