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Ancient Libya

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Ancient Libya



 
 
Ancient Libya was the region west of the Nile Valley. It corresponds to what is now generally called Northwest Africa
Northwest Africa

Northwest Africa or Northwestern Africa is a variably defined region of North Africa. The term incorporates cardinal directions, and is used in various disciplines: geopolitics, archaeology, anthropology, meteoritics and genetics....
. Its people were the ancestors of the modern Berber people
Berber people

Berbers are the indigenous ethnic groups of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are discontinuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River....
. Berbers had occupied the area for thousands of years prior to the beginning of human records in Ancient Egypt. Climate changes affected the locations of the settlements.

In the Greek period
Hellenistic period

The Hellenistic period describes the era which followed the conquests of Alexander the Great. During this time, Greek cultural influence and power was at its zenith in Europe and Asia....
 the Berbers were known as "Libyans". Their lands were called "Libya" and extended from modern Morocco
Morocco

Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa with a population of nearly 34 million and an area just under 447,000 km2....
 to the western borders of Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an Ancient history civilization in eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile in what is now the modern nation of Egypt....
.






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Ancient Libya was the region west of the Nile Valley. It corresponds to what is now generally called Northwest Africa
Northwest Africa

Northwest Africa or Northwestern Africa is a variably defined region of North Africa. The term incorporates cardinal directions, and is used in various disciplines: geopolitics, archaeology, anthropology, meteoritics and genetics....
. Its people were the ancestors of the modern Berber people
Berber people

Berbers are the indigenous ethnic groups of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are discontinuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River....
. Berbers had occupied the area for thousands of years prior to the beginning of human records in Ancient Egypt. Climate changes affected the locations of the settlements.

In the Greek period
Hellenistic period

The Hellenistic period describes the era which followed the conquests of Alexander the Great. During this time, Greek cultural influence and power was at its zenith in Europe and Asia....
 the Berbers were known as "Libyans". Their lands were called "Libya" and extended from modern Morocco
Morocco

Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa with a population of nearly 34 million and an area just under 447,000 km2....
 to the western borders of Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an Ancient history civilization in eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile in what is now the modern nation of Egypt....
. Modern Egypt
Egypt

Egypt is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia. Covering an area of about , Egypt borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west....
 contains the Siwa Oasis
Siwa Oasis

The Siwa Oasis is an oasis in Egypt, located between the Qattara Depression and the Egyptian Sand Sea in the Libyan Desert, nearly 50 kilometre east of the Libyan border, and 560 km from Cairo....
, historically part of Libya, where the Berber Siwi language
Siwi language

Siwi is a Berber languages language of Egypt, spoken by about 15,000 people in and around the oasis of Siwa Oasis, near the Libyan border. The language has been heavily influenced by Egyptian Arabic, to a greater degree than most Berber languages....
 is still spoken.

Name

The name Libya
Libya

Libya , officially the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya , is a country located in North Africa. Bordering the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Libya lies between Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
 is found in the Ancient Egyptian, Phoenician, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Arabic, and the modern European languages.

The Ancient Egyptians mentioned many Libyan tribes. The most well-known and important tribes—on the basis of the Egyptian archaeological sources—are the Tjehenu, the Tamahu
Tamahú

Tamah? is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of Alta Verapaz....
, the Libu
Libu

The Libu were an ancient north African tribe, from which the name Libya derives.Their occupation of ancient Libya is first attested in Egyptian language texts from the New Kingdom, especially from the Ramesside Period....
 (or Ribu), and the Meshwesh
Meshwesh

The Meshwesh were an ancient Libyan tribe from Cyrenaica. During the Nineteenth dynasty of Egypt and Twentieth dynasty of Egypt Dynasty, the Meshwesh were in almost constant conflict with the Egyptian state....
.

