Abu Kammash

The Fishing Village of Abu Kammash

Abu Kammash is a small Berber village by the sea, located about 25 km from the Tunisian border. A low reef runs parallel to the shore for about two miles, enclosing a beautiful fishing harbour, and a small jetty with blue-painted fishing boats moored on both sides. The fist part of the jetty (or the landing-stage) is built of rocks and stone, and terminates in a wodden section, just as in the photo below. This small harbour does not look old, and one is left to presume that the ancient anchorage has been claimed by the sea, waiting to be discovered by future underwater archaeology. Indeed this has been already indicated by the recent discovery of a buried city and cemetery by the coast of Abu-Kammash (see below for photos).

The village was originally inhabited by a few Berber families from Zuwarah who used it as a fishing village and as a crossing point to the peninsula of Farwah. This was partly due to the fact that Zuwarah, until recently, was a huge region spanning from al-Manqoub to the Tunisian border, rather than the present day town. Abu-Kammash is well known for catching "fish", and hence its name comes from the Berber verb "ekmesh" (to catch), which may thus mean "the place to catch good fish".

Fish Caught in Abu Kammash: Berber name "bouri" or "bouree".

Fishing pots - that is pots used for fishing: the pots, connected with a rope, are used to trap squids and octopuses, who use them as homes. Octopuses belong to the 150 species of marine mollusc, most of which have external shells. The   octopus does not have a shell, just a soft white flesh, locally considered as a delicious delicacy, especially when dried and preserved in salt.

The name octopus comes from the Greek oktopous   (via Latin), which means octo (eight) and pous (foot), from the fact that it has eight arms, each of which bears two rows of suckers. The Arabic name okhtabut was derived from this Latin form, as clearly preserved by the etymology of octo (okhta). The Berbers call it abelboul, the etymology of which is unknown.

The Turkish Fort of Abu-Kammash:

The Turkish Fort at Abu Kammash After Recent Restoration.

The ancient Turkish fort was built close to the beach of Abu Kammash. The building blends beautifully well with the surrounding flowers and the rich-blue water of the harbour. The fort was guarded by Turkish soldiers until the Italian wars at the start of the 20th century. The above photo was taken after the fort has been restored, and unfourtunately we have no photos of what the actual fort looked like before then.

The Newly Discovered Archaeological City in Abu-Kammash:

Is This The Ancient Punic-Roman Town of Pisindon?

The history of the village is not known, as there are hardly any written sources about Abu Kammash. According to At-Tijani's Travels in North Africa, Abu-Kammash once was part of Zuwarah and was inhabited by tribes from Zuwarah - a name which originally signified a whole region rather than a particular town. A recent archaeological discovery of an ancient city and a cemetery will, however, shed more light on its early history once it has been properly studied.

The city was discovered by chance while workers were digging to install water pipes during the start of the new millennia (around 2001). The site extends a few kilometres along the coast and stretches in both directions: north beneath the sea, and south across the coastal road. Unfortunately, it was reported that many of the excavated graves and tombs were robed by Moroccan labourers who were employed during the initial excavation shortly after the discovery. The excavated parts have so far yielded funerary chambers with several group graves of cremated bodies, whose bones were preserved in jars. Although the city appears to be of Roman character, excavations showed an earlier Phoenician or Punic layer beneath the city. The practice of building new buildings on top of earlier and much older ones was very common in the ancient world.

Unstudied & Newly Discovered Tombs.

Pisindon & Lake Tritonis:

Being in close proximity to Shat al-Jareed (the Palm Shore), the ancient Lake Tritonis, one can, with great reserve, suggest a link between the area of Abu-Kammash (as a whole) and prehistoric Lake Tritonis, where Herodotus informs us that the Libyan Amazons worshiped the Libyan Triple Goddess Neith. But, in addition to its geographical proximity, the ancient Greco-Phoenician name of Abu-Kammash, namely Pisindon, may be connected with the Libyan Sea-God Poseidon. To venture into the sea in those days one must seek the blessing of the gods, particularly Poseidon and Neith, both of whom were associated with water. In fact ancient Egyptian and Phoenician boats clearly carried the symbols of Neith as a form of protection. The association of Pisindon with Poseidon and the sea is also apparent from another ancient harbour with an identical name, namely the Pisindon Harbour, near today's Zwagha (Sabratha), which some think is Zuwarah itself. According to the Greek philosopher Plato, Poseidon was the king and also the chief God of the lost Atlantis, which Robert Graves connects with Lake Tritonis, and which others have connected with the Atlas Mountains in North Africa - so named after Poseidon's son Atlas.

Is The Search For Atlantis Over?

Of course, the popular subject of Atlantis has defied the imagination, generated more than 5000 books, and has slowly but steadily steered away from its source and agreeably became an international taboo respected scholars dare not mention, in public. It is not my intention to associate this location with Atlantis nor this is the place to cover this issue. But it is important to familiarise oneself with the local culture once present in this region.

It is often neglected that the statements of the classical Greek scholars, the source of all this mystery and nonsense, were originally based on the account given to them by their Libyan teachers: the Berber priests of the Egyptian Delta, and hence the first people, ever, to mention the legend of Atlantis were the ancient Libyans, from the Tehenu natives of the Delta. It has been already suggested that although the original Libyan account of Atlantis was part of the oral local literature and as such part of the Libyan oral history (during a period when writing was yet to be invented), the Greek philosophers habitually used the information to write works of fiction which epidemically spread like an infection. And, likewise, Greek mythology is powerfully rich in references to Libya and to this particular period from which it is blindingly apparent that the area of Lake Tritonis once was a major centre of civilisation and advanced culture: the seat of Poseidon and the capital of Neith's power, which Zeus and, later on, the Argonauts, could not resist to visit; and from which many writers had blatantly fabricated their money-making and perhaps Aryan-oriented ideas.

The big question which scholars have miserably failed to ask, let alone answer, is: what was Zeus doing in Libya?

Was he a divine tourist? Was he there to ask his Mother for forgiveness? Why was Zeus struck by a terrible headache while walking along the shores of Lake Tritonis in west Libya? The key to these questions, I think, is to decipher what Greek mythographers meant by "headache", and also to analyse the Greek's remedy for it:  to relieve Zeus of his agonising headache, a hole was dug in his head, out of which Neith was reborn as Athena whom he had later foolishly swallowed and regurgitated as "daughter" !  

A Tree House From Abu Kammash.

The view of Farwah from Abu-Kammash.

Abu-Kammash Chemical Complex

The chemical complex of Abu Kammash was built in the 1970s to produce household and industrial chemicals, including about 100,000 tons of ethylene dichloride per a year; 60,000 tons of PVC per a year; and 60,000 tons of vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) per a year.

A Cable Link Between Abu Kammash And Sicily:

According to the website of the Utility Automation & Engineering T & D
(http://uaelp.pennnet.com/display_article/313924/22/ARTCL/none/none/1/Nova-Scotia-Power-Awards-Contract/), December, 2007, Italy’s Centro Elettrotecnico Sperimentale Italiano (CESI) has finished a study looking at a potential electricity connection  via a 500-km-long cable between Abu Kammash in Libya and Partanna in Sicily, with a capacity of either 1000 MW or 500 MW. A detailed marine survey is being conducted to establish the exact route of the cable.