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Brief History & Prehistory of Libya

 

 

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Introduction to the History of Libya

 

The ancient history of Libya, the "undiscovered country”, is mainly known to us through a few scattered ancient Egyptian references and loose Greek and Roman descriptions, such as those of Herodotus, Diodorus and Sallust, who impolitely,  in his Jugurthine War, said  that: "Africa was in the beginning peopled by the Gaetulians and Libyans, rude and uncivilized tribes, who subsisted on the flesh of wild animals, or on the herbage of the soil like cattle. They were controlled by neither customs, laws, nor the authority of any ruler; they roamed about, without fixed habitations, and slept in those shelters to which night drove them." 

The more recent hypo-thesis regarding the history and the origin of the Libyans are no better than Sallust's hallucinations. Some say the ancient Libyans came from Asia, supremacists say they arrived from North Europe,  Aryans purport they were Greek colonists, while we must not forget  those who say they came from Libyan Poseidon's Atlantis, which Plato located near the Atlas Mountains in North Africa.

Other more interesting sources of Libyan history come from the largest library of prehistoric drawings and engravings in the world: the Sahara desert, which are yet to be studied and interpreted. Libya’s rich archaeological remains were first noticed during the Italian occupation, where preliminary excavations produced some outstanding results. But although the Second World War quickly brought an end to this period of excavation, steps were taken afterwards by the British administration and the Libyan government to build up an Antiquities Department. The most ancient of these archaeological remains, namely  stone-age  implements and Neolithic tools, like grain mortars,  still lay scattered around the surface of the desert, looted  by visitors  and buried by  sand for future generations to rediscover.

Full scientific and archaeological survey of Libya will take decades, if not centuries, to materialise, and until then, it is difficult to conclude an archaeological history of Libya. Therefore, proper history of Libya remains to be written, and must include the recent genetic evidence, presented in a symposium of European geneticists, historical linguists and anthropologists, held recently in Madrid,  in which scientists concluded that the various theories put forward regarding the origin of the Berber peoples have no scientific foundation, and that genetic results  prove their continuous existence in North Africa for the last 50,000 years. Moreover, archaeology further extends this  continuous existence  to 100,000 years (see McBurney, below).

Libya and the whole of North African littoral was originally inhabited by an indigenous group of  ancient Berber tribes, whose linguistic unity proves that an ethnic sub-stratum of "autochthones" single race existed in North Africa, from the Mediterranean to the Sudan and from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, covering 11 countries, including Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Canary Islands, Mauritania, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso and Chad. This linguistic unity is part of a larger union which includes ancient Egyptian, Chadic, Ethiopian and Omotic languages of East Africa, in what is originally known as Hamito-Semitic and now renamed Afro-Asiatic (also Afrasiatic) by Americans. The propounded fake etymology of the perplexed appellation "Imazighen" being "the free men" also has no linguistic foundation, whatsoever.

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55,000,000 to 35,000,000 Years Ago:

The 55 million years old fossil of a primate found in Morocco, and the 35 million years old Aegyptopithecus found in Fayyum, in Egypt, are considered the oldest primate remains ever found in Africa. The earliest known hominoid (man-like) fossil, dubbed Oligopitchecus Savagei and which was also found in Fayyum, is 33 million years old. About seven million years ago, apes and proto-humans diverged into two separate evolutionary lines; and soon afterwards, about five million years ago, Africa itself began to crack along its eastern section, leading to the formation of the Red Sea and the emergence of the great Rift Valleys: one running from Abyssinia to Lake Victoria, and the other from Victoria to the Zambesi. It was suggested that the subsidence is continuously creating new lakes, which by trapping more sediments preserve more fossils and hence the abundance of fossil records in East Africa.

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4,000,000 To 3,000,000 Years Ago:

About 3.7 million years ago, the Australopithecus have evolved to become the first ancestor who marked the beginning of human culture, symbolised by tool making, the use of fire, and organised settlements into perhaps what we now know as "society". The discoveries at Ain Hanech in North Africa, when most archaeologists believed no human artifacts older than the Pleistocene (3.5 to 1.3 million years ago) can be found, confirmed that tool-making humans had lived in North Africa in the Pliocene. They made hand-axes, and polygonal nodules and cores of limestone with many flakes removed. Stone tools connected with the east African Olduvai Gorge, from Tanzania, were said to be the same as those found in Ain Hanech, suggesting an East African origin of the settlers.

