Brief History & Prehistory of Libya

 

• Introduction to the History of Libya
• Early Prehistory of Libya
  • 55 Million BC (BP)
  • 4 Million BC
  • 2 Million BC
  • 1 Million BC
• Paleolithic History of Libya
  • 100,000 BC
  • 50,000 BC
  • 20,000 BC
• History of Civilisations in Libya
  • The Berber Garamantes Kingdom
  • The Libyan Berber Goddess Tannit
  • The Libyan Berber Amazons
  • The Ancient Egyptian Period
• The Arrival of The Phoenicians


• The Greek Invasion
• The Roman Invasions
• The Vandals Invasions
• The Arab Invasions

 

 

Generally speaking there are two kinds of history: the popular history written by invaders, and the suppressed history preserved by natives. For example, in writing Libya's history most Arab historians fail to mention the Berbers and their influence on nearby civilizations (like the Egyptian, Greek or Sumerian civilisation); and instead use the phrase "ancient Libyans" or, like Gaddafi had said, "the original Arabs". Here are the words of such historian: "we write history on the basis of Libya being part of the Arab world” (History of Libya, M. Bazama, p. 95). Even after the so-called February Revolution, which many Berberists see as yet another foreign hapless operation, the situation has not changed – the same history is being propagated, replacing one tyranny with another.

Lack of Berber records, of course, has been attributed by some historians to the disastrous Roman and Arab invasions of North Africa, which saw the Libraries of Alexandria, Cyrene and Carthage burnt to the ground; with the Romans burning books to heat water in Roman baths for their soldiers to wash off the Berber-Egyptian blood. Ever since, the Egyptians were gradually driven to extinction, and Berber languages were officially barred across the entire North Africa by the Arab invaders; leading to the disappearance of Berber records, and to the growth of fake histories, most often written by foreign political writers.

 

The Lost Empire Without Borders

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; the last of whom wrote in his "Jugurthine War" 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." 

The more recent hypo-theses pertaining the history and the origin of the Libyans, the Berbers, are no better than Sallust's hallucinations.

Some say the ancient Libyans came from Asia; supremacists say they escaped Europe's Ice Age; Aryans purport they were Greek invaders; eccentric Gaddafi says they come from Yemen; some Eurocentricists connect them with blond sea pirates; while exotic writers derive them from Libyan Poseidon's Atlantis – somewhere between the lines of Plato's Atlas Mountain in 'Libya'. Landing from Orion, Sirius or Draco derails the whole "pro-ject" off the record by denying the Berbers any association with planet 'Earth'.

The truth is simple: Libya and the whole North African littoral was originally inhabited by an indigenous group of Berber tribes whose linguistic unity proves an ethnic sub-stratum of autochthons single race that existed in North Africa from the Mediterranean to the Sudan and from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea; occupying nearly half of Africa and comprising Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, the conquered Canary Islands, Mauritania, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, some parts of Chad and Nigeria, and of course the Sahara herself – the Mother of Human Civilisation – the ancient centre from which civilisations radiated to populate the Mediterranean world. Simply put there would have been neither Egypt nor Greece without Libya.

This linguistic unity of such massive empire is part of  a much larger phylum which includes Ancient Egyptian, Chadic, Ethiopian, Omotic and most recently Semitic, in what is originally known as Hamito-Semitic Family, but now renamed Afro-Asiatic or Afrasiatic. Such conglomerate tribes built countless civilisations including the first ones; and ever since shall remain the proud Berbers of an empire without borders – the borders imposed by European invaders together with brutal history.

Consequently the Berbers are excluded from Libya's history, except perhaps when they come in contact with conflict and the various conquests their countries came to consume. Even the Ancient Egyptians made a habit of mentioning Libyans more to do with wars than anything else, such as the invasions of King Shishenq; in the same way modern media outlets become aware of the the Berbers only when it comes to war, as in the recent upsurge in Berber "politics" as a direct result of the UN bombing campaign that effectively destroyed Libya's entire infrastructure.

