Archive for March, 2010

March29

Marcus Aurelius Arch

Libya is known as a country of startling contrasts and magnificent scenery, with some of the most interesting antiquities in the world. It is one of the last unspoilt countries on the Mediterranean Sea, teaming with outstanding classical ruins, bustling markets, fertile oases, cultural diversity, and breathtakingly beautiful deserts.

Our North African country shelters some of the most interesting, best-preserved archaeological ruins from the Roman and Greek periods.

Among these ruins are three World Heritage sites, that along with a chequered history that goes back to the sea-faring Phoenicians and Carthaginians.

The fact that the country in modern times had been closed to the conventional tourist, combine to make Libya very popular among tourists who want to visit some of the world’s best Roman ruins. Libya is in fact home to the finest Roman ruins in the world.

The capital, Tripoli, is a stunning city that more than lives up to the moniker ‘The jewel of the Mediterranean.

It is a city that brims with history, starting with the Medina (Old City) and its narrow whitewashed streets and crammed with mosques (the highlights of which are the Gurgi and the Karamanli mosques) and private dwellings that date from the Ottoman period and are constructed around internal courtyards.

Inside the Medina are the bustling souks (markets), and the last traces of Roman occupation, foremost of which is the city’s castle, constructed over many centuries, that has the discernible Ottoman and Spanish influences, and is home to the National or Jamahiriya Museum.

Another trace of the Roman occupation and very well known is the Roman triumphal marble Arch of Marcus Aurelius, situated close to the Medina and the Green Square in the Libyan capital. Its marble was imported from Greece.

This surprisingly well-preserved arch of Roman co-Emperor Marcus Aurelius (Antoninus Augustus) dates from AD163. Marcus Aurelius lived for 59 years, between 121 and 180 AD.

The arch was built as a testament to the might of the Roman army. Its sturdy appearance may be easier to understand when you learn that the authorities relocated it from Leptis Magna.

Built in the Greek style this arch, that straddles the decumanus maximus and the cardo-maximus in the ancient Roman city of Oea, which is now Tripoli, testifies to the existence of the ancient Roman city.

Besides Roman columns re-used in newer buildings in the medina, this is the only existing Roman monument in the city.

Examining the engravings on the arch, one can see the goddess Ath-ena riding in a chariot towed by griffin and images of local people surrendering to the Roman forces.

Marcus Aurelius was the last of the “Five Good Emperors” who governed the Roman Empire from 96 to 180, and is also considered one of the most important stoic philosophers.

His tenure was marked by wars in Asia against a revitalized Par-thian Empire, and with Germanic tribes along the limes Germanicus into Gaul and across the Danube.

Marcus Aurelius was kown as an intelligent, serious-minded and hardworking young man. He was never very strong physically. But those close to him spoke with admiration of his devotion to duty in spite of the handicap of physical weakness.

He was very well loved and when he was going to be made emperor he refused unless equal powers were conferred simultaneously on his brother Lucius Commodus. They ruled jointly.

Two emperors thus ruled the Roman world for the first time, an innovation, but like most Roman innovations one for which there was ample precedence. It set an example that was followed with increasing frequency.

Marcus and Lucius were joint rules then, but Marcus had more authority. He had been consul once more than Lucius.

Most important still, Marcus Aurelius had shared in the imperial powers for nerly 14 years and he was ten years older than Lucius.

There was little doubt in men’s mi-nds whch emperor was the senior. But they were to work together for the good of the state.

Marcus Aurelius died on March 17, 180 in the city of Vindobona (modern Vienna).

He was immediately deified and his ashes were reutrned to Rome, and rested in Hadrian’s mausoleum (modern Castel Sant’Angelo).

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March20

The Garamantian Empire

Descended from Berbers and Saharan pastoralists, the Garamantes were likely present as a tribal people in the Fezzan by at least 1000 B.C. They first appeared in the historical record in the fifth century B.C., when Herodotus noted the Garamantes were an exceedingly numerous people who herded cattle (that grazed backward!) and who hunted “troglodyte Ethiopians” from four-horse chariots.

The success of the Garamantes was based on their subterranean water-extraction system, a network of tunnels known as foggaras in Berber. It not only allowed their part of the Sahara to bloom again–it also triggered a political and social process that led to population expansion, urbanism, and conquest. But in order to retain and extend their newfound prosperity, they needed above all to maintain and expand the water-extraction tunnel systems–and that necessitated the acquisition of many slaves.

Luckily for the Garamantes–but less so for their neighbors–Garamantian population growth gave the new Saharan power a demographic and military advantage over other peoples in Saharan and sub-Saharan Africa, enabling them to expand their territory, conquer other peoples, and acquire vast numbers of slaves.