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2,000,000 To 1,000,000 Years Ago:

Until now, Africa was considered the only continent our early ancestors inhabited. Around 2 million years ago, they were advanced enough to initiate the greatest journey of all times: the exploration of planet earth. The Homo Erectus left Africa to colonise Asia and Europe. Their bones were found in North Africa, as far west as Casablanca, Rabat and Ternifine, and in Asia, as far as China. Since their earliest remains in Europe and Asia date back to about 700,000 years ago, anthropologists have concluded that their journey must took them more than half a million years. Those ancestors who remained in Africa evolved into our own species, the Homo Sapiens, who also went on to colonise Asia and Europe.

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1,000,000 To 100,000 Years Ago:

Around 800,000 years ago, the Sahara was hot, tropical, very damp and covered with swamps, lakes and rivers. There were herds of elephants and antelopes, hippopotami in the lakes, crocodiles in the rivers, and vegetation everywhere. This period of heavy rain lasted for hundreds of thousands of years. Then around 450,000 years ago, the earliest type of pebble-tool in Tokra (Cyrenaica) and Bir Dufan (Tripolitania) was replaced by the hand-axe. About 200,000 years ago, the Neanderthals evolved, and were still in existence when modern humans emerged about 50,000 ago. For some reason the two species did not co-exist and the Neanderthals went extinct about 29,000 years ago. However, about 125,000 years ago, the hand-axe was replaced by the Levallois or Prepared-Core technique. Evidence from this period indicates humans were well familiar with fishing techniques, and painted their faces with red ochre.

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100,000 Years Ago:

The most important Neanderthal site from Libya is the Cave of Haua Fteah', near Marsa Sousa, in eastern Libya; other North African sites include Jebel Irhoud, Temara and Tangier. The Neanderthals were fairly short and had long skulls, protruding at the back, and heavier brows and jaws. They were the first humans to design clothes out of animal skin and the first in line to bury their dead. The Haua Fteah' in eastern Libya is one of the largest prehistoric cave-sites in the world and certainly the largest in the Mediterranean basin. A super-massive structure, providing continuous archaeological record from 100,000 years ago to the present. According to C.B.M McBurney (Libya in History, p. 7), "During the Last Interglacial  period some 90,000 years ago Cyrenaica was occupied by an exceptionally inventive and advanced group of Paleolithic hunters, among the most technologically progressive communities so far known to have existed at the time.”  These ancient Libyan hunters lived on wild cattle, gazelle, snails and marine molluscs, and made tools far in advance of anything known at the time, including a bone flute. This hardly known discovery, which McBurney brought to the attention of the international community way back in the 1950s, remains one of the best evidence that humans have continuously existed in one site in Libya for 100,000 years.

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50,000 BC to 30,000 BC:

About 37,000 years ago, Libya, and much of North Africa, was occupied by a tall, large-brained, and powerfully built humans, known as the Cro-Magnon. The remains of this type were found to be older than other Cro-Magnon samples from other sites (ex. Europe and Middle East), and it was widely believed that they were the direct ancestors of the Berbers and the Iberians (ex. the Basque people, who are strongly related to the Berbers of the Canary Islands). Cultural evidence from Fezzan, the home of the classical Garamantes Kingdom, then the most advanced people in the Sahara, goes back to more than 30,000 years. Stone implements dated to the late Acheulean and the Aterian (named after Bir el-Ater) cultures (100,000 - 30,000 BC) were found in numerous sites from the Fezzan area, and, according to most sources, many more await discovery. The dating of Fezzan's prehistoric art to 12000 BC is widely disputed and many scholars call for pushing this date further back in time on the light of the recent discoveries, and also strongly criticise the old techniques originally used to date the work some 40 or 50 years ago.

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Ancient Libyans

20,000 BC to 5,000 BC:

Hundreds of millions of years ago the Sahara desert was covered by great seas. As the seas drifted away, land slowly gave way to a great desert, much larger than the one we have now. Since then, the Sahara comes and goes just as the ice ages do elsewhere. During Europe's merciless Ice Ages, the Sahara was a warm shelter for many European refugees, who fled their homes for the luxurious and exotic paradise of North Africa. [{(Maybe Europe now can return the favour by accepting more refugees from stricken East and sub-Saharan Africa)}]. One of these most recent cycles, between 12,000 and 10,000 years ago, brought heavy rainfalls to the area, and slowly turned the Sahara to wet green land, covered with lakes and rivers, most suitable for water-thirsty animals like hippopotami, rhinoceroses, crocodiles and elephants.