Libya’s rich archaeological heritage was first noticed by the outside world during the Italian occupation wars, where preliminary excavations produced some outstanding results. But although the Second War quickly brought an end to this period of excavation, steps were taken afterwards by the Libyan government in association with the British administration to build the "Antiquities Department".

Unfortunately, Libya's archaeological heritage was left neglected and even vandalised, and many of its treasures remained scattered across the Sahara in millions; looted  by visitors, diplomats, tomb raiders, and antiquity dealers, and reburied by sand for future humans to rediscover – or else re-cover. The situation was made worse by the recent UN bombing campaign that endangered Libya's World Heritage Sites due to lack of law and order.

Full scientific and archaeological survey of Libya will take decades if not centuries to complete; and therefore proper history of Libya was never written, remains to be written, and must include the recent genetic evidence regarding the origin of the ancient Libyans; proving the continuous existence of the Berbers (or their ancestors) in North Africa for at least 50,000 years.

McBurney's archaeological discoveries have previously extended this continuous existence of Libyans to 100,000 years – one line of living entities in one single cave – Haua Fteah Cave – one of the largest caves in the visible world.

Mitochondrial DNA (mt-MRCA) genes trace all modern humans to one female ancestor scientists called “African Eve”, who lived around 150,000 ago. Geneticists have also traced Y-chromosomal Adam (Y-MRCA) back to Africa — specifically to West, Northwest and Central Africa. The Y-MRCA is the patrilineal Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA) from whom all living humans have descended. The identified chromosomes belonged to either haplogroup A1a (identified in two Moroccan Berbers, one Fulbe, and one Tuareg Berber from Niger) or A1b (identified in three Bakola pygmies from Cameroon and one Algerian Berber).

 

 

Prehistory

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 – around five times bigger than it is today (when Africa and Asia were still joined together). Since then, the Sahara comes and goes, just as ice ages do nearby. One of these most recent cycles 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, elephants, and primates.

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. This lost paradise was the home of several extinct civilisations, traces of which still are preserved across the Sahara’s cave galleries. The cultures were so advanced of anything known elsewhere. Some of these prehistoric art engravings and drawings show "dramatic anthropomorphic symbolism"! Such civilisations now are the focus of many scientific disciplines from around the world, in search of human’s primeval past. This means that the history of Libya is of paramount importance to the whole world and not just to the Berbers; and yet it is possibly the least explored and probably the most neglected.

 

55,000,000 To 5,000,000 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, proto-humans diverged into a separate evolutionary tree, and soon afterwards, about five million years ago, Africa itself began to crack along its eastern ridge, 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 preserves more fossils and hence the abundance of fossil records in East Africa.

 

5,000,000 To 2,000,000 Years Ago

About 3.7 million years ago, the Australopithecus 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 can be found, confirmed that tool-making (early) 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 a link with East Africa.

 

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 stood up and 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.

 

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 years ago. It was initially said that the two species did not co-exist and thus the Neanderthals went extinct about 29,000 years ago. But, as always is the case with premature research, scientists now say they never went extinct, but mingled and intermarried with the new comers, just as humans still do. 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.

 

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. It was suggested that the cave was possibly inhabited 200,000 years ago [see Haua Fteah for source]. 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, is stark evidence that humans have existed continuously in one site in Libya for 100,000 years.

 

50,000 BC to 30,000 BC

About 37,000 years ago, Libya, and much of North Africa, was occupied by 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 (Europe and Middle East), and it was widely believed that they were the direct ancestors of the Berbers and the Iberians. 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.  Rüdiger and Gabriele Lutz (1955) recall the cultures of Fezzan to have evolved over the past hundreds of thousands of years and vanished under adverse conditions. “Stone tools of bygone eras are lying about in millions, from the relics of early and late Acheulian (up to 500.000 years), Levalloisian (100.000 years) and Mousterian (50.000 years) to Aterian (40.000-20.000 years).” Many of the ancient Egyptian and Berber mythical gods and goddesses are still represented on the rock art of the Sahara, in what is known as the largest collection of prehistoric art in the world: well over one hundred thousand sites. The dating of Fezzan's rock drawings to 12,000 BC is widely disputed, and many scholars now call for pushing this date farther back in time on the light of the recent discoveries, and also strongly criticised the old techniques originally used to date the work some 40 or 50 years ago.

