Ancient Fact File: Garamantes

By William Budd, Second Year History.

What kind of civilisation would it take to establish the first desert settlement not founded around a river system? As history tells, it was the people of the Garamantes, who occupied the Fezzan region of modern-day southern Libya from 1000BCE and commanded a prosperous empire until roughly 700CE. Here, I explore the often-untold story of these people, another forgotten civilisation from antiquity who leveraged scientific knowledge in their expansion and continued existence.

The people who would become the Garamantes are thought to have descended from the Berber tribes of North Africa, with strong links to the Saharan pastoralists found further south, across the Sahara. Pastoral living is characterised by adaptation to the land and its produce, dependent on animal produce and herded cattle. 

The shift from nomadic to sedentary pastoralism which took place from 1500 – 700BCE was important in establishing a geographically definable kingdom, and it is at this point in time we see the Garamantes emerge as a non-transitory society. The Garamantes themselves were not pastoralists, but their methods of adapting to the land to support their agricultural production shows the legacy of this culture of living off the land.

Qanat irrigation networks formed the technological basis for the survival of the Garamantes. Due to these, they were able to cultivate agriculture in an otherwise inhospitable territory. These use an aqueduct to transport water from underground aquifers to the surface, accessing usable water. Qanat irrigation networks allow water to be transported without the risk of evaporation on the hot surface, so little precious water will be lost. Qanats are still used today as an efficient, safe method for accessing groundwater and supplying human populations. In North Africa these are known as foggara, but have been used by ancient civilisations across the globe all the way from China to Spain, as technology spread along the Silk Road. 

This shows the cross section of a typical Iranian qanat system, similarly utilised by the Garamantes.

From 100BCE to 100 CE, the Garamantes constructed over 750 kilometres of tunnels, establishing a complex and efficient system of irrigation. With this they were able to grow crops in Saharan conditions and rule over an area of approximately 180,000 square kilometres. 

However, their engineering marvel would soon come to bite them. As groundwater is a non-renewable resource, water levels slowly reduced over time. When a warmer, more arid climate developed, the levels fell even more, below the levels of the primary tunnels. It is thought that this led to the ultimate downfall of the Garamantes, and it is widely accepted that they ceased to exist after 700CE.

A once great kingdom brought to its knees by the most vital article for life: water. Perhaps we can see this story as a stern warning for the modern day. It only takes a small rise in temperature to have catastrophic connotations for the water supply, impacting all of human civilisation.

Edited by AJ Birt.