It was the home of several extinct civilizations, traces of which still preserved across the desert’s galleries of cave art. These civilization are now the focus of many scientific institutions, in search of human’s primeval past. The cultures were so advanced of anything known elsewhere, and had advanced stone-tools. Then between 15,000 and 10,000 BC,scientists have unearthed the skeletal remains of a population the anthropologists named "Mouillans". These settlements were typically small, of about 100 individuals, mostly of women and children! They posed the largest cranial capacity of any population the world has ever seen; indicating, perhaps, their relation to the earlier, large-brained Cro-Magnons. Dr Carleton Coon has pointed out that the Mouillan features have never before evolved in such combinations in any race at that time in human's history. The breathtaking treasures of the Sahara's prehistoric drawings and engravings are perhaps the best measure for the level attained by these peoples.

the Oranian and the Capsian cultures were observed in North Africa; their integration with the cultures of the indigenous Berber tribes resulted in the introduction of farming techniques, long before they arrived in Mesopotamia. Almost during the same time, about 12,000 years ago, the same heavy rainfall flooded Lake Victoria and created the river Nile, which became the home for several Saharan immigrants after the Sahara was turned dry about 7000 years ago. After the return of the Sahara desert,  between 7000 and 5000 years ago, humans began immigrating out of the area and, according to genetic evidence, headed for Iberia, Egypt, Middle East, and south into the heart of Africa. Today, mainly the Berber Tuareg remain the keepers of the great desert.

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Garamantian Altar

The Garamantian Period:

 

("Some years ago Diole wrote: "The name of the Garamantes . . . does little more, really, than designate our ignorance." C. Daniels.)

The prehistoric drawings and engravings found in Fezzan were said to be at least 12,000 years old; although, according to other sources, as aforementioned, the dating process needs to be revised. However, the archaeological artifacts and stone tools discovered in various sites from Fezzan, which were dated to the late Acheulean and the Aterian cultures (circa 100,000 - 30,000 BC.), confirm the existence of human cultures well before 12000 BC. Hence it is not surprising that many archaeologists believe that the Garamantes and their descendants were responsible for the rock art of Tadrart Acacus, the Messaks and the surrounding areas.

The Garamantes were placed by Pliny twelve days journey from the Augilae, and ten days by Herodotus, in the interior of Libya. They occupied the most habitable region of the Sahara: the Wadis el-Agial and Sciati and the oases from Murzuk to Zuila. According to some sources, the Garamantes had been living on the shores between Zwara (Libya) and Gabes (in Tunisia), an area that includes the legendary Lake Tritonis where Libyan Poseidon allegedly ruled sunken Atlantis, in total agreement with  lbn Khaldun who stated that Germanah (Germa) was first settled by the Lauta  or Luwwatah tribe, who also inhabited the coastal regions of Tripolitania.

The Garamantes were considered to be Libya's first indigenous empire. They initially run their kingdom from the nearby capital Zinchecra (on the hills of Messak Settafet), then from Germa or Garama (today's Jerma or Germa) in the first century AD, so named after their eponymous ancestor Garamas ("the first of men") who was, according to Greek mythology, the son of the glorious Sun, and who, according to Libyan Berber mythology, offered Mother Earth a sacrifice of the sweet acorn. Herodotus informs us that the Garamantes were a very numerous tribe of people, who spread soil over the salt to sow their seeds in, and hunt in four-horse chariots. Archaeological discoveries indicate the Garamantian cities were thriving urban centres, with markets and public entertainment forums.

The Garamentes appear to have had an advanced  system of religion and mythology, in which sacrificial stones and pyramid-like burial chambers played an important role. More than 50,000 pyramidal tombs were discovered in Fezzan so far. Most of the Garamantian architecture is now in ruins, except the royal pyramid tombs of Ahramat al-Hattia, which, like the pyramids of Egypt, are designed to stay. From the archaeological remains of Germa, the city appears to have had six towers and a square market, used as a transit point for caravans and for the horses the Garamantes then exported to Rome.