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20,000 BC to 5,000 BC

Around 20,000 years ago humans began migrating out of the area and, according to the latest genetic evidence, headed for Iberia, Egypt, and the Middle East, where they spread the new culture all around the Mediterranean sea. Recent archaeological research has confirmed that the so called Ibero-maurusian culture (22,000 BC), was in fact purely Berber culture, and that the name Ibero- was added by Aryanists for political reasons. The skeletal remains of a population anthropologists named "Mouillans" were said to date between 15,000 and 10,000 BC. 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 history.

 

The Berber Garamantian Period

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

The breathtaking treasures of the Sahara's prehistoric drawings and engravings are perhaps the best measure of the level of civilisation attained by these peoples. Sadly, this world heritage material is largely neglected and still remains to this day scattered across the Sahara desert as if it were historical garbage, and even intentionally desecrated and looted. Today, mainly the Tuareg confederacies remain the keepers of the great Sahara Desert. Wars and famines in Africa still play their role in population flow; if not natures way to fuel the engine of evolution. This ancient civilisation did not suddenly appear from nowhere, but a continuation of earlier continuations. The archaeological artifacts and stone tools discovered in various sites from Fezzan were dated to the late Acheulean and the Aterian cultures (circa 100,000-30,000 BC.). This area was also the home of the Berber Garamantes Kingdom, 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) in the first century AD, so named after their eponymous ancestor Garamas ("the first of men"), who was, according to mythology, the son of the glorious Sun, who offered Mother Earth a sacrifice of the sweet acorn. 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. Herodotus informs us that the Garamantes spread soil over salt to sow their seeds, and hunt in four-horse chariots; while archaeological discoveries indicate the Garamentian cities were thriving urban centres, with markets and public entertainment forums. From the archaeological remains of Germa, the city appears to have had towers and a square market, used as a transit point for caravans and for the horses the Garamentes then exported to Rome. Some of Germa's archaeological finds can be found in Germa Museum.

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The Libyan Berber Goddess Tannit

There is no doubt that the Athena of Herodotus, whom the Amazon worshipped around Lake Tritonis, was none other than the Libyan Goddess Tannit. Poets and scholars of all ages knew Her as the Goddess Neith, whom the ancient Egyptians adopted as Nit, long before the Phoenicians returned to venerate as Tanit.

 

The Libyan Goddess Tannit (Neith)
at Assaraya Alhamra Museum, Tripoli, Libya.

The following Arabic text, also displayed under the stone, describes the above symbol of Tannit .

Temehu.com's translation of the Arabic text at the Museum: "The Goddess Tannit. Tannit is regarded as one of the most famous and important Punic goddesses in Tripolitania. She is the wife of the Punic god Bal Hamon. She was the goddess of sowing, harvest and fertility, and a sky goddess essentially associated with the moon. Her symbol, known as the symbol of Tannit, is a triangle representing the human body, surmounted by a circle representing the head, and separated by a horizontal line which represents the hands. The worship of the goddess Tannit emerged after the 5th century BC. She appears to be of Libyan origin. This piece is from the 2nd century BC. " [End of translation.]

The text is clearly written by an "Arab" archaeologist or official who does not appear to be aware of the antiquity of the Libyan Goddess Neith. Neith was the main Goddess of the native Berbers across North Africa. Historical and archaeological records from the Egyptian Delta show Neith to have been the main Goddess of the Libyan (Berber) natives of the Egyptian Delta from long before the forced unification of Egypt by Menes around 3300 BC. This means that the Berbers' veneration of the Goddess Neith in North Africa goes back to Pre-Dynastic times - thousand of years before the Phoenicians arrived to adopt both: Tannit as Tanit, and Amon as Bal-Amon, and long before the Pharaohs of Egypt came to worship her under various names including Net, Nit and Nut.

