On the Garamantes

Charles Daniels wrote, in 1970, a short but summative work on the Garamantes. Of course, archaeologists and historians of today have access to more data, surveys, and excavations, including work at other sites across the Sahara. Nonetheless, Daniels, limited as he was by the state of archaeological research of his time and the handful of references to the Garamantes from Roman sources or Herodotus, was able to carefully wade through the confused or biased external sources and make some sense of the data from archaeology. Clearly, the Garamantes were not tent dwelling nomads or barbarians who lived only through brigandage. And while their material culture and architecture did seem to improve with the increase in imported goods from the Mediterranean, one wonders if craftsmen from the north were always responsible for the finer monuments and buildings. The Garamantes, as a civilization with roots in the last millennium before our era, and with ties to various advanced cultures, was perhaps capable of adapting and mastering other construction techniques besides mudbrick. That said, one wonders if the Garamantes were, as indicated by Daniels, more of a confederation. Therefore, their kingdom, despite most of its population probably being sedentary and living in the Fazzan oases, may have included Saharan pastoralists who did, occasionally, engage in banditry and attacks on Roman North Africa. This might explain part of the reason the Roman sources portrayed the Garamantes as Saharan bandits, if some of the allied Berber populations did attack coastal areas. 

In addition, Daniels draws from the general ancient literature on various Berber peoples across Libya and the Sahara to speculate about specific Garamantian customs and beliefs. He is likely correct about certain things, like the use of the Berber language, the Ammon cult, the practice of divination, and "looser" gender roles and polygamy among the Garamantes being shared with other Berber cultures. However, despite his acknowledgement of the racially mixed character of the Garamantes, he did not address the sub-Saharan and perhaps Tubu influences in Garamantian civilization. Surely, if the Garamantes were sometimes lumped into the "black" category by ancient Roman sources and were lumped into the "Sudan" category by medieval Arabic sources, the Garamantes likely exhibited many cultural traits of non-Berber origin, too.