Outlines of early Tunisia - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The History of early Tunisia predates the punic era, and was eventually shaped and characterized by the Berber culture

Berber people

Berbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are continuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River. Historically they spoke the Berber language or varieties of it, which together form a branch...

. The Berbers lived as an independent people in 'prehistory'. Later they became unassimilated 'hosts' to long-term settlers from Phoenicia

Phoenicia

Phoenicia , was an ancient civilization in Canaan which covered most of the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent. Several major Phoenician cities were built on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550...

, called here Punic, who ruled over the land for many centuries. The Berbers became this land's oldest inhabitants.

Scattered evidence of the pre-Punic epochs sheds a rather dim light on the prehistoric and pre-Berber situation, and also on Berber origins and later development. Evidence from Berber language history provides a singular, ancient perspective: yielding a suggested reconstruction of remote millennia of prehistory; also, insight into the ancient cultural-linguistic relations of Tunisian Berbers not only with their neighboring Berber brothers, but with other peoples.

Here, the prehistoric seamlessly entered the earliest historic, as described mostly by later Greek and Roman writers (surviving Punic writing being very scarce; Berber writing found being limited to inscriptions). Phoenician and Berber first met outside of Tunisia, well before the rise of Carthage. An invasion of Phoenicia was led by a pharaoh of a Berbero-Libyan dynasty (the XXII) of Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...

.

History recorded for all Berbers of Northwest Africa begins approximal to the founding of Carthage

Carthage

Carthage , implying it was a 'new Tyre') is a major urban centre that has existed for nearly 3,000 years on the Gulf of Tunis, developing from a Phoenician colony of the 1st millennium BC...

, in present-day Tunisia. Within Punic territory, the Berbers persisted as a separate, submerged entity, as a culture of mostly passive urban and rural poor within the civil structures created under Punic rule. Berber peoples also formed quasi-independent satellite societies near the frontier, and continued as 'free republics' in the steppes beyond. Although the majority were a subject people in symbiosis with dominant Carthage, the Berbers followed their own traditions concurrently.

Tunisia remained a leading region of Berber peoples throughout the Punic era (and Roman, and into the Islamic). Modern commentary and reconstructions are presented concerning their ancient livelihood, material culture, and social organization, including tribal confederacies. Evidence comes from various artifacts, inscriptions, and historical writings; supplementary views are derived by disciplines studying genetics and language.

Remote epochs

Evidence of habitation in the North African region by human ancestors has been found stretching back one or two million years, yet not to rival those most-ancient finds in south and east Africa. Migrations out of Africa

Recent African origin of modern humans

In paleoanthropology, the recent African origin of modern humans is the most widely accepted model describing the origin and early dispersal of anatomically modern humans...

since 100 kya (thousands of years ago) are thought to have established current human populations world wide. Cavalli-Sforza

Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza

Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza is an Italian population geneticist born in Genoa, who has been a professor at Stanford University since 1970 .-Books:...

includes the Berber

Berber people

populations in a much larger genetic group

Population genetics

Population genetics is the study of allele frequency distribution and change under the influence of the four main evolutionary processes: natural selection, genetic drift, mutation and gene flow. It also takes into account the factors of recombination, population subdivision and population...

, one which also includes S.W. Asians, Iranians, Europeans, Sardinians, Indians, S.E. Indians, and Lapps. Very remote epochs often concern only clues to physical anthropology

Physical anthropology

Biological anthropology is that branch of anthropology that studies the physical development of the human species. It plays an important part in paleoanthropology and in forensic anthropology...

. Later millennia may disclose more cultural

Cultural anthropology

Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans, collecting data about the impact of global economic and political processes on local cultural realities. Anthropologists use a variety of methods, including participant observation,...

information, yet mostly limited to material culture, absent writings.

Ages of stone

Dating to the Mesolithic

Mesolithic

The Mesolithic is an archaeological concept used to refer to certain groups of archaeological cultures defined as falling between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic....

era, stone blades and tools, as well as small stone figurines, of the Capsian culture

Capsian culture

The Capsian culture was a Mesolithic culture of the Maghreb, which lasted from about 10,000 to 6,000 BCE.It was concentrated mainly in modern Tunisia, and Algeria, with some sites attested in southern Spain to Sicily....

(named after Gafsa

Gafsa

Gafsa is the capital of Gafsa Governorate of Tunisia. Its name was appropriated by archaeologists for the Mesolithic Capsian culture. With a population of 84,676, it is the 9th Tunisian city.-Overview:...

, Tunisia) are connected indirectly to the prehistoric presence of the Berbers in North Africa

Prehistoric Central North Africa

- Early and middle Paleolithic :Earlier inhabitants of central North Africa have left behind equally significant remains. Early remnants of hominid occupation in North Africa, for example, were found in Ain el Hanech, near Saïda ; in fact, more recent investigations have found signs of Oldowan...

. Also related are some of the prehistoric monuments built using very large rocks (dolmens). Located both in Europe and Africa, these dolmens are found at locations throughout the region of the western Mediterranean. The Capsian culture was preceded by the Ibero-Maurusian in North Africa.