 

The Libyan Berber 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  Robert Graves, 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. The world of the Amazons was ruled by warrior women, in which they followed a manner of life unlike that which prevailed among other races of the time. There were a number of fake tales about removing one of their breasts in order to be able to shoot better without presenting any evidence; leading to careful mythographers to suggest that these were no more than mere patriarchal allegations to discredit matriarchy; and hence the existence of the Amazons was dismissed as "myth". According to Robert Graves, Diodorus Siculus' legend regarding the Libyan Atlantians, 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. See Libyan Mythology for more.

The Native Berbers of 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 comprised 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 – the generic name used to describe the indigenous inhabitants of North Africa as a whole. 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) 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 the Libyan Berbers and their mythologies and religions are also closely related, if not the same. Inscriptions from the Old Kingdom are perhaps the earliest recorded information we have about the Berbers of Libya (excluding the recorded pre-history of rock art). Before King Menes forcibly unified Egypt and invaded Lower Egypt, the Delta was primarily inhabited by Libyan Berbers who worshipped the Goddess Tannit, the Cat-goddess Bast and the Sun-god Amon. The Palermo stone further illustrates the antiquity of Libyans in Lower Egypt by listing a succession of Libyan pre-Dynastic kings and queens from Lower Egypt. The Libyans however regained control over Egypt about (ca. 945 BC), by establishing the Libyan Dynasties on the hands of the Libyan King Shishenq or Shishonk.

 

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 whom they loved as Tanit, and the Libyan Amon whom they worshipped as Bal-Amon, in the same way the Greeks, later on, made him Zeus-Amon. Unlike the later arrivals (invasions), the Phoenicians were said to have signed treaties of cooperation with the native Berbers. 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 catastrophic war. The Phoenicians settled in a number of cities including Leptis Magna, Oea (Tripoli), Sabratha, and Carthage (Qert Hadasht 'The New Village'), which was founded in 814 BC. By 517 BC, this Berber-Phoenician empire was gaining influence all around the Mediterranean; eventually bringing terror and fear to the Romans' hearts.

 

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The Greek Invasions

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). Evidence indicates that some of these settlements had indeed existed before the Greeks' arrival. Apparently, the city of Cyrene was invaded 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. 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. The fertile Green Mountain (Jebel al-Akhdar) supplied Greece with livestock, grain, wine and the unique Cyrenaican plant silphium. The level of civilisation 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.

The Roman Invasions

 

Hannibal

When the Roman arrived in North-West Africa, there were a number of Berber Kingdoms in existence, the most influential of which 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 Hannibal invaded Italy, in his adventure across the Alps (shattering big rocks in the way by heating them with fire and pouring wine along the cracks), he reached Rome and laid siege to the capital city for nearly 12 years.

During  these years the Roman emperor with his generals and slaves were held prisoners in their own capital. Here most historians agree that Hannibal had committed his greatest mistake: not attacking Rome whilst he laid siege. Apparently historians also say Hannibal's morality prevented him from attacking Roman women and children in their own homes, and instead he hopped the men will come out and give him a decent fight.

Instead of seemingly fighting to death, their treachery inspired them to plot behind the besieged city walls to divert the war to North Africa and take the fight back to Carthage. When Carthage was attacked by the Romans the Carthaginian government fell in the trap, just as others still do today, and immediately recalled Hannibal from Rome. Hearing the order to return to Carthage Hannibal knew exactly what the Romans had in mind, but he had to fulfil his "national duty" – against the advice of his most closest generals – and returned to defend his homeland. 

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 eliminated.
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: betrayed by king Prusias, Hannibal took poison, rather than surrender.

After the Punic Wars with Rome, Carthage was finally reduced to rubble and razed to the ground in 146 BC. Hannibal was unharmed and left for Syria. From Syria he went to Bithynia, in Asia, where its king Prusias eventually betrayed him to the Romans. Hearing the news of the Roman army in their way to arrest him, he, like Cleopatra, took poison in 183.

With Hannibal and Carthage out of the way, Rome was ready to spread terror around the Mediterranean world and across Europe and the Middle East. The result was total cultural devastation across Europe where linguists had concluded that 90% of Europe's indigenous languages had gone extinct as a direct result of the Roman invasions – and hence subsequently the spread of Latin across Europe. Many of the other languages around the Mediterranean and the Middle East, including Ancient Egyptian, had also disappeared except Africa's Berber and Europe's Basque's Euskara – both of which are among the oldest languages in the world, both of which are related, and both of which appear destined to live to the end of the world.