The oldest reference to 'Libya' goes back to Ramesses II
Ramesses II

Ramesses II was the third Egyptian pharaoh of the Nineteenth dynasty of Egypt. He is often regarded as Ancient Egypt's greatest, most celebrated, and most powerful pharaoh....
 and his successor Merneptah
Merneptah

Merneptah was the fourth ruler of the Nineteenth dynasty of Egypt of Ancient Egypt. He ruled Egypt for almost ten years between late July or early August 1213 to May 2, 1203 BC, according to contemporary historical records....
, Egyptian rulers of the nineteenth dynasty
Nineteenth dynasty of Egypt

The Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Dynasties of ancient Egypt are often combined under the group title, New Kingdom....
, during the 13th century BCE. The name of Libya was first mentioned as an ethnic name on the Merneptah Stele
Merneptah Stele

The Merneptah Stele ? also known as the Israel Stele or Victory Stele of Merneptah ? is an inscription by the Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah , which appears on the reverse side of a granite stela erected by the Pharaoh Amenhotep III....
, which also is known as the Israel Stele:
[..]The vile chief of the Libu who fled under cover of night alone without a feather on his head, his feet unshod, his wives seized before his very eyes, the meal for his food taken away, and without water in the water-skin to keep him alive; the faces of his brothers are savage to kill him, his captains fighting one against the other, their camps burnt and made into ashes ...


Afterward, the name appeared repeatedly in the pharaonic records
Pharaoh

Pharaoh is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Egyptian rulers of all periods. In antiquity this title began to be used for the ruler who was the religious and political leader of united ancient Egypt, only during the New Kingdom, specifically, during the middle of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt....
. It is, therefore, supposed that the origin of the name "Libya" was this Egyptian name for the ancient tribe Libu
Libu

The Libu were an ancient north African tribe, from which the name Libya derives.Their occupation of ancient Libya is first attested in Egyptian language texts from the New Kingdom, especially from the Ramesside Period....
. According to this theory, this name was taken over by the Greeks of Cyrenaica
Cyrenaica

Cyrenaica or Cirenaica is the eastern coastal region of Libya and also an ex-province or state of the country in the pre-1963 administrative system....
, who may have co-existed with them. Later, the name appeared in the Hebrew language
Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic languages of the Afro-Asiatic languages. Modern Hebrew is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and Classical Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jews communities around the world....
, written in the Bible
Bible

The Bible is the central religious text of Judaism and Christianity. The exact Books of the Bible is dependent on the religious traditions of specific denominations....
 as Lehabim and Lubim, indicating the ethnic population and the geographic territory as well.

In the neo-Punic
Punic

The Punics, were a group of western Semitic-speaking peoples originating from Carthage in North Africa who traced their origins to a group of Phoenician and Cypriot settlers, but also to North African Berbers....
 inscriptions it was written as Lby for the masculine
Masculine

Masculine or masculinity, normally refer to qualities positively associated with men.Masculine may also refer to:*Masculine , a grammatical gender...
 noun and Lbt for the feminine
Grammatical gender

In linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once....
 noun of Libyan. The name supposedly was used as an ethnic name in those inscriptions.

The first reference to "Libya" in the Greek language is found in Homer
Homer

Homer is traditionally held to be the author of the ancient Greek language epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as of the Homeric Hymns....
's Odyssey
Odyssey

The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Hellenic civilization epic poetrys attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work traditionally ascribed to Homer....
 (IX.95; XXIII.311). The name was used by Homer in a geographic sense, while he called its inhabitants Lotophagi
Lotophagi

In Greek mythology, the Lotophagi were a race of people from an island near North Africa dominated by "lotus" plants. The lotus fruits and flowers were the primary food of the island and were narcotic and addictive, causing the people to sleep in peaceful apathy....
 meaning the "Lotus-eaters". After Homer, the name was used by Aeschylus
Aeschylus

Aeschylus was an Ancient Greece playwright. He is often recognized as the father or the founder of tragedy, and is the earliest of the three Greek tragedy whose Play survive extant, the others being Sophocles and Euripides....
, Pindar
Pindar

Pindar , was an Ancient Greek Lyric poetry poet.Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, Pindar is the one whose work is by far the best preserved, and critics in antiquity tended to regard him as the greatest....
, and other Ancient Greek writers.

Herodotus
Herodotus

Herodotus of Halicarnassus was a Greeks historian who lived in the 5th century BC and is regarded as the "Father of History" in Western culture....
 used Libuwa indicating Libya while he called the Libyans Libyes in the Greek language. From his point of view, Libya was the name of the African continent, while "the Libyans" were the light-skinned North Africa
North Africa

North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, separated by the Sahara from Sub-Saharan Africa.Geopolitically, the United Nations subregion of Northern Africa includes the following seven countries or territories:...
ns, whereas the southern Africans were known as "the Ethiopians" to him.

In Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
, the name would be taken over from the Greek and the Punic languages. The Romans would have known them before their colonization of North Africa
North Africa

North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, separated by the Sahara from Sub-Saharan Africa.Geopolitically, the United Nations subregion of Northern Africa includes the following seven countries or territories:...
, because of the Libyan role in the Punic wars
Punic Wars

The Punic Wars were a series of three wars fought between Ancient Rome and Carthage from 264 to 146 BC. They were probably the largest wars yet of the ancient world....
 against the Romans. The Romans used the name Libyes, but it referred only to Barca and the Western desert of Egypt. The other Libyan territories became known as Africa
Africa

Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km? including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area....
.

In the Arabic literature, "Libya" was called Lubya indicating a speculative territory west of Egypt. Today, however, it is referred to as Libya.

Speculation exists regarding whether the name Libu was an Egyptian name for an ancient Berber
Berber people

Berbers are the indigenous ethnic groups of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are discontinuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River....
 tribe or, if it was the name the Berber tribe would use to refer to themselves. After that time, the Ancient Egyptians may have adopted it as a name for them. An example of the first probability is the name Berber
Berber (Etymology)

The term Berber is but a variation of the Latin original word Barbarian, earlier in history applied by Romans specifically to their northern hostile neighbors from Germania ....
 which is used to refer to the indigenous people of Northwest Africa, whereas they call themselves "Imazighen".

In fact, it is a difficult issue as the Berber
Berber people

Berbers are the indigenous ethnic groups of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are discontinuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River....
s and the Ancient Libyans did not leave significant written sources. Some prominent historian
Historian

A historian is an individual who studies and writes about history, and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, systematic narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all events in time....
s, however, tried to trace the name to a Berber origin. The supporters of the Berber origin believe that the name was related to an ancient Berber tribe. The name Libu would have known many evolutions from "Lebu" to "Libya" to "Lebata" to "Levata" to "Lvata" to "Lwatae".

Lwatae, the tribe of Ibn Battuta
Ibn Battuta

Ibn Battuta was a Muslim Berber, scholar and traveller who is known for the account of his travels and excursions called the Rihla. His journeys lasted for a period of nearly thirty years and covered almost the entirety of the known Muslim world and beyond, extending from North Africa, West Africa, Southern Europe and Eastern Europe in t...
, as it was called by the Arab
Arab

An Arab is a person who Identity as such on linguistic or cultural grounds. The plural form, Arabs , refers to the Ethnocultural group at large....
s was a Berber tribe that mainly was situated in Cyrenaica. This tribe seemed to have ranged from the Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions; with a total area of about 106.4 million square kilometres . It covers approximately one-fifth of the Earth's surface....
 to modern Libya
Libya

Libya , officially the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya , is a country located in North Africa. Bordering the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Libya lies between Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
, however, and was referred by Corippius as Laguatan; he linked them with the Maures.

Ibn Khaldun
Ibn Khaldun

Ibn Khaldun or Ibn Khaldoun...
 reports in the The History of Ibn Khaldun that Luwa was an ancestor of this previous tribe. He stated that the Berbers add an "a" and "t" to the name for the plural forms. Subsequently, it became Lwat.

Conversely, the Arabs adopted the name as a singular form adding an "h" for the plural
Plural

Plural is a grammatical number, typically referring to more than one of the referent in the real world. In the English language, singular and plural are the only grammatical numbers....
 form in Arabic. Ibn Khaldun denys the claim of Ibn Hazam, who claimed significantly on the basis of the Berber sources that Lwatah, in addition to Sadrata and Mzata, were from the Qibts (Egyptians). According to Ibn Khaldun his claim is incorrect because Ibn Hazam had not read the books of the Berber scholars.

Oric Bates is a historian who considers that the name Libu or LBW would be derived from the name Luwatah whilst the name Liwata is a derivation of the name Libu. Other historians such as the Libyan historian Mohammed Moustapha Bazam, tend to confirm this theory.