Garamentes ancient Berber  inscriptions from Fezzan tombs in Libya

The above inscriptions, written in the Berber script Tifinagh, were collected from sites in the vicinity of Germa, the Garamantian capital of what is now  known  as Fezzan. According to Charles Daniels, they comprise the first collection of Garamantian inscriptions ever to be attempted. They were found inscribed, or cut or painted on dark grey amphorae, in the tombs of Garamentian cemeteries, such as those of Saniat ben Howedi. The tombs were badly destroyed, but a number of vessels survived in the graves. Most of these inscriptions have been transported to Sabha Museum. But despite having been discovered long time ago, no  one has, yet, managed to decipher them. Many of Germa's archaeological finds can also be found in Germa Museum, famous for the time-graph, showing the different periods of cave art in the area, and for the Garamantian mummy.

Perhaps one of the best achievement of the Garamentians, namely their agricultural genius, was said to have brought their downfall. The hundreds of underground channels, known as foggara, which were used to direct water from underground reserves to their farms, were said to have ultimately drained underground reserves. But, according to other sources, the disappearance of the Garamantes around the fifth century coincides more with the invasions than with drying up of underground reserves. Soon After the Garamentes came in contact with the Romans and Byzantines, and after they were subdued by Oqba-ibn-Nafi, they appear to have mysteriously disappeared into the Upper Niger, where they may have survived today, as Graves was the first to point out, in the village of Koromantse.

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Gorgon

The Libyan Amazons:

According to several historical records, the Libyan birthplace of the Goddess Neith, whom the Greeks adopted as Athena, as has been pointed out by  Plato, Plutarch, Diodorus and Herodotus, was also the  traditional homeland of the warrior women known as the Libyan Amazons, in the western parts of Libya, particularly around the legendary Lake Tritonis; where the Libyan Poseidon's son Theseus married the queen of the Amazons. The world of the Amazons was ruled by women warrior, in which they followed a manner of life unlike that which prevailed among other races of the time.

The Libyan Gorgon Medusa, who often led the Libyans of Lake Tritonis in battle, was said to have once been a beautiful maiden until Poseidon lay with her and incurred the enmity of the goddess Athena, who turned Medusa's lovely hair into serpents and made her face so hideous that a glimpse of it would turn men to stone. Jealous Athena helped Perseus, who was coming from Argos with an army, to behead Medusa, and the drops of blood that fell from Medusa's severed head into the Libyan desert were transformed into snakes.

According to Robert Graves, Diodorus Siculus' legend regarding the Libyan Atlantians, a Berber tribe also mentioned by Herodotus, from whom Libyan Amazons seized their city Cerne, cannot be archeologically dated, but he makes it precede a Libyan invasion of the Aegean Islands and Thrace, an event which cannot have taken place later than the third millennium BC.

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Egyptian-Saharan Style

The Ancient Egyptian Period: 3300 BC to 750 BC:

Egyptian records inform us that many parts of Libya and Egypt itself were inhabited by various Libyan tribes, the most prominent of which were the Temehu, the Tehenu, the  Ribu, and the Meshwesh. From the extent of the Temehu's territories, it is evident that they were made of a number of tribes, occupying much of the Sudan and possibly all the way to Fezzan. Several historians have pointed out that the Temehu and the Tehenu were the ancestors of the present day Tuareg. When Greek and Roman historians arrived in Libya and Egypt, the name Ribu became Libu, whence present day “Libya”, and the name Meshwesh became Masuch (Herodotus), Maschouacha (Chabas), Maksiz (Ptolemy) and Mazic (Latin inscriptions), whence present day Tamazight, and thus Imazighen, which is the generic name used to describe the indigenous inhabitants of North Africa as a whole, whom, later on, became known as “Berbers” by the Romans. The ancient Egyptians and the Berbers are strongly related tribes and share one common origin. Both languages: ancient Egyptian (not to be confused with current Arabic Egyptian, which western TV and History channels misleadingly use to portray ancient Egyptians) and Berber ('Tamazight') are sister languages belonging to the same linguistic branch of the Afro-Asiatic linguistic family. The cultural traits of the ancient Egyptians and Libyan Berbers and their mythologies and religions are also closely related, if not the same. Thus recent genetic evidence relates both the Egyptians and the Berbers, together with other Mediterranean extinct peoples, to the distant civilizations of the Sahara. Scientists have called for these results to be incorporated into Europe's educational curriculum. Inscriptions from the Old Kingdom are perhaps the earliest recorded information we have about the Berbers of Libya (excluding the recorded pre-history of prehistoric art which goes much farther back in time).  Before King Menes forcibly unified Egypt and invaded Lower Egypt, the Delta was primarily inhabited by Libyan Berbers who worshipped the Mother Goddess Tannit, the Cat-goddess Bast and the Sun-god Amon. The Palermo stone, the oldest document in the world, further illustrates the antiquity of Libyans in Lower Egypt by listing a succession of Libyan pre-Dynastic kings and queens from Lower Egypt, long before the menace of Menes. (See The Temehu Tribes for more on this.)