Shortly after the Carthaginian-Roman battle 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; and thereafter Tripolitania was incorporated into the province of Africa Proconsularis, to begin the export of goods, animals and slaves to Rome.

Once the coastal regions were under Roman control, the Roman generals wanted to do what no invader of Libya had done before: to conquer the Sahara. After their initial expeditions into the Garamantian empire, in 20–19 BC, and later on in 69–70 AD, the Romans 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 Sirte), and Cyrenaica was handed over to them by the Greeks. Had Carthage survived, and left alone since, the Berbers would have probably landed on Jupiter long before Galileo saw its moons.

 

The Carnage: The Roman's Fake History of Carthage And Their Lies About The Berbers.

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The Vandals Invasions

Then in the 5th century (around 429 AD) Libya was invaded by the Germanic Vandals under the command of Genseric. In 432 the Vandals seized Hippo Regius and made it their first capital in North Africa; before invading the province of Africa Proconsularis and seizing Carthage on the 19th of October 439. Consequently the Vandals strengthened their positions and proceeded towards Rome which they ransacked. The Romans thereafter failed on a number of occasions to defeat the Vandals, except perhaps the defeat of the Vandal-Berber army in 457 by Emperor Majorian at Garigliano. The Berbers, on the other hand, having been already exhausted by centuries of wars against the earlier invaders, have defeated the Vandals on a number of occasions including two major defeats between 496–530. It was not until the death of Genseric  on the 25th of January 477 that the Vandals empire began to decline. After the succession of Hilderic (523–530) the army was left to Hoamer, who was defeated by the Berbers; leading to an internal revolt among the royal Vandals that ended up with Hilderic, Hoamer and their relatives being imprisoned; before the end of the Vandals Kingdom at the hands of the Byzantine Belisarius in 534. Once again the Berbers find themselves in limbo, being pushed back to square one, while the Romans regained control over North Africa.

 

The Arab Invasions

Contrary to popular belief the Berbers' resistance to the Arab invasions was long and fierce. Both king Kusila and the Berber priestess-queen Kahina fiercely resisted the invasions. Like the Arab war generals themselves had said (in their wars against queen Kahina): whenever a Berber tribe is slaughtered, another emerged from the mirage like the jinn of the desert.

It must be noted that the Berbers had no problem with Islam, but they strongly resisted the Arab conquest, the political invasions that robbed them of their sovereignty. When queen Kahina sent a message to Hassan Ben Nua'man (the general of the Arab army) enquiring about the reason for their invasion, and Hassan replied that they had a message from God, the queen replied: "let us have the message and go back to your homeland".

Queen and General Kahina foretold her destiny and died in battle defending her nation. Some Arabs find it blasphemous for a Berber to speak about Berber historical personalities as heroes, and to those one can only repeat that the prophetess Kahina had no problem with the message of Islam but strongly objected to the messenger invading her Kingdom.

However, those Berbers who refused to accept Islam, according to Oric Bates (in quoting Arab sources) were instead ordered to pay jizya ('tax'). Those who did not have the money to pay the tax were given permission by Amr Ibn el-Asi to sell their women and children:

here is how Oric Bates reported the incident:

"Having taken Alexandria, Amr marches on Barkah. He "proceeded at the head of his troops," writes el-Biladuri, "toward the Moghreb, and attacked Barkah, a city of the Pentapolis. He gave peace to its population, demanding a tribute of 3000 dinars, which they might pay by selling such of their children as they wished to dispose of.' . . . Amr Ibn el-Asi wrote in the treaty which he gave to the Luatah Berbers, of the country of Barkah: ' you shall have the right of selling your children and your women to pay off your share of the tribute.' " - The inhabitants seem to have collected and remitted this tribute without the unwelcome aid of Arab tax-gatherers"
[The Eastern Libyans, p. 240].

[It must be noted that the sources Oric Bates quoted were Arab sources, namely: Ibn Salih, who reported the story on the authority of el-Leyts Ibn Sa'ad, who himself reported it from Yezid Ibn Abi Habib.]