Saharan rock art

Saharan rock art is a significant area of archaeological study focusing on the precious treasures carved or painted on the natural rocks found in the central Sahara desert. There are over three thousand sites discovered that have information about Saharan rock art...

, the inscriptions and the paintings that show various design patterns as well as figures of animals and of humans, are attributed to the Berbers and also to black Africans from the south. Dating these art works has proven difficult and unsatisfactory. Egyptian influence is considered very unlikely. Some images infer a terrain much better watered. Among the animals depicted, alone or in staged scenes, are large-horned buffalo (the extinct bubalus antiquus), elephants, donkeys, colts, rams, herds of cattle, a lion and lioness with three cubs, leopards or cheetahs, hogs, jackles, rhinoceroses, giraffes, hippopotamus, a hunting dog, and various antelope. Human hunters may wear animal masks and carry their weapons. Herders are shown with elaborate head ornamentation; a few dance. Other human figures drive chariots, or ride camels.

Theory of mixed origin

A commonly held view of Berber origins is that Paleo-Mediterranean peoples long occupying the region combined with several other largely Mediterranean

Mediterranean race

The Mediterranean race was one of the three sub-categories into which the Caucasian race and the people of Europe were divided by anthropologists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, following the publication of William Z. Ripley's book The Races of Europe...

groups, two from the east near S.W.Asia and bringing the Berber languages about eight to ten kya (one traveling west along the coast and the other by way of the Sahel and the Sahara), with a third intermingling earlier from Iberia

Iberians

The Iberians were a set of peoples that Greek and Roman sources identified with that name in the eastern and southern coasts of the Iberian peninsula at least from the 6th century BC...

. "At all events, the historic peopling of the Maghrib is certainly the result of a merger, in proportions not yet determined, of three elements: Ibero-Maurusian, Capsian and Neolithic," the last being "true proto-Berbers".

Cavalli-Sforza

Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza

Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza is an Italian population geneticist born in Genoa, who has been a professor at Stanford University since 1970 .-Books:...

also makes two related observations. First, the Berbers and those S.W. Asians who speak Semitic idioms together belong to a large and ancient language family

Historical linguistics

Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages...

(the Afroasiatic), which dates back perhaps ten kya. Second, this large language family incorporates in its ranks members from two different genetic groups, i.e., (a) some elements of the one listed by Cavalli-Sforza immediately above, and (b) one called by him the Ethiopia

Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

n group. This Ethiopian group inhabits lands from the Horn

Horn of Africa

The Horn of Africa is a peninsula in East Africa that juts hundreds of kilometers into the Arabian Sea and lies along the southern side of the Gulf of Aden. It is the easternmost projection of the African continent...

to the Sahel

Sahel

The Sahel is the ecoclimatic and biogeographic zone of transition between the Sahara desert in the North and the Sudanian Savannas in the south.It stretches across the North African continent between the Atlantic Ocean and the Red Sea....

region of Africa. In agreement with Cavalli-Sforza's work, recent demographic study indicates a common Neolithic origin for both the Berber and Semitic

Semitic

In linguistics and ethnology, Semitic was first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages...

populations. A widespread opinion is that the Berbers are a mixed ethnic group sharing the related and ancient Berber languages.

Perhaps eight millennia ago, already there were prior peoples established here, among whom the proto-Berbers (coming from the east) mingled and mixed, and from whom the Berber people would spring, during an era of their ethno-genesis. Today half or more of modern Tunisians appear to be the descendants of ancient Berber ancestors.

Berber language history

In the study of languages

Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

, sophisticated techniques were developed enabling the understanding of how an idiom evolves over time

Historical linguistics

Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages...

. Hence, the speech of past ages may be successively reconstructed in theory by using only modern speech and the rules of phonetic and morphological

Morphology (linguistics)

In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...

change, and other learning, which may be augmented by and checked against the literature of the past, if available. Methods of Comparative linguistics

Comparative linguistics

Comparative linguistics is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness....

also assisted in associating related 'sister' languages, which together stem from an ancient parent language. Further, such groups of related languages may form branches of even larger language families, e.g., Afroasiatic.

Afroasiatic family

Taken together the twenty odd Berber languages constitute one of the five branches of Afroasiatic, a pivotal world language family, which stretches from Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...

and Arabia to the Nile river and to the Horn of Africa

Horn of Africa

, across northern Africa to Lake Chad

Lake Chad

Lake Chad is a historically large, shallow, endorheic lake in Africa, whose size has varied over the centuries. According to the Global Resource Information Database of the United Nations Environment Programme, it shrank as much as 95% from about 1963 to 1998; yet it also states that "the 2007 ...

and to the Atlas Mountains

Atlas Mountains

The Atlas Mountains is a mountain range across a northern stretch of Africa extending about through Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. The highest peak is Toubkal, with an elevation of in southwestern Morocco. The Atlas ranges separate the Mediterranean and Atlantic coastlines from the Sahara Desert...

by the Atlantic Ocean. The other four branches of Afroasiatic are: Ancient Egyptian, Semitic

Semitic languages

The Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 270 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa...