Ever since the Berbers, identified by the Egyptians as Tehenu, Temehu and Ribu or Libu, were attempting to regain control over Lower Egypt and the Libyan Desert Oases, including Dakhla and Bahriyyah. During the Middle Kingdom (ca. 2200-1700 BC) the Egyptian pharaohs managed to regain the upper hand and extracted tribute from the Berbers, and as a result a large number of Berbers served in the army of the pharaohs, and some even rose to high positions in the palace; eventually leading the Libyans to regain complete control over Egypt about (ca. 945 BC), by establishing the Libyan Dynasties on the hands of the Libyan King Shishenq or Shishonk. The Libyan dynasties continued to rule until the 25th dynasty, when Nubian chiefs rightly took over control of Egypt. Shortly after that, hoards of foreign invaders began to arrive, one by one, and took over Egypt, including the Greeks, Persians and Romans.

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The Arrival of the Phoenicians: 1000 BC To 200 BC:

The Phoenicians originally descended from North Africa as attested by linguistic evidence, where Proto-Semitic itself diverged from Proto-Berbero-Libyan (Diakonoff, 1975, 1981) about 7000 years ago. According to the legend of Dido, which some sources say was a Roman invention to discredit Carthage: its main rival, the Berber king Iarbas granted Dido as much land as could be covered by an ox-hide; on which they settled among the native Berbers and quickly adopted Berber gods and traditions, like the Libyan Goddess Tannit who they loved as Tanit, and the Libyan Amon who they worshipped as Bal-Amon, in the same way the Greeks, later on, made him Zeus-Amon.

Unlike the later arrivals, the Phoenicians signed treaties of cooperation with the native Berbers; and when the Persians invaded Egypt and sent their ambassadors to Libya asking the Berbers to help the Persians take over Carthage, the Libyans replied saying that they will not take up arms against their brothers, and thus succeeded in saving Libya from yet another foreign rule.

The Phoenicians established several colonies in Libya, the most famous of which were Leptis Magna, Oea (Tripoli), Sabratha, and Carthage (Qert Hadasht 'The New Village'), which was founded in 814 BC. This Berber-Phoenician empire was gaining influence all around the Mediterranean, and eventually brought terror and fear to the Romans' hearts. By 517 BC, the powerful Carthage was the leading city of North Africa, controlling the entire North African coast from Tripolitania to the Atlantic Ocean.

When Hannibal managed to invade Italy, in his daring adventure across the Alps, and laid siege to Rome for nearly 12 years, the Romans, unable to come out of their prison and fight Hannibal, decided to take the war back to Carthage. Here, most historians agree, that Hannibal had committed his greatest mistake: not attacking Rome. But apparently he refused to attack Roman women and children in their own city, hoping the men will come out and give him a decent fight; but they never did, fearing their lives.

When Carthage was attacked by the Romans, to divert the war to Africa, the Carthaginian government fell in the trap and recalled Hannibal. Upon returning to defend his homeland, and after the Punic Wars with Rome, Carthage was finally reduced to rubble and razed to the ground in 146 BC. Hannibal left for Syria, and from there he went to Bithynia (in Asia), where its king Prusias betrayed him to the Romans. Rather than surrender and see death on the hands of his enemy, he, like Cleopatra, took poison in 183.

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The Arrival of the Greeks:

The tribes mentioned by Herodotus as Atarantes and/or Atlantes, who inhabited the regions of the Atlas Mountain (then Mauritania, whence Moors ‘Berbers’), were associated by Plato with the inhabitants of the lost Atlantes, whose chief God was the Libyan Sea-god Poseidon. By the time of al-Ya'qubi (9th  century) and Ibn Khaldun (14th century), the ancient tribes of the Greek era became (not replaced by) the Hawwara (or Zwara), Botr, Baranes, Sanhaja, Zanata and Aurigh (which some sources say became Tuareg). As the /gg/ is often changeable to /ww/ in various Berber languages, the Tripolitanian Hawwara were thus identified with Hoggar, who are thus the Tuareg of the present day Hoggar Mountain in the Sahara.