History

Compared with the History of Egypt
History of Egypt

The history of Egypt is the longest continuous history, as a unified state, of any country in the world. The Nile valley forms a natural geographic and economic unit, bounded to the east and west by deserts, to the north by the sea and to the south by the Cataracts of the Nile....
, there is little known about the history of Libya, as there are few surviving written texts.

The Libyco-Berber script (also known as Tifinagh
Tifinagh

Tifinagh is an alphabetic script used by some Berber peoples, notably the Tuareg, to write their language. The Berbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley....
) that was used in Libya, was used mostly as a funerary script
Writing system

A writing system is a type of symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in language....
. It is difficult to understand and there are a number of variations.

Information on Ancient Libya comes from archaeological evidence and historic sources written by Egyptians neighbours, the Ancient Greeks, Romans, and Byzantines in the addition to the Arabs from the Medieval times.

Since Neolithic times the climate of North Africa has been drying. A reminder of the desertification
Desertification

Desertification is the degradation of land in arid and dry Humid subtropical climate areas, resulting primarily from natural activities and influenced by Climate variations....
 of the area is provided by megalithic remains, which occur in great variety of form and in vast numbers in presently arid and uninhabitable wastelands: dolmens and circles like Stonehenge
Stonehenge

Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument located in the England county of Wiltshire, about west of Amesbury and north of Salisbury. One of the most famous sites in the world, Stonehenge is composed of Earthworks surrounding a circular setting of large standing stones and sits at the centre of the densest complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age mon...
, cairns, underground cells excavated in rock, barrows topped with huge slabs, and step-pyramidlike mounds. Most remarkable are the trilithon
Trilithon

A trilithon is a structure consisting of two large vertical stones supporting a third stone set horizontally across the top . Commonly used in the context of megalithic monuments....
s, some still standing, some thrown down, which occur isolated or in rows, and consist of two squared uprights standing on a common pedestal that support a huge transverse beam. In the Terrgurt valley "there had been originally no less than eighteen or twenty megalithic trilithons, in a line, each with its massive altar placed before it" according to Cowper.

In ancient times, the Phoenicia
Phoenicia

Phoenicia was an ancient civilization centered in the north of ancient Canaan, with its heartland along the coastal regions of modern day Lebanon, extending to parts of Israel, Syria and the Palestinian territories....
ns and Carthaginians
Carthage

Carthage refers both to an ancient city in present-day Tunisia, and a modern-day suburb of Tunis. The civilization that developed within the city's sphere of influence is referred to as Punic or Carthaginian....
, the armies of Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great , also known as Alexander III of Macedon was an ancient Greeks King of Macedon . He was one of the most successful military commanders of all time and is presumed undefeated in battle....
 and his Ptolemaic
Ptolemaic dynasty

The Ptolemaic dynasty was a Hellenistic Macedonian royal family which ruled the Ptolemaic Empire in Egypt for nearly 300 years, from 305 BC to 30 BC....
 successors from Egypt, then Romans
Rome

Rome is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city, with 2,724,347 residents in an urban area of some ....
, Vandals, and local representatives of the Byzantine Empire
Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire and Eastern Roman Empire are conventional names used to describe the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on its capital of Constantinople....
 ruled all or parts of Libya. The territory of modern Libya had separate histories until Roman times, as Tripoli and Cyrenaica.

Cyrenaica
Cyrenaica

Cyrenaica or Cirenaica is the eastern coastal region of Libya and also an ex-province or state of the country in the pre-1963 administrative system....
, by contrast, was Greek before it was Roman. It was also known as Pentapolis, the "five cities" being Cyrene
Cyrene, Libya

Cyrene was an ancient Greece colony in present-day Libya, the oldest and most important of the five Greek cities in the region. It gave eastern Libya the classical name Cyrenaica that it has retained to modern times....
 (near the village of Shahat) with its port of Apollonia (Marsa Susa), Arsinoe (Tocra), Berenice (Bengazi) and Barca (Merj). From the oldest and most famous of the Greek colonies the fertile coastal plain took the name of Cyrenaica.

These five cities were also known as the Western Pentapolis ;not to be confused with the Pentapolis
Pentapolis

A pentapolis, from the Ancient Greek words penta 'five' and polis 'city' is geographic and/or institutional grouping of five cities....
 of the Roman era on the current west Italian coast.

