"Lost" Fortresses of Sahara Revealed by Satellites

5/19/2018 "Lost" Fortresses of Sahara Revealed by Satellites

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"Lost" Fortresses of Sahara Revealed by Satellites

Well-preserved settlements of mysterious civilization

discovered in Libya.

A mud-brick compound built by the mysterious Garamantes people.

UM COMPOSTO DE TIJOLOS DE BARRO CONSTRUDO PELO POVO GARAMANTES MISTERIOSAS.

PHOTOGRAPH BY TOBY SAVAGE

James Owen

forNational Geographic News

PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 11, 2011

Real-life "castles in the sand" made by an ancient culture havebeen revealed in the Sahara, archaeologists say.

New satellite photographs show more than a hundred fortress settlements from

a "lost" civilization in southwesternLibya.
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A SATELLITE PICTURE OF THE ''LOST'' FORTRESSES. IMAGE COURTESY U.LEICESTER/DIGITALGLOBE/GOOGLE

The communities, which date to between about A.D. 1 and 500, belonged to anadvanced but mysterious people called the Garamantes, who ruled fromroughly the second century B.C. to the seventh century A.D.

Researchers uncovered the Garamantes' walled towns, villages, and farms afterporing over modern satellite imagesincluding high-resolution pictures used bythe oil industryas well as aerial photos taken during the 1950s and 1960s.(Seepictures of Libya's remote Sahara.)

Located about 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) south of Tripoli, the fortresses wereconfirmed based on Garamantes pottery samples collected during an early-2011 expedition. That field trip was cut short by the civil war that would end the42-year regime of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

"We were astonished to see the level of preservation" of the ancient mud-brickcompounds, said project leaderDavid Mattingly,of the U.K.'s University ofLeicester.

"Although the walls of these sites have slumped a little bit, mainly due to winderosion, they are still standing 3 to 4 meters [10 to 13 feet] high in places," hesaid.

(Read"Unseen Sahara" in National Geographicmagazine.)

"Extraordinary" Construction

Archaeologists could have easily mistaken the well-planned, straight-lineconstruction for Roman frontier forts of similar design, Mattingly observed.

"But, actually, this is beyond the frontiers of the Roman Empirethese sites aremarkers of a powerful native African kingdom," he said.

What's more, the scientists were surprised that the siteswhich includecemeteries and agricultural fieldsare so tightly clustered.

(See"Ancient Cemetery Found; Brings 'Green Sahara' to Life.")
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For instance, an area of 1.5 square miles (4 square kilometers) contained atleast ten village-size settlements"that's an extraordinary density," Mattinglysaid.

Previous knowledge of the Garamantes is based mainly on excavations at their

capital, Jarma, some 125 miles (200 kilometers) to the northwest, as well as onancient Roman and Greek texts.

"We've built up a picture of them as being a very sophisticated, high-levelcivilization," Mattingly said. (Read aboutthe "lost lords of the Sahara"in National Geographicmagazine.)

"They've got metallurgy, very high-quality textiles, a writing system ... thosesorts of markers that would say this is an organized, state-level society," hesaid.

Cash-strapped heritage authorities in Libya have been unable to conduct fieldresearch, leaving a gap in knowledge of the ancient civilization, accordingtoUniversity of Oxfordarchaeologist Philip Kenrick, who was not involved in thenew research.

That's why Mattingly and his teamaided by a $3.4-million grant from theE.U.'sEuropean Research Councilhave "been breaking new ground on anunprecedented scale," Kenrick said.

Ancient Culture Created Green Sahara

The newfound remains are also a testament to the Garamantes' advancedirrigation technology, which enabled them to create green oases in the desert.(See"High-Tech Energy 'Oasis' to Bloom in the Desert?")

"It's a deep Saharan, hyper-arid environment, and it's only people's ability toexploit groundwater that can change that," project leader Mattingly said.

The Garamantes mined reservoirs of prehistoric water using undergroundcanals to cultivate Mediterranean cropssuch as wheat, barley, figs, andgrapesand sub-Saharan African sorghum, pearl millet, and cotton.

Mattingly and colleagues have calculated that 77,000 man-years of labor wentinto constructing the underground water channelsa figure that doesn't includedigging the wells or maintenance. A man-year is a unit of the work done by aperson in a year.

Ancient Africans Ran Out of Water?
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What happened to the Garamantes remains a riddle, but Mattingly's teamsuspects that the desert communities declined oncegroundwatersuppliesdiminished.

Paul Bennett, head of mission of the U.K.-basedSociety of Libyan Studies,

agreed that's a likely scenario.

"Groundwater is a nonrenewable sourceas soon as you've tapped thereservoir and emptied it, it's not going to fill again," said Bennett, who was notinvolved in the new research.

The collapse of the Roman Empire, and increasing conflict in the Mediterraneanregion, would've also seriously affected the trans-Saharan trade upon which thedesert civilization depended, added Oxford's Kenrick.

TRADUO

Da vida real "castelos na areia" feita por uma cultura antiga ter sido revelado no Saara, dizem

os arquelogos.