In the year 642 Amr Ibn el-Asi arrived in Cyrenaica and established his base at Barqa. A few years later he moved towards Tripolitania, removed the remaining Byzantine garrisons, and took control of Tripoli.

After Amr Ibn el-Asi, the Caliph sent general Uqba bin Nafi, who moved towards Fezzan in 663 and took Germa, before claiming the province of Africa in 670 AD, where he established another military base at Kairouan (al Qayrawan), in preparation to attack Byzantine-controlled Carthage, which they finally took in 693 AD.

It was reported that the orders were given to raze Carthage to the ground, once more, after having been already ransacked by the Romans not long ago. Similar orders were also given by the Arabs in relation to Sabratha, the capital of the Berber Nafusa tribes. Shortly afterwards, the Muslims arrived in Morocco, before they crossed to Spain, under the command of the Berber general Tariq Bin Zayyad.

By the seventh century, a power struggle ensued between the supporters of the rival claimants to the caliphate, thereby creating 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.

Soon afterwards the wars broke out, once again, between the Fatimid of North Africa and Baghdad; eventually leading the Fatimid caliph to invite Bani Hilal and Bani Salim bedouin tribes from the Arabian peninsula. It is these two tribes that signaled the arrival of Arab tribes in North Africa and began the process of Arabisation.

In short, after nearly three centuries of wars (on and off) with the Arabs, the Berbers succeeded in maintaining some form of independence from the sultans of the Middle East; leading to the Berber dynasties to remain very powerful down to the 16th century; after which they began to decline.

Leo Africanus (1485-1554) reported that during his travels in the 16th century the northern region of North Africa was broken up into small independent kingdoms ruled by Berber princes, while the mountain tribes and the desert Berbers recognised no ruler but local Berber chiefs. Among the most powerful Berber monarchs that survived nearly 900 years of Arab invasions were the King of Tlemsen and the King of Tunis.

In fact the disruption had began only after the Spanish invasions between 1505 and 1510 resulted in the fall of Oran, Dellys, Bougia, Mostaganem, Tlemsen and Algiers; before the Turkish Pashas took control of Algeria in 1515, from which they extended their dominance to the whole of North Africa except Morocco.

In 1830 the French seized Algiers to pave the way for the disastrous European invasions. Even during the early years of European colonisation the French and the Spanish failed to displace the Berber kings and chiefs despite the firepower they commanded including chemical weapons (which they used to destroy the Berber Rif Republic).

It was only after long decades of wars with European invaders, including the "Libya Wars" (the longest resistance to European colonialism in history, in which more than 100,000 Libyans disappeared in Mussolini's fascist dungeons), that the Berbers were finally outmaneuvered, and consequently the official Arabisation of the various Berber confederacies began to take visible shape. Thus it was the colonial masters, who first arrived as explorers, mapping the tribes and the rich-resources of the continent, then returned as colonisers, who began the process of dividing Africa by imposing the political borders now we know as 'Arab countries', in total disregard for the ethnic integrity of the native Berber tribes they came to subjugate; effectively handing control over to the installed Arab monarchs.

Therefore the European invasions had achieved what the Arab invaders failed to do in almost 1200 years: destroy the northern Berber kingdoms, and also destroy most of the Berber Tuareg confederacies of the Great Sahara that previously resisted all forms of foreign pacification.

 

Turkish & Spanish Invasions

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 wreaking havoc across the waters of the Mediterranean. The genocide of the natives of the Canary Islands was completed in around one century, and the survivors were sold as first-class slaves in Europe. And soon afterwards, 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 became an established business on both sides of the Great White Sea. By 1551 AD the knights were driven out of Tripoli by 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 European powers to take control of Africa. Some European governments began sending a series of expeditions to all parts of Africa, collecting maps and information about the hidden continent and "its tribes". The British were the first to campaign for ending slavery; and instead built a global empire.

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, before it occupied Cyrenaica's Tobruk and Benghazi.

 

Nesmenser Zuwarah Libya © 2008; updated: 2011, 2012, 2013, 2016, 2021.