Geography

The boundaries of Ancient Libya have yet to be determined.

It was to the west
West

West is most commonly a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction or geography.West is one of the four cardinal directions or compass points....
 of Ancient Egypt and it was known as "IMNT" to the Ancient Egyptians. Libya was an unknown territory to the Egyptians: it was the lands of the spirit
Spirit

The English word "spirit" comes from the Latin "spiritus" . The term is commonly used to refer to a supernatural being which is transcendence and therefore metaphysical in nature....
s.

To the Ancient Greeks, Libya was one of the three known continent
Continent

A continent is one of several large landmasses on Earth. They are generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, with seven regions commonly regarded as continents ? they are : Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia ....
s along with Asia
Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent. It covers 8.6% of the Earth's total surface area and, with over 4 billion people, it contains more than 60% of the world's current human population....
 and Europe
Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
. In this sense, Libya was the whole known African continent to the west of the Nile
Nile

The Nile is a major north-flowing river in Africa, generally regarded as the List of rivers by length in the world.The Nile has two major tributary, the White Nile and Blue Nile, the latter being the source of most of the Nile's water and silt, but the former being the longer of the two....
 Valley and extended south of Egypt. Herodotus distinguished the inhabitants of Libya into two people: The Libyans in northern Africa and the Etheopians [sic] in the south.

According to Herodotus, Libya began where the Ancient Egypt ended, and Libya extended to Cape Spartel
Cape Spartel

Cape Spartel is a Headlands and bays in Morocco about 1,000 feet above sea level at the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar, some km West of Tangier....
, which was south of Tangier
Tangier

Tangier or Tangiers [#Notes] is a city of northern Morocco with a population of about 700,000 . It lies on the North African coast at the western entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Spartel....
 on the Atlantic coast
Atlantic Coast

The Atlantic Coast is any coast fronting the Atlantic Ocean. The term differentiates the coasts of countries or continents with coastlines on more than one body of water, such as North America, South America, Africa and Europe....
.

Modern geographers suspect that severe changes in climate affected the Berbers because of the loss of forests, reliable sources of fresh water, and availability of game along with the advance of desert conditions.

Later sources

After the Egyptians, the Greeks, Romans, and Byzantines mentioned various other tribes in Libyia. The late tribal names are different from the Egyptian ones, but it is supposed that some tribes were named in the Egyptian sources and the later ones, as well. The Meshwesh
Meshwesh

The Meshwesh were an ancient Libyan tribe from Cyrenaica. During the Nineteenth dynasty of Egypt and Twentieth dynasty of Egypt Dynasty, the Meshwesh were in almost constant conflict with the Egyptian state....
-tribe is an example for this assumption. The scholars believe it would be the same tribe called Mazyes by Hektaios and Maxyes by Herodotus, while it was called as "Mazaces" and "Mazax" in the Latin sources. All those names are somehow similar to the name used by the Berbers for themselves, Imazighen.

The sources of the late period gave more detailed descriptions about Libya and its inhabitants. Herodotus is the most notable ancient historian who tried to cover Libya and the Libyans in his fourth book, which is known as "The Libyan Book". In addition to him, Pliny the Elder
Pliny the Elder

Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was an ancient author, naturalist or natural philosopher and naval and military commander of some importance who wrote Natural History ....
, Diodorus Siculus
Diodorus Siculus

Diodorus Siculus , was a Roman Greece historian who flourished in the 1st century BC. According to Diodorus' own work, he was born at Agira in Sicily ....
, and Procopius
Procopius

Procopius of Caesarea was a prominent Byzantine Empire scholar of the family Procopius . A participant himself in the wars of the Emperor Justinian I, he was the major historian of the 6th century, writing the Wars of Justinian, the Buildings of Justinian and the celebrated Secret History....
 are considered as the basic sources on Libya and the Libyans.