(which includes Akkadian, Aramaic, Hebrew, Arabic, and Amharic), Cushitic

Cushitic languages

The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family spoken in the Horn of Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Sudan and Egypt. They are named after the Biblical character Cush, who was identified as an ancestor of the speakers of these specific languages as early as AD 947...

(around the Horn and the lower Red Sea

Red Sea

The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. In the north, there is the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez...

), and Chadic

Chadic languages

The Chadic languages constitute a language family of perhaps 200 languages spoken across northern Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Central African Republic and Cameroon, belonging to the Afroasiatic phylum...

(e.g., Hausa). The Afroasiatic language family has great diversity among its member idioms and a corresponding antiquity in time depth, both as to the results of analyses in historical linguistics

Historical linguistics

Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages...

and as regards the seniority of its written records

History of writing

The history of writing records the development of expressing language by letters or other marks. In the history of how systems of representation of language through graphic means have evolved in different human civilizations, more complete writing systems were preceded by proto-writing, systems of...

, composed using the oldest of writing systems. The combination of linguistic studies with other information about prehistory taken from archaeology and the biological sciences has been adumbrated. Earlier academic speculation as to the prehistoric homeland of Afroasiatic and its geographic spread centered on a source in southwest Asia

Southwest Asia

Western Asia, West Asia, Southwest Asia or Southwestern Asia are terms that describe the westernmost portion of Asia. The terms are partly coterminous with the Middle East, which describes a geographical position in relation to Western Europe rather than its location within Asia...

, but more recent work in the various related disciplines has focused on Africa.

Proposed prehistory

The conjecture proposed by the well-regarded linguist and historian Igor M. Diakonoff

Igor Diakonov

Igor Mikhailovich Diakonov was a Russian historian, linguist, and translator and a renowned expert in the Ancient Near East and its languages....

may be summarized. From a prehistoric homeland near Darfur

Darfur

Darfur is a region in western Sudan. An independent sultanate for several hundred years, it was incorporated into Sudan by Anglo-Egyptian forces in 1916. The region is divided into three federal states: West Darfur, South Darfur, and North Darfur...

, which was better watered, the "Egyptians" were the first to break from the proto Afroasiatic communities, before ten kya (thousand years ago). These proto Egyptian language speakers headed north. At about the same time, the Chadic branch left, traveling west. About eight kya the speakers of the proto Cushitic languages broke off and journeyed east. During the next millennium or so, the remaining proto Semitic and Berber speakers ("Semito-Libyan") eventually went their divergent ways. The Semites passed by the then marshlands of the lower Nile and crossed into Asia (evidently the Semitic speakers anciently present in Ethiopia

Ethiopian Semitic languages

Ethiopian Semitic is a language group, which together with Old South Arabian forms the Western branch of the South Semitic languages. The languages are spoken in both Ethiopia and Eritrea...

remained in Africa or later crossed back to Africa from Arabia). Meanwhile, the peoples who spoke proto Berbero-Libyan spread out westward across North Africa, along the Mediterranean coast and into a Sahara

Sahara

The Sahara is the world's second largest desert, after Antarctica. At over , it covers most of Northern Africa, making it almost as large as Europe or the United States. The Sahara stretches from the Red Sea, including parts of the Mediterranean coasts, to the outskirts of the Atlantic Ocean...

region then better watered, traveling in a centuries-long migration until reaching the Atlantic and its offshore islands. Later, Diakonoff revised his proposed prehistory, moving the Afroasiatic homeland north toward the lower Nile, then a land of lakes and marshes. This change reflects several linguistic analyses showing that common Semitic then shared very little "cultural" lexicon with the common Afroasiatic. Hence the proto Semitic speakers probably left the common Afroasiatic community earlier, by ten kya (thousand years ago), starting from an area nearby a more fruitful Sinai

Sinai Peninsula

The Sinai Peninsula or Sinai is a triangular peninsula in Egypt about in area. It is situated between the Mediterranean Sea to the north, and the Red Sea to the south, and is the only part of Egyptian territory located in Asia as opposed to Africa, effectively serving as a land bridge between two...

. Accordingly, he situates the related Berbero-Libyan speakers of that era by the coast, to the west of the lower Nile.

Culture and society

By five kya (thousand years ago) a neolithic culture

Neolithic

The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...

was evolving among the Berbers of northwest Africa, characterized by agriculture and animal domestication

Neolithic Revolution

The Neolithic Revolution was the first agricultural revolution. It was the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture and settlement. Archaeological data indicates that various forms of plants and animal domestication evolved independently in 6 separate locations worldwide circa...