By around A.D. 150 the slave-based Garamantian kingdom covered 70,000 square miles in present-day southern Libya. It was the first time in history that a nonriverine area of the Sahara (or indeed any other major desert) had produced an urban society. The largest town, Garama (in what is now called the Jarma Oasis), had a population of some four thousand. A further six thousand people probably lived in suburban satellite villages located within a three-mile radius of the urban center.

Thanks to their aggressive mentality and the slaves and water it produced, the Garamantes lived in planned towns and feasted on locally grown grapes, figs, sorghum, pulses, barley, and wheat, as well as on imported luxuries such as wine and olive oil. “The combination of their slave-acquisition activities and their mastery of foggara irrigation technology enabled the Garamantes to enjoy a standard of living far superior to that of any other ancient Saharan society,” says archaeologist Andrew Wilson of the University of Oxford, who has been surveying the foggara system. Without slaves, they would not have had a kingdom, let alone even a whiff of the good life. They would have survived–just–in conditions of relative poverty, as most desert dwellers have done before and since.

In the end, depletion of easily mined fossil water sounded the death knell of the Garamantian kingdom. After extracting at least 30 billion gallons of water over some 600 years, the fourth-century A.D. Garamantes discovered that the water was literally running out. To deal with the problem, they would have needed to add more man-made underground tributaries to existing tunnels and dig additional deeper, much longer water-extraction tunnels. For that, they would have needed vastly more slaves than they had. The water difficulties must have led to food shortages, population reductions, and political instability (local defensive structures from this era may be evidence for political fragmentation). Conquering more territories and pulling in more slaves was therefore simply not militarily feasible. The magic equation between population and military and economic power on the one hand and slave-acquisition capability and water extraction on the other no longer balanced.

The desert kingdom declined and fractured into small chiefdoms and was absorbed into the emerging Islamic world. Like its more famous Roman neighbor, the once-great Saharan kingdom became, little by little, simply a thing of myth and memory. Along with the rest of the world, Berbers living in the Fazzan today have all but forgotten their ancestors. The kingdom’s legacy has faded so dramatically that local residents believe the vast water-extraction system–the pride of the Garamantes–is the handiwork of Romans.

This abstract was taken from an article in Archaeology magazine, by David Keys, titled “Kingdom of the Sands.”

Tags: berber, garamantes, germa, sahara
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March14

The Uan Muhuggia Mummy

The mysteries of the ancients has always fascinated us – from the logic-defying Stone Henge to the grand mystery of the Pyramids. The Egyptian mummies were once thought to be the oldest preserved mummies in the world – until the Black Mummy was found in Libya, a mummy so well preserved, it amazed scientists and archaelogists.

Uan Muhuggiag is a place in central libyan Sahara, and the name of the mummy of a small boy found there in 1958 by Professor Fabrizio Mori. The mummy displays a highly sophisticated mummification technique, and at around 5,500 years old is older than any comparable Ancient Egyptian mummy.

The culture that produced the mummy were cattle herders, and occupied much of North Africa, at a time when the Sahara was a savannah. Possible links with later Egyptian culture have also been found, including the representation in rock art of dog-headed human figures (resembling Anubis), and a type of pottery decoration later found in the southern Nile valley.

The mummy is currently on display at the Assaraya Alhamra Museum (gallery 4) in Tripoli.

Tags: libyan mummy
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March5

White Bride of the Mediterranean

TRIPOLI – The White Bride of the Mediterranean

Tripoli, a city of 2,5 million, is a pleasant port in North Africa also known as the White Bride of the Mediterranean with a walled medieval Medina. Ottoman houses stand shoulder to shoulder with faded Italian colonial buildings. Easily the most dominant feature of Tripoli is the Red Castle, Assai al-Hamra, which sits on the northern promontory. Next to the Castle is Green Square, an area cleared for political rallies during World War ll. All the main shopping and business streets radiate from here.

Explore the souks and alleyways of the old city (Medina) on foot. Visitors will find the best shopping around here and also historical mosques, khans (inns) houses and hammams. Bus and taxi stations are south west of the old city.

What else to do when staying in Tripoli

Tripoli’s National Jamahiriya Museum (entrance on Green Square) houses the best collection of classical art in North Africa.

Citadel -Tripoli Castle

Visit a Hammam – there are two Hammams in the old City – Hammam Draghut next door to the Draghut Mosque and Hammam al-Heygha, near Souk al-Attara. (They operate a rota for men and women).

Beaches – The beaches are on the Western side of the city with changing facilities and cafes.

There is plenty more to do in Tripoli depending on what the visitor prefers to do.

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