The Greeks established 5 colonies in Cyrenaica, around the seventh century BC, which became known as the Pentapolis: the Five Cities of Cyrene, Apollonia, Ptolemais, Taucheira and Berenice (Benghazi). The Pentapolis enjoyed a significant degree of autonomy, and Greek influence was limited to the coastal regions. The Berber areas, further south, remained free from Greek rule. Apparently, the city of Cyrene was founded upon the oracular advise of Apollo at Delphi, by the Greeks of Thera (modern Santorini), and thus their arrival was portrayed as a divine mission, rather than a military conquest. This divine vandalism proved to be very useful at the time to secure foreign property. The fertile Green Mountain (Jebel al-Akhdar) supplied Greece with livestock, grain, wine and the unique Cyrenaican plant silphium. The level of civilization attained by Cyrene was so high that it quickly became one of the most cultural, philosophical and academic cities in North Africa and produced some of the finest scholars of the time. The popular philosophy of Cyrene was that of moral cheerfulness and happiness. Shortly after the death of Alexander the Great   in 323 BC, only eight years after his armies arrived in Cyrenaica, his empire was divided among his Macedonian generals and thus Cyrene and Egypt went to Ptolemy. Just over two hundred years later, the Greek influence began to dwindle and the last Greek ruler, Ptolemy Apion, finally surrendered Cyrenaica to Rome.

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Hannibal

Hannibal

The Arrival of the Romans:

When the Roman arrived in North-West Africa, there were a number of Berber Kingdoms in existence, of which the most influential was Numidia or Numidae. According to Herodotus, the Libyans comprised two major groups: the agricultural population of the coastal regions, and the shepherds or the Nomads, of which Numidae is the Latin form.  The Numidae of the Second Punic War were essentially the Berber tribes of the Masaesyli and the Massyli,  the subjects of the Berber kings Syphax and Masinissa respectively. The Numidian kingdom of Masinissa eventually included all of Tripolitania. When the Romans took over North Africa, Libya came under  the administration of Africa Proconsularis,

Shortly after the Romans defeated Hannibal at Zama, the Berber kingdoms began to suffer the impact of the Roman invasions, and by 46 BC, Julius Caesar deposed the final Numidian king, Juba I. Tripolitania was thereafter incorporated into the province of Africa Proconsularis. Once the coastal regions were under Roman control, the Roman generals wanted to do what no invader of Libya has done before: to conquer the Sahara.  After their initial expeditions against the Garamantian empire, the Romans, in 20–19 BC, and later on in 69–70 AD, signed a trade and military treaty with the Garamantian chiefs and the two became trading partners, as evidenced by the pottery shreds and other artifacts unearthed in Fezzan. By the end of the first century AD Rome had completed the pacification of Sirtica (the region now know as the Gulf of Sert), and Cyrenaica was handed over to them by the Greeks. Under the influence of the Libyan-Berber emperor Septimius Severus Libya enjoyed a massive development as witnessed by the spectacular achievements built in Leptis Magna, Tripoli and Sabratha - sites which were already advanced Phoenician ports long before the Romans arrived. According to several respected historians, the Romans learned a lot from Carthage and that without Hannibal's attacks on Rome there would have been no Roman empire.