, pottery and finely chipped stone implements including arrowheads. Wheat and barley were sown, beans and chick peas cultivated. Ceramic

Ceramic

A ceramic is an inorganic, nonmetallic solid prepared by the action of heat and subsequent cooling. Ceramic materials may have a crystalline or partly crystalline structure, or may be amorphous...

bowls and basins, goblets, large plates, as well as dishes raised by a central column, were in daily use; these domestic items were hung up on the wall. For clothing findings indicates hooded cloaks, and also cloth

History of clothing and textiles

The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic and is a feature of most human societies. It is not known when humans began wearing clothes...

woven into stripes of different color. Sheep, goats, and cattle measured wealth. From physical evidence unearthed in Tunisia archaeologists

Archaeology

Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...

present the Berbers as already "farmers with a strong pastoral element in their economy and fairly elaborate cemeteries", well over a thousand years before the Phoenicians arrived to found Carthage

Carthage

Carthage , implying it was a 'new Tyre') is a major urban centre that has existed for nearly 3,000 years on the Gulf of Tunis, developing from a Phoenician colony of the 1st millennium BC...

.

Prior to written records about them, sedentary rural Berbers apparently lived in semi-independent farming villages, composed of small tribal units under a local leader. Yet seasonally the villagers might have left to find pasture for their herds and flocks. Modern conjecture is that feud

Feud

A feud , referred to in more extreme cases as a blood feud, vendetta, faida, or private war, is a long-running argument or fight between parties—often groups of people, especially families or clans. Feuds begin because one party perceives itself to have been attacked, insulted or wronged by another...

ing between neighborhood clans at first impeded organized political life among these ancient Berber farmers, so that social coordination did not develop beyond the village level. On the more marginal lands, pastoral

Pastoralism

Pastoralism or pastoral farming is the branch of agriculture concerned with the raising of livestock. It is animal husbandry: the care, tending and use of animals such as camels, goats, cattle, yaks, llamas, and sheep. It may have a mobile aspect, moving the herds in search of fresh pasture and...

Berbers roamed to find grazing for their animals. Tribal

Tribe

A tribe, viewed historically or developmentally, consists of a social group existing before the development of, or outside of, states.Many anthropologists use the term tribal society to refer to societies organized largely on the basis of kinship, especially corporate descent groups .Some theorists...

authority was strongest among the latter wandering pastoralists, much weaker among the agricultural villagers, and would later attenuate with the advent of cities. By particularly fertile regions, larger villages arose. In the west of the Maghrib

Maghreb

The Maghreb is the region of Northwest Africa, west of Egypt. It includes five countries: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Mauritania and the disputed territory of Western Sahara...

, the Berbers reacted to the growing military

Military

A military is an organization authorized by its greater society to use lethal force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. The military may have additional functions of use to its greater society, such as advancing a political agenda e.g...

threat from colonies started by Phoenician traders. Eventually Carthage and its sister city-states would inspire Berber villages to join together in order to marshall large-scale armies, which naturally called forth strong, centralizing leadership. Punic social techniques from the nearby polities

Polity

Polity is a form of government Aristotle developed in his search for a government that could be most easily incorporated and used by the largest amount of people groups, or states...

were adopted by the Berbers, to be modified for their own use. To the east, the Berbero-Libyans had interacted with the Egyptians during the earlier rise of the ancient Nile civilization.

Shared heritage

The people commonly known today as the Berbers

Berber people

were anciently more often known as Libyans

Libu

The Libu were an ancient Berber tribe, from which the name Libya derives....

. Yet many "Berbers" have for long self-identified as Imazighen or "free people" (etymology

Berber (Etymology)

The term Berber is a variation of the Latin original word Barbarian, earlier in history applied by Romans specifically to their northern hostile neighbors from Germania and to the hostile Berbers of North Africa. The variation is a French one when spelled Berbere and English when spelled Berber...

uncertain). Mommsen, a widely admired historian of the 19th century, stated:

"They call themselves in the Riff near Tangier Amâzigh, in the Sahara Imôshagh, and the same name meets us, referred to particular tribes, on several occasions among the Greeks and Romans, thus as Maxyes at the founding of Carthage, as Mazices in the Roman period at different places in the Mauretanian north coast; the similar designation that has remained with the scattered remnants proves that this great people has once had a consciousness, and has permanently retained the impression, of the relationship of its members."

Other names, according to Mommsen, were used by their ancient neighbors: Libyans (by Egyptians and later by Greeks), Nomades (by Greeks), Numidians (by Romans), and later Berbers (by the Arabs); also the self-descriptive Mauri in the west; and Gaetulians in the south.

Several ancient names of Berber polities may be related to their self-designated identity as Imazighen. The Egyptians knew as pharaohs the leaders of a powerful Berber tribe called Meshwesh of the XXII dynasty. Located near Carthage was the Berber kingdom of Massyli, later called Numidia, ruled by Masinissa and his descendants.

Berbers together, with their relations and descendants

Arabized Berber

Arabized Berber is a term to denote an inhabitant of the North African Maghreb of Berber origin whose native language is a dialect of Arabic. According to these persons, the Arab identity in North Africa is a myth coming from the Arabization of the official institutions after French rule.They...

