Lost Cities Discovered in Libyan Sahara

Photo of mudbrick and stone castle-like structure. (Toby Savage)

A pre-Islamic civilization has been unearthed in the Sahara Desert in south-west Libya using satellite imagery and aerial photography.

Led by David Mattingly at the UK’s University of Leicester, a team of archeologists found over 100 fortified farms, several towns, and villages with mud brick and stone structures like castles that have walls up to 4 meters tall. Other features include cairn cemeteries, wells, fields, and irrigation systems.

They mostly date back to between 1 and 500 A.D. when a relatively advanced tribe, known as the Garamantes to the Romans, inhabited the area.

“It is like someone coming to England and suddenly discovering all the medieval castles,” said Mattingly in a press release. “These settlements had been unremarked and unrecorded under the Gaddafi regime.

The archeologists were able to investigate a large region with the aid of satellite imagery, and uncovered the ruins in one of the most inhospitable areas of the desert.

“The evidence suggests that the climate has not changed over the years and we can see that this inhospitable landscape with zero rainfall was once very densely built up and cultivated,” said Martin Sterry of the University of Leicester in the release.

“These are quite exceptional ancient landscapes, both in terms of the range of features and the quality of preservation.”

The Garamantes probably colonized the region by at least 1,000 B.C. They first appeared in the historical record in the fifth century B.C., when the Greek historian Herodotus mentioned them as exceedingly numerous people who herded cattle, and hunted Ethiopians from four-horse chariots.

“In fact, they were highly civilized, living in large-scale fortified settlements, predominantly as oasis farmers,” Mattingly said. “It was an organized state with towns and villages, a written language and state of the art technologies. The Garamantes were pioneers in establishing oases and opening up Trans-Saharan trade.”

The team had to leave Libya in February when the anti-Gadhafi revolt began, but intend to return once the country’s security is completely restored. The Libyan antiquities department is closely involved in the project.

“It is a new start for Libya’s antiquities service and a chance for the Libyan people to engage with their own long-suppressed history,” Mattingly said.

“These represent the first towns in Libya that weren’t the colonial imposition of Mediterranean people such as the Greeks and Romans,” he concluded. “The Garamantes should be central to what Libyan school children learn about their history and heritage.”