Hannibal ( (247-183 BC):
219: Siege of Saguntum
218: Capture of Saguntum ,Declaration of War.
218 : Hannibal sets out from New Carthage.
218 : Hannibal crosses the Alps,  Battle of R. Ticinus.
218 : Battle of R. Trebia .
218 : Hannibal crosses the Apennines, Roman successes.
217 : Elections in Rome,Hannibal crosses R. Arno.
217 : Battle of Lake Trasimene.
217 : Hannibal's escape from Campania , Hannibal at Gereonium.
217:  Minucius's successes  against  Hannibal.
216 : Elections in Rome, Hannibal at Capua.
216 : Carthage receives news of Canna.
216 : Hannibal repulsed at Nola, Siege of Casilinum.
216  :Roman army destroyed by Boii.
216 : Hasdrubal stopped from leaving Spain.
215 : Elections in Rome, Alliance between Carthage and Macedon.
215 : Capture of Carthaginian generals in Sardinia.
214 :Conspiracy in Syracuse,  Marcellus in Sicily.
214 : Massacre at Henna.
213 : Roman overtures to king Syphax
212 : Hannibal enters Tarentum, Carthaginians take Thurii.
212 : Tiberius Gracchus killed.
212 : Plague at Syracuse, death of Archimedes.
212 : Death of the Scipios.
212 : Lucius Marcius rallies Roman remnant in Spain.
212 : Marcellus victorious at Agrigentum.
211 : Hannibal marches to relieve Capua, Battle of R. Volturnus.
211 : Hannibal's march on Rome,  Battle of R. Anio.
211 : Hasdrubal's escape from Nero in Spain.
210 : Alliance between Rome, Aetolian League , and Pergamum.
210 : Fire in Rome ,Hannibal destroys Herdonea .
210 : Envoys from Syphax in Rome, raid on African coast.
208 : Raid on African coast,  Plilip V intervenes in Greece.
207 : Hasdrubal crosses the Alps,  Hasdrubal besieges Placentia.
207 : Hannibal routed at Grurnentum.
207 : Hasdrubal's letter to his brother  Hannibal intercepted.
207 : Death of  Hasdrubal (Hannibal's brother).
207  :Successful raid on Utica.
206 : Livy's tribute to Hannibal, Masinissa  joins the Romans.
206 : Scipio and Hasdrubal meet Syphax, Slaughter at Astapa .
206 : Meeting between Scipio and Masinissa , surrender of Gades.
205 : Elections in Rome, Fabius's attack on Scipio in Senate.
205 : Laelius raids African coast .
204 : General peace in Greece.
204 : Pact between Carthage and Syphax.
204 : Scipio crosses to Africa, Masinissa comes to join Scipio.
204 : Hannibal defeated near Croton.
203 : Burning of Carthaginian camp at Utica .
203 : Syphax defeated at Great Plains.
203 : Naval battle off Carthage, final defeat and capture of Syphax .
203 : Masinissa enters Cirta and meets Sophonisba.
203 : Sophonisba's death.
203 : Carthaginian envoys ask for peace, Rome rejoices over African victories.
203 : Mago and Hannibal recalled from Italy.
203 : Hannibal leaves Italy, Hannibal lands at Leptis.
202 : Hannibal marches to Zama,  meeting with Scipio.
202 : Battle of Zama : Rome wins.
195 : Hannibal's  reforms in Carthage, Hannibal's  flight to Antiochus
193 : Hannibal's agent Aristo in Carthage.
191 : Hannibal's advice to Antiochus.
189 : Battle of Magnesia, senate ratifies peace with Antiochus .
187 : Prosecution of Scipio Africanus and his death.
183 :Death of Hannibal: he left to Asia from Syria, and Prusias, the King of Bithynia betrayed him to the Romans. Hannibal took poison rather than surrender.

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The Arrival of the Muslims:

After submitting most of the Arabian tribes to the will of Allah by 631 AD, Muslim generals moved on towards the Middle East and North Africa. In 642 AD, U'mr ibn al- A's, under the command of the Caliph U' mr I, arrived in Cyrenaica, where he established his base at Barqa, and then a few years later he moved on towards Tripolitania, where he removed the remaining Byzantine garrisons and took control of Tripoli. After U' mr, the Caliph sent Uqba bin Nafi, who moved towards Fezzan in 663 and took Germa, and then the Roman province of Africa in 670 AD, where he established another military base at Kairouan (al Qayrawan) in preparation to attack Byzantine Carthage, which they finally took in 693 AD. Shortly afterwards, the Muslims arrived in Morocco, from where they opened Spain, under the command of the Berber Tariq Bin Zayyad. By the seventh century, a power struggle ensued between the supporters of rival claimants to the caliphate, thereby splitting Islam into two sects: the Sunni and the Shia. About 200 years later, Shia missionaries of the Ismaili sect succeeded in converting the Kutama of Kabylia and set them against the Sunni Aghlabids, where they took Kairouan in the following year, and soon afterwards the wars broke out again between the Shia Fatimids of North Africa and The Sunni of Baghdad; eventually leading the Fatimids caliph to invite Bani Hilal and Bani Salim Bedouin tribes from the Arabian peninsula.