, have been the major population group to inhabit the Maghrib (North African apart from the Nile) since about eight kya (thousand years ago). This region includes terrain from the Nile to the Atlantic, encompassing the vast Sahara

Sahara

at whose center rise the mountain heights of Ahaggar and Tibesti. In the west the Mediterranean coastlands are suitable for agriculture, having for hinterland the Atlas Mountains

Atlas Mountains

. It includes the land now known as Tunisia.

Yet the most ancient written records concerning the Berber peoples are those reported by neighboring peoples of the Mediterranean region. When the Berbers enter history during the first millennium BCE, their own points of view on situations and events are, unfortunately, not available to us. Due to the impact of Carthage, it is the people of Tunisia who dominate the early historical writings on the Berbers.

Accounts of the Berbers

Here described are Berber peoples in the first light of history, drawn from written records left mainly by Greek and Roman authors. To the east of Tunisia, a Libyan dynasty ruled in Egypt; their armies marched into Phoenicia a century before the founding of Carthage

Carthage

Carthage , implying it was a 'new Tyre') is a major urban centre that has existed for nearly 3,000 years on the Gulf of Tunis, developing from a Phoenician colony of the 1st millennium BC...

. Next is described Berber life and society in Tunisia and to its west, both before and during the hegemony of Carthage.

Northeast Africa

Egyptian

Ancient Egypt

hieroglyphs from early dynasties testify to Libyans, the Berbers of the "western desert". First mentioned as the Tehenou during the pre-dynastic reigns of Scorpion

Scorpion

Scorpions are predatory arthropod animals of the order Scorpiones within the class Arachnida. They have eight legs and are easily recognized by the pair of grasping claws and the narrow, segmented tail, often carried in a characteristic forward curve over the back, ending with a venomous stinger...

(c. 3050) and of Narmer

Narmer

Narmer was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the Early Dynastic Period . He is thought to be the successor to the Protodynastic pharaohs Scorpion and/or Ka, and he is considered by some to be the unifier of Egypt and founder of the First Dynasty, and therefore the first pharaoh of unified Egypt.The...

(on an ivory cylinder), their appearance is later shown in a bas relief of the Fifth Dynasty temple of Sahure

Sahure

- Etymology :Sahure's birth name means "He who is Close to Re". His Horus name was Nebkhau.- Biography :Sahure was a son of queen Neferhetepes, as shown in scenes from the causeway of Sahure's pyramid complex in Abusir. His father was Userkaf. Sahure's consort was queen Neferetnebty. Reliefs show...

. Ramses II (r.1279-1213) placed Libyan contingents in his army. Tombs of the 13th century contain paintings of Libu leaders wearing fine robes, with ostrich feathers in their "dreadlocks", short pointed beards, and tattoos on their shoulders and arms.

Evidently, Osorkon the Elder

Osorkon the Elder

Akheperre Setepenre Osorkon the Elder was the fifth king of the twenty-first dynasty of Egypt and was the first pharaoh of Libyan extraction in Egypt...

(Akheperre setepenamun), a Berber leader of the Meshwesh

Meshwesh

The Meshwesh were an ancient Libyan tribe from beyond Cyrenaica where the Libu and Tehenu lived according to Egyptian references and who were probably of Central Berber ethnicity. Herodotus placed them in Tunisia and said of them to be sedentary farmers living in settled permanent houses as the...

tribe, became the first Libyan pharaoh. Several decades later, his nephew Shoshenq I

Shoshenq I

Hedjkheperre Setepenre Shoshenq I , , also known as Sheshonk or Sheshonq I , was a Meshwesh Berber king of Egypt—of Libyan ancestry—and the founder of the Twenty-second Dynasty...

(r.945-924) became Pharaoh

Pharaoh

Pharaoh is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Egyptian rulers of all periods. The title originates in the term "pr-aa" which means "great house" and describes the royal palace...

of Egypt, and the founder of its Twenty-second Dynasty

Twenty-second dynasty of Egypt

The Twenty-First, Twenty-Second, Twenty-Third, Twenty-Fourth and Twenty-Fifth Dynasties of ancient Egypt are often combined under the group title, Third Intermediate Period.-Rulers:...

(945-715). In 926 Shoshenq (Shishak

Shishak

Shishak or Susac or Shishaq is the biblical Hebrew form of the first ancient Egyptian name of a pharaoh mentioned in the Bible.-Shishak's Reign:...

of the Bible) successfully campaigned to Jerusalem then under Solomon's heir

Rehoboam

Rehoboam was initially king of the United Monarchy of Israel but after the ten northern tribes of Israel rebelled in 932/931 BC to form the independent Kingdom of Israel he was king of the Kingdom of Judah, or southern kingdom. He was a son of Solomon and a grandson of David...

. The Phoenicians, particularly the people of the city-state of Tyre

Tyre

Tyre is a city in the South Governorate of Lebanon. There were approximately 117,000 inhabitants in 2003, however, the government of Lebanon has released only rough estimates of population numbers since 1932, so an accurate statistical accounting is not possible...

who in the west would found Carthage

Carthage

Carthage , implying it was a 'new Tyre') is a major urban centre that has existed for nearly 3,000 years on the Gulf of Tunis, developing from a Phoenician colony of the 1st millennium BC...

during the Meshwesh dynasty, first came to know of the Berber people through these Libyan pharaohs.

