Pre-Islamic Oasis Settlements in the Eastern Sahara

On Major Trans-Saharan Trails

“…It is not uncommon that ancient writers depicted the Garamantes as barbarians who threatened the Mediterranean world from their desert strongholds. 58 The first-century AD Roman historian Tacitus, for instance, described them as an "ungovernable tribe … always engaged in practicing brigandage on their neighbours". 59 Herodotus, writing in the fifth pre-Christian century, had a different picture of the Garamantes in mind.…”

Detecting Change at Archaeological Sites in North Africa Using Open-Source Satellite Imagery

“…Slightly later in date are four nucleated settlements of densely packed rectilinear structures that sit within large and extensive field systems. Radiocarbon dating of material from the walls of these settlements suggest they date to the early medieval period and the expansion of trans-Saharan trade (seventh to ninth centuries AD) [15], but Roman pottery observed during a field survey in 2013 from at least one of these suggests an earlier origin. To the north of Hun is a late medieval walled town with a mosque and an attached cemetery.…”

“…; however, this is provided stripped of its original radiometric information. Google Earth has been used extensively by EAMENA, AKAP and Trans-SAHARA for image interpretation [2,15] as well by as other projects working in the region [16].…”

“…Each has an urban centre and a large area of irrigated oasis gardens of cereals and cultivated palms. Jufra has some of the earliest evidence for agriculture in the Central Sahara with two areas of foggaras (subterranean ground-water transporting channels) and associated settlements to the south of Hun and Waddan [15] (130-137). These probably date to the early first millennium AD (if not earlier).…”