Ibn Khaldun, who dedicated the main part of his book Kitab el'ibar, which is known as "The history of the Berbers", did not use the names: "Libya" and "Libyans" in his works. Instead, he used Arabic names: "The Old Maghreb
Maghreb

The Maghreb , also rendered Maghrib , meaning "place of sunset" or "western" in Arabic, is a region in North Africa. The term is generally applied to all of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, but in older Arabic usage pertained only to the area of the three countries between the high ranges of the Atlas Mountains and the Mediterranean Sea....
", (El-Maghrib el-Qadim), and "The Berbers" (El-Barbar or El-Barabera(h)).

Lake Tritonis divided the Berber cultures


Unlike Ibn Khaldun who divided the Berbers into the Batr and the Baranis,, Herodotus divided them into Eastern Libyans and Western Libyans. The Eastern Libyans were the nomad
Nomad

Nomadic people, , also known as nomads, are communities of people who move from one place to another, rather than Settler in one location....
ic Libyans to the east of Lake Tritonis
Lake Tritonis

File:Herodotus world map-en.svgLake Tritonis is a large body of fresh water in northern Africa that was described in many ancient texts. Classical-era Greek writers placed the lake in what today is southern Tunisia....
. They lived as nomadic shepherd
Shepherd

A shepherd is a person who tends to, feeds or guards sheep, especially in flocks. The word may also refer to one who provides religious guidance, as a pastor....
s, while the Western Libyans who lived west of Lake Tritonis, were farmer
Farmer

A farmer is a person who raises living organisms for food or raw materials....
s who led a sedentary life. A catastrophic change in the lake occurred at one point in the history of Libya, reducing the vast body of fresh water to a seasonal lake or marsh.

Neither Ibn Khaldun nor Herodotus distinguished the Libyans on the basis of their ethnic background, but according to their lifestyle
Lifestyle

Lifestyle was originally coined by Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler in 1929. The current broader sense of the word dates from 1961.In sociology, a lifestyle is the way a person lives....
s. The distinction of Herodotus also was followed by the modern historians, as with Oric Bates in his book "The Eastern Libyans". Some other historians used the modern name of the Berber
Berber people

Berbers are the indigenous ethnic groups of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are discontinuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River....
s in their works, such as the French historian Gabriel Camps
Gabriel Camps

Gabriel Camps was a French historian, founder of the Encyclop?die berb?re and considered an prestigious scholar in Berber history....
.

The Libyan tribes mentioned in these sources were: "Adyrmachidae", "Giligamae", "Asbystae", "Marmaridae", "Auschisae", "Nasamones", "Macae
Macaé

Maca? is a city located in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro, 180km northeast of the Rio de Janeiro. Its population was recorded as 188.787 in 2008 and the municipal covers an area of 1,216 km?....
", "Lotus-eaters (or Lotophagi)", "Garamantes
Garamantes

The Garamantes were a Saharan Berber languages-speaking people who used an elaborate underground irrigation system, and founded a kingdom in the Fezzan area of modern-day Libya, in the Sahara desert....
", "Gaetulia
Gaetulia

Gaetulia is the name of a Ancient Rome region in present-day southern Algeria. It is mostly desert. Parts of the Atlas mountains occupy its northwestern tip....
ns", "Maures(Berbers)", and "Luwatae", as well as those of many other tribes.

See also

  • North Africa during the Classical Period
    North Africa during the Classical Period

    Carthage and the BerbersPhoenician traders arrived on the North African coast around 900 BC and established Carthage around 800 BC. By the sixth century BC, a Phoenician presence existed at Tipasa ....
  • Northwest Africa
    Northwest Africa

    Northwest Africa or Northwestern Africa is a variably defined region of North Africa. The term incorporates cardinal directions, and is used in various disciplines: geopolitics, archaeology, anthropology, meteoritics and genetics....
  • History of North Africa
    History of North Africa

    North Africa is a relatively thin strip of land between the Sahara desert and the Mediterranean Sea, stretching from Moroccan Atlantic coast to Egypt....
  • Libu
    Libu

    The Libu were an ancient north African tribe, from which the name Libya derives.Their occupation of ancient Libya is first attested in Egyptian language texts from the New Kingdom, especially from the Ramesside Period....
  • Berber people
    Berber people

    Berbers are the indigenous ethnic groups of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are discontinuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River....


External links

  • , Chasing Sources across the Sahara from Herodotus to Ibn Khaldun by Richard L. Smith.