For several centuries Egypt was governed by a decentralized political system loosely based on the Libyan tribal organization of the Meshwesh

Meshwesh

. Becoming acculturated, much of the evidence shows these Berbero-Libyans through an Egyptian lens. Eventually the Libyans served as high priests at centers of Egyptian religion. Hence during the classical era of the Mediterranean, all of the Berber peoples of North Africa were often collectively called Libyans, due to the fame first won by the Meshwesh

Meshwesh

dynasty of Egypt.

Northwest Africa

West of the Meshwesh dynasty of Egypt, later reports of foreigners mention more rustic Berber people by the Mediterranean, living in fertile and accessible coastal regions. Those located in or near Tunisia were known as Numidians

Numidians

The Numidians were Berber tribes who lived in Numidia, in Algeria east of Constantine and in part of Tunisia. The Numidians were one of the earliest natives to trade with the settlers of Carthage. As Carthage grew, the relationship with the Numidians blossomed. Carthage's military used the Numidian...

; farther to the west, the Berbers were called the Mauri or Maurisi (later the Moors

Moors

The description Moors has referred to several historic and modern populations of the Maghreb region who are predominately of Berber and Arab descent. They came to conquer and rule the Iberian Peninsula for nearly 800 years. At that time they were Muslim, although earlier the people had followed...

); and, in more remote mountains and deserts to the southwest were Berbers called Gaetuli

Gaetuli

Gaetuli was the Romanised name of an ancient Berber tribe inhabiting Getulia, covering the desert region south of the Atlas Mountains, bordering the Sahara. Other sources place Getulia in pre-Roman times along the Mediterranean coasts of what is now Algeria and Tunisia, and north of the Atlas...

ans. Another group of Berbers in the desert to the southeast of Carthage were known as the Garamantes

Garamantes

The Garamantes were a Saharan people who used an elaborate underground irrigation system, and founded a prosperous Berber kingdom in the Fezzan area of modern-day Libya, in the Sahara desert. They were a local power in the Sahara between 500 BC and 700 AD.There is little textual information about...

.

During the 5th century BC, the Greek writer Herodotus

Herodotus

Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...

(c.490-425) mentions Berbers as mercenaries of Carthage with regard to specific military events in Sicily, circa 480. Thereafter the Berbers more frequently enter into the early light of history provided by various Greek

Ancient Greek literature

Ancient Greek literature refers to literature written in the Ancient Greek language until the 4th century.- Classical and Pre-Classical Antiquity :...

and Roman

Roman historiography

Roman Historiography is indebted to the Greeks, who invented the form. The Romans had great models to base their works upon, such as Herodotus and Thucydides. Roman historiographical forms are different from the Greek ones however, and voice very Roman concerns. Unlike the Greeks, Roman...

historians. Yet unfortunately, apart from the Punic inscriptions, little Carthaginian literature has survived.

During these centuries, Berbers of the western regions actively traded and intermingled with Phoenicians, who founded Carthage and its many trading stations. The name 'Libyphoenician' was then coined for the cultural and ethnic mix surrounding their settlements, particularly Carthage. Political skills and civic arrangements encountered in Carthage, as well as material culture, were adopted by the Berbers for their own use. In the 4th century, Berber kingdoms are referenced, e.g., the ancient historian Diodorus Siculus

Diodorus Siculus

Diodorus Siculus was a Greek historian who flourished between 60 and 30 BC. According to Diodorus' own work, he was born at Agyrium in Sicily . With one exception, antiquity affords no further information about Diodorus' life and doings beyond what is to be found in his own work, Bibliotheca...

evidently mentions the Libyo-Berber king Aelymas, a neighbor to the south of Carthage, who dealt with the invader Agathocles

Agathocles

Agathocles , , was tyrant of Syracuse and king of Sicily .-Biography:...

(361-289), a Greek ruler from Sicily

History of Sicily

The history of Sicily has seen Sicily usually controlled by greater powers—Roman, Vandal, Byzantine, Islamic, Norman, Hohenstaufen, Catalan, Spaniard—but also experiencing short periods of independence, as under the Greeks and later as the Emirate then Kingdom of Sicily...

. Berbers here operated independently of Carthage.

Circa 220 BC, three large kingdoms

Berber kings of Roman-era Tunisia

During the Second Punic War Rome entered into alliance with Masinissa, son of a Berber king. Masinissa had been driven out of his ancestral realm by a Carthage-backed Berber rival. At the defeat of Carthage Masinissa , a "friend of the Roman people", became King of Numidia for fifty years...

had arisen among the Berbers. These Berbers, independent yet markedly influenced by Punic civilization, had nonetheless endured the long ascendancy of Carthage. West to east the kingdoms were: (1) Mauretania

Mauretania

Mauretania is a part of the historical Ancient Libyan land in North Africa. It corresponds to present day Morocco and a part of western Algeria...