Novas imagens de satlite mostram que mais de uma centena de assentamentos da fortaleza

de um "perdido" a civilizao no sudoeste da Lbia.

As comunidades, que data de entre cerca de 1 dC e 500, pertenciam a um povo avanado, masmisteriosa chamada garamantes, que governou aproximadamente do sculo II aC ao stimo

sculo dC

Pesquisadores descobriram cidades as garamantes 'murados, vilas e fazendas aps debruado

sobre modernas imagens-incluindo imagens de alta resoluo utilizados pela indstria, como o

leo bem como fotos areas tiradas durante os anos 1950 e 1960 de satlite. (Seepictures de

Sahara remoto da Lbia.)

Localizado a cerca de 620 milhas (1000 km) ao sul de Trpoli, as fortalezas foram confirmados

com base em amostras de cermica garamantes coletadas durante uma expedio incio de2011. Essa viagem de campo foi interrompida pela guerra civil que iria acabar com o regime do

lder lbio Muamar Kadafi 42 anos.

"Ficamos surpresos ao ver o nvel de preservao" dos compostos antigos de tijolos de barro,

disse o lder do projeto, David Mattingly, da Universidade de Leicester, no Reino Unido.

"Embora as paredes destes locais caram um pouco, principalmente devido eroso do vento,

eles ainda esto de p 3-4 metros de [10] 13 ps altos em lugares", disse ele.

(Leia "Unseen Sahara" na revista National Geographic.)

Construo "Extraordinrio"
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Arquelogos poderia facilmente ter confundido o bem planejada, linear de construo de

fortalezas fronteirias romanas de projeto similar, Mattingly observados.

"Mas, na verdade, isso est alm das fronteiras do Imprio Romano-esses sites so

marcadores de um poderoso reino nativo Africano", disse ele.

Alm do mais, os cientistas ficaram surpresos que os sites-que incluem cemitrios e campos

agrcolas, so to bem agrupado.

(Veja "Ancient Cemitrio Encontrado; traz 'Green Sahara' to Life".)

Por exemplo, uma rea de 1,5 quilmetros quadrados (quatro quilmetros quadrados)

continha pelo menos dez vila-size settlements- "que uma densidade extraordinria", disse

Mattingly.

O conhecimento prvio do garamantes baseado principalmente em escavaes em seu

capital, Jarma, Cerca de 125 milhas (200 quilmetros) a noroeste, bem como em textos gregose romanos antigos.

"Ns construmos uma imagem deles como sendo um muito sofisticado, de alto nvel da

civilizao", disse Mattingly. (Leia sobre os "senhores perdidas do Sahara" na revista National

Geographic.)

"Eles tm metalurgia, txteis prprias de alta qualidade, um sistema de escrita ... esses tipos

de marcadores que diria que esta uma forma organizada, a sociedade em nvel estadual",

disse ele.

Autoridades patrimoniais sem dinheiro na Lbia tm sido incapazes de realizar pesquisa de

campo, deixando uma lacuna no conhecimento da antiga civilizao, de acordo com a

Universidade de Oxford arquelogo Philip Kenrick, que no estava envolvido na nova pesquisa.

por isso que Mattingly e por uma doao de US $ 3,4 milhes do Conselho Europeu de

Investigao-have da UE ajudou sua equipe "foi desbravando novos caminhos em uma escala

sem precedentes", disse Kenrick.

Cultura Antiga Criado Verde Sahara

Os restos recm tambm so um testemunho de tecnologia de irrigao avanado garamantes', o que lhes permitiu criar osis verdes no deserto. (Veja "High-Tech Energia 'Oasis' para

florescer no deserto?")

" um ambiente de profunda Subsaariana, hiper-rido, e apenas a capacidade das pessoas

para explorar guas subterrneas que podem mudar isso", disse o lder do projeto Mattingly.

Os garamantes extrado reservatrios de gua pr-histrico, utilizando canais subterrneos

para cultivar culturas mediterrnicas, tais como trigo, cevada, figos, e as uvas-e sorgo Africano

sub-saariana, milheto e algodo.


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Mattingly e colegas calcularam que 77.000 homens-ano de trabalho foi para a construo dos

canais de gua subterrneos nmero que no inclui a cavar os poos ou manuteno. Um

homem-ano uma unidade do trabalho feito por uma pessoa em um ano.

Africanos antigos acabaram de gua?

O que aconteceu com os garamantes permanece um enigma, mas a equipe de Mattingly

suspeita que as comunidades do deserto se recusou uma vez groundwatersupplies diminuda.

Paul Bennett, chefe da misso da Sociedade baseada no Reino Unido de Estudos da Lbia,

concordou que um cenrio provvel.

"A gua subterrnea uma fonte no renovvel, como assim que voc bateu no reservatrio e

esvaziou-a, ela no vai encher de novo", disse Bennett, que no estava envolvido na nova

pesquisa.

O colapso do Imprio Romano, e do aumento de conflitos na regio do Mediterrneo, teriatambm afetou seriamente o comrcio trans-saariano em que a civilizao deserto dependia,

acrescentou Kenrick de Oxford.

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"Lost" Fortresses of Sahara Revealed by Satellites