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The Arrival of The Spaniards & The Turks:

After a short lull in Libya's history, it was the turn of the Spaniards and the Turks to share the spoils of the Great White Sea. During the 14th and 15th centuries the Spaniards were wrecking havoc across the waters of the Mediterranean. The genocide of the Berber natives of the Canary Islands was completed in 1500 AD, and the survivors were sold as first-class slaves in Europe. And soon after that, they destroyed Tripoli   in 1510 AD and built a fortified naval base from the rubble. Throughout the 16th century, Spain and the Ottoman Turks were fighting over the control  of the Mediterranean, just as the Phoenicians and the Romans did before. Chaos was the king and piracy, which was already in existence, became an established business on both side of the Great White Sea. By 1551 AD the knights were driven out of Tripoli by the Turkish pirates, and by 1580 AD the chiefs of Fezzan finally allied with the Turks. By the early 18th century, the Karamanli dynasty rose to fame, mainly in trafficking slaves and piracy, activities which eventually invited the European powers to take control of Africa. They British began sending a series of expeditions to all parts of Africa, collecting maps and information about the treasures lay hidden in Africa, with master plans to abolish the slave trade and establish a different kind of economy.

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Modern Colonial Period:

The spread of the Ottoman Empire saw Libya come under a state of disarray and chaos, where corruption and cruelty were the main characteristics of the period. In September 1911 Italy accused Turkey of arming tribesmen in Libya and soon afterwards declared war and captured Tripoli in October the 3rd and occupied Cyrenaica's Tobruk and Benghazi. The initial resistance of the Turks soon disappeared and instead they settled for peace in 1912,  while Italy began its wars against the Libyans. The powerful Sanusi religious order managed to unite the rival bedouin tribes of Cyrenaica and form a strong opposition to the Italians. But when the Italians forcibly united Cyrenaica with Tripolitania in what is now know as Libya in 1931 and thus the Libyan resistance came to an end, the Libyans were driven to join forces with the Allied and finally succeeded in defeating the Italians. Erwin Rommel's campaigns with the allies marked a bloody period of Libya's history, which eventually led the British to pave the way for Libya to join the international community. Under the supervision of the United Nations, King Idris was chosen from the Sanusi clan to become the king of Independent Libya in 1951. However, true independence that is free from European rule did not arrive until 1969 when Gaddafi toppled King Idris from the throne and claimed Libya as a republic of the free people.

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M. al-Qaddafi

Gaddafi's White Revolution: 1st of September 1969:

After Gaddafi's White Revolution of the First of September 1969, the Kingdom of Libya became known as the Libyan Arab Republic. The new era of Libya's history was characterised by massive political, economical and social developments and an agricultural revolution culminating in the Great Man-Made River. The main slogan of the revolution was: "Freedom, Socialism & Unity", in reference to the freedom the Libyan people enjoy under the new regime through the "people's committees"; the socialism achieved through promoting industrialization and agricultural splendour; and the unity with the Arab world.

Muammar al Qaddafi was born in a tent in Sert in 1942. As a boy, he was deeply affected by the major events taking place in the Arab world, after which he showed interest in studying history. He joined the Libyan military academy at Benghazi in 1961. Soon after the great revolution, Gaddafi's striking personality and progressive ideological style earned him front headlines around the world, and within a space of a few years he became the most charismatic leader Libya has ever seen. His powerful vision of pan-Arabism brought him into constant conflict with the demonic forces of imperialism, while leaving internal affairs to his revolutionary command and to the Libyan people.

In 1973 he declared the Cultural or Popular Revolution, in which he outlined his ideas to combat bureaucracy, corruption, and the lack of public participation, and strongly urged the Libyan people to take over the various governmental institutions, and thus the "people's committees"  were created across Libya as regional administrations, in what is known as "direct democracy" as described in his Green Book. These local committees are run by the central General People's Congress (GPC), also know as the General People's Committee, which, in March 1977, declared the Libyan Arab Republic as the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. After he completed establishing his new vision of Libya, Gaddafi officially handed power over to the newly formed GPC and he distanced himself from any presidency-ship, and thereafter he was known as the "Leader of the Revolution." From there on, Libya is run by Libyans in a new kind of democracy known as Popular Democracy, in which the country is run by the people. Author: Nesemenser © 2008

 

 

 

 

Creative Commons License Brief History of Libya by Nesmenser is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

 
   
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