(in modern Morocco) under the Mauri

Mauri

Mauri may refer to:*Mauri meaning the life force which all objects contain, in the Māori language of New Zealand and the Rotuman language of Rotuma*Mauri, or Maurya Empire, an ancient caste in India which built its greatest empire...

king Baga; (2) the Masaesyli

Masaesyli

The Masaesyli were a North African tribe of western Numidia and the main antagonists of the Massylii in eastern Numidia.During the Second Punic War the Masaesyli initially supported the Roman Republic and were led by Syphax against the Massyllii, who were led by Massinissa...

(in north Algeria) under their king Syphax

Syphax

Syphax was a king of the ancient Algerian tribe Masaesyli of western Numidia during the last quarter of the 3rd century BC. His story is told in Livy's Ab Urbe Condita .-Biography:...

who then ruled from two capitals, in the west Siga (near modern Oran

Oran

Oran is a major city on the northwestern Mediterranean coast of Algeria, and the second largest city of the country.It is the capital of the Oran Province . The city has a population of 759,645 , while the metropolitan area has a population of approximately 1,500,000, making it the second largest...

) and in the east Cirta

Cirta

Cirta was the capital city of the ancient Kingdom of Numidia in northern Africa . Its strategically important port city was Russicada...

(modern Constantine

Constantine, Algeria

Constantine is the capital of Constantine Province in north-eastern Algeria. It was the capital of the same-named French département until 1962. Slightly inland, it is about 80 kilometres from the Mediterranean coast, on the banks of Rhumel river...

); and (3) the Massyli

Massylii

The Massylii or Maesulians were a Berber federation of tribes of eastern Numidia which was formed by an amalgamation of smaller tribes during the 4th century BC. They were ruled by a king. On their loosely defined western frontier was the powerful rival the kingdom of the Masaesyli. To their east...

(south of Cirta, west and south of nearby Carthage) ruled by king Gala [Gaia], father of Masinissa. Following the Second Punic War, Massyli and eastern Masaesyli were joined to form Numidia

Numidia

Numidia was an ancient Berber kingdom in part of present-day Eastern Algeria and Western Tunisia in North Africa. It is known today as the Chawi-land, the land of the Chawi people , the direct descendants of the historical Numidians or the Massyles The kingdom began as a sovereign state and later...

, located in historic Tunisia. Both Roman and Hellenic

Hellenic

Hellenic is a synonym for Greek and may refer to:* Hellenic languages* Hellenic Airlines* Hellenic College, a liberal arts college in Brookline, Massachusetts* Hellenic College of London* Hellenic FC, a football club in South Africa...

states gave its famous ruler, Masinissa

Masinissa

Masinissa — also spelled Massinissa and Massena — was the first King of Numidia, an ancient North African nation of ancient Libyan tribes. As a successful general, Masinissa fought in the Second Punic War , first against the Romans as an ally of Carthage an later switching sides when he saw which...

, honors befitting esteemed royalty.

Ancient Berber religion

Evidence of ancient Berber religion and sacred pratices provide some views, however incomplete, of the interior life of the people, otherwise largely opaque, and thus also clues as to the character of the Berbers, who witnessed the founding of Carthage.

Respect for the dead

The religion of the ancient Berbers

Berber mythology

The traditional Berber mythology is the ancient and native set of beliefs and deities developed by the Berber people in their historical land of North Africa...

, of course, is difficult to uncover sufficiently to satisfy the imagination. Burial sites provide early indication of religious beliefs; more than sixty thousand tombs are located in the Fezzan

Fezzan

Fezzan is a south western region of modern Libya. It is largely desert but broken by mountains, uplands, and dry river valleys in the north, where oases enable ancient towns and villages to survive deep in the otherwise inhospitable Sahara.-Name:...

alone. The construction of many tombs indicates their continuing use for ceremonies and sacrifices. A grand tomb for a Berber king, traditionally assigned to Masinissa

Masinissa

(238-149) but perhaps rather to his father Gala, still stands: the Medracen in eastern Algeria. Architecture for the elegant tower tomb of his contemporary Syphax

Syphax

Syphax was a king of the ancient Algerian tribe Masaesyli of western Numidia during the last quarter of the 3rd century BC. His story is told in Livy's Ab Urbe Condita .-Biography:...

shows some Greek or Punic

Carthage

Carthage , implying it was a 'new Tyre') is a major urban centre that has existed for nearly 3,000 years on the Gulf of Tunis, developing from a Phoenician colony of the 1st millennium BC...

influence. Much information about Berber beliefs comes from classical literature. Herodotus (c. 484-c. 425) mentions that Libyans of the Nasamone tribe, after prayers, slept on the graves of their ancestors in order to induce dreams for divination

Divination

Divination is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic standardized process or ritual...

. The ancestor chosen being regarded the best in life for uprightness and valor, hence a tomb imbued with spiritual power. Oaths also were taken on the graves of the just. In this regard, the Numidian king Masinissa was widely worshipped after his death.

Reverence for nature

Early Berbers beliefs and practices are often characterized as a religion of nature. Procreative power was symbolized by the bull, the lion, the ram. Fish carvings represented the phallus, a sea shell the female sex, which objects could become charms

Amulet

An amulet, similar to a talisman , is any object intended to bring good luck or protection to its owner.Potential amulets include gems, especially engraved gems, statues, coins, drawings, pendants, rings, plants and animals; even words said in certain occasions—for example: vade retro satana—, to...

. The supernatural

Supernatural

The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...

could reside in the waters, in trees, or come to rest in unusual stones (to which the Berbers would apply oils); such power might inhabit the winds (the Sirocco

Sirocco

Sirocco, scirocco, , jugo or, rarely, siroc is a Mediterranean wind that comes from the Sahara and reaches hurricane speeds in North Africa and Southern Europe. It is known in North Africa by the Arabic word qibli or ghibli Sirocco, scirocco, , jugo or, rarely, siroc is a Mediterranean wind...

being formidable across North Africa). Herodotus writes that the Libyans sacrificed to the sun and moon. The moon (Ayyur

Ayyur

Ayyur was the moon god according to the Berber beliefs. The name "Ayyur" means literally the moon, and it was also used as a term to indicate the word "month" and also as a masculine name....

) was conceived as being masculine.

Later many other supernatural entities became identified and personalized as gods, perhaps influenced by Egyptian or Punic practice; yet the Berbers seemed to be "drawn more to the sacred than to the gods." Early worship sites might be in grottoes, on mountains, in clefts and cavities, along roadways, with the "altars casually made of turf, the vessels used still of clay with the deity himself nowhere", according to the Berber author Apuleius

Apuleius

Apuleius was a Latin prose writer. He was a Berber, from Madaurus . He studied Platonist philosophy in Athens; travelled to Italy, Asia Minor and Egypt; and was an initiate in several cults or mysteries. The most famous incident in his life was when he was accused of using magic to gain the...

(born c. 125 CE), commenting on the local worship of earlier times. Often only a little more than the names of the Berber deities are known, e.g., Bonchar, a leading god. Julian Baldick, culling literature covering many eras and regions, provides the names and rôles of many Berber deities and spirits.

Syncretic developments

The Berbero-Libyans came to adopt elements from ancient Egyptian religion. Herodotus writes of the divine oracle, sourced in the Egyptian god Ammon

Amun

Amun, reconstructed Egyptian Yamānu , was a god in Egyptian mythology who in the form of Amun-Ra became the focus of the most complex system of theology in Ancient Egypt...

, located among the Libyans at the oasis of Siwa

Siwa Oasis

The Siwa Oasis is an oasis in Egypt, located between the Qattara Depression and the Egyptian Sand Sea in the Libyan Desert, nearly 50 km east of the Libyan border, and 560 km from Cairo....

. This Libyan oasis of Ammon functioned a sister oracle to one at Dodona

Dodona

Dodona in Epirus in northwestern Greece, was an oracle devoted to a Mother Goddess identified at other sites with Rhea or Gaia, but here called Dione, who was joined and partly supplanted in historical times by the Greek god Zeus.The shrine of Dodona was regarded as the oldest Hellenic oracle,...

in Greece, according to Herodotus (c.484-c.425). However, the god of the Siwa oracle, to the contrary, may be a Libyan deity. The visit of Alexander in 331 brought to the Siwa oracle wide notice in the ancient world.

Later, Berber beliefs would influence the religion of Carthage

Religion in Carthage

The religion of Carthage in North Africa was a direct continuation of the polytheistic Phoenician religion of the Levant, with significant local modifications. Controversy prevails regarding the possible existence and practice of propitiatory child sacrifice in the religion of...

, the city-state founded by Phoenicians. George Aaron Barton suggested that the prominent goddess of Carthage Tanit

Tanit

Tanit was a Phoenician lunar goddess, worshipped as the patron goddess at Carthage. Tanit was worshiped in Punic contexts in the Western Mediterranean, from Malta to Gades into Hellenistic times. From the fifth century BCE onwards Tanit is associated with that of Baal Hammon...

originally was a Berbero-Libyan deity whom the newly arriving Phoenicians sought to propitiate by their worship. Later archeological finds show a Tanit from Phoenicia. From linguistic evidence Barton concluded that before developing into an agricultural deity, Tanit probably began as a goddess of fertility

Fertility

Fertility is the natural capability of producing offsprings. As a measure, "fertility rate" is the number of children born per couple, person or population. Fertility differs from fecundity, which is defined as the potential for reproduction...

, symbolized by a tree

Thuja

Thuja is a genus of coniferous trees in the Cupressaceae . There are five species in the genus, two native to North America and three native to eastern Asia...

bearing fruit. The Phoenician goddess Ashtart was supplanted by Tanit at Carthage.

Remote epochs

Ages of stone

Saharan rock art

Theory of mixed origin

Berber language history

Afroasiatic family

Proposed prehistory

Culture and society

Shared heritage

Accounts of the Berbers

Northeast Africa

Northwest Africa

Ancient Berber religion

Respect for the dead

Reverence for nature

Syncretic developments

See also