Lost Civilization Discovered in Sahara Desert

Lost Civilization Discovered in Sahara Desert

New evidence of a lost civilization in an area of the Sahara in Libya has emerged from images taken by satellites.

Using satellites and air photographs to identify the remains in one of the most inhospitable parts of the desert, a team from the University of Leicester in England has discovered more than 100 fortified farms and villages with castle-like structures and several towns, most dating between AD 1 to 500.
"It is like someone coming to England and suddenly discovering all the medieval castles. These settlements had been unremarked and unrecorded under the Gadhafi regime," said project leader David Mattingly, professor of Roman archaeology at the university. The fall of the regime has opened up Libya to more exploration by archaeologists of its pre-Islamic heritage.

These "lost cities" were built by a little-known ancient civilization called the Garamantes, whose lifestyle and culture was far more advanced and historically significant than ancient sources had suggested. [Related: History's Most Overlooked Mysteries]

Castle-like complexes

The team from the University of Leicester has identified the mud brick remains of the castle-like complexes, with walls still standing up to 13 feet (4 meters) high, along with traces of dwellings, cairn cemeteries, associated field systems, wells and sophisticated irrigation systems. Follow-up ground surveys earlier this year confirmed the pre-Islamic date and remarkable preservation of the sites.


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Info on the Garamantes -
Garamantes

The Garamantes (probably from Berber language: igherman; meaning: cities) 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 the Garamantes. Even the name Garamantes was a Greek name which the Romans later adopted. Available information comes mainly from Greek and Roman sources, as well as archaeological excavations in the area, though large areas in ruins remain unexcavated. Another important source of information are the abundant rock art, many of which depict life prior to the rise of the realm.

So once again it looks like we are coming to terms with the fact we still have no idea about our history on this planet. It just seems odd to me that we can have these advanced lost civilizations that apparently died out in our past.

Its one thing for a country to break apart or what have you but to have entire civilizations lost to time, including their cities makes one wonder.

What the heck occured in our history that resulted in the disappearence of entire peoples as well as their cities?

Could it be possible that the lost civilizations that history seems to have supposedly forgotten actually have also been ruins / lost civilizations from antiquity?

In this particular case the name of the people come from the Greek and Romans and not the indiginous people. Modern civilization looks for lost civilizations to catalogue and explore history.. What if the info we read in ancient texts arent portraying an active civilization at the time, but a civilization from what would be considered ancient in the days of the Roman / Greek civilizations?

We have seen how translations of ancient text have been accidentally altered based on mistranslations / assumptions. Maybe it occured more often that we thought.

reply to post by Xcathdra


It's only been a scant few days since the fall of the Gadhafi regime. You think this has just been realised? I reckon they've known about this for years, if not decades with infrared imaging and whatever else, and have just been metering out "disclosure". Hidden mysteries are more important than oil.

This is definitely interesting, but a civilization dated to 1 to 500 AD isn't exactly one of the alleged lost "ancient" civilizations (that is, the civilzations alleged in Fingerprints of the Gods and other similar books).

S&F regardless.

There are so many lost civilizations spread throughout the world that we haven't located yet. What is amazing is all of the unknown ones that were swallowed by the oceans over the millenia. We really have no clue as to our ancient past.

This is really neat. I always enjoy hearing about entire civilizations I have never heard of.

It is a shame that this world has had so much ingenuity, civilization and brilliance that has been completely lost to us, and how much of today's world will be lost to the future...

When you stop and think about how amazing it is anything is left and how great the opportunity to learn anything about these groups I'm thankful.

I have some old maps of the town I live in. There is literally no sign of at least half of the buildings on the map being completely leveled and built over. It is eally easy to lose signs of the past forever.

reply to post by Xcathdra


Nice find, love this kind of stuff. I dug a little on the people of the region, the Garamantes:

-known as the makers of the "Wild fauna" art, named after the animals represented (e.g., Wadi Mathendous). Tools were made of flint stone. The sixth millennium, however, witnessed great droughts, and the area was completely abandoned. The lakes disappeared, leaving large fields of salt - one of the main articles of future Garamantian trade.

Reconstructed Garamantian chariot (National Archaeological Museum, Tripoli)
The Greek researcher Herodotus of Halicarnassus (fifth century BCE) describes the country as follows:

There is a hill of salt, a spring, and a great number of fruit-bearing date-palms, and the men who dwell here are called the Garamantes, a very great nation, who carry [humid] earth to lay over the salt and then sow crops. ... Among them also are produced the cattle which feed backwards, because they have their horns bent down forwards, and ... cannot go forwards as they feed, because the horns would run into the ground. Except for this, and the firmness of their hide, they do not differ from other cattle. With their four-horse chariots, these Garamantes hunt the Cave-dwelling Ethiopians, who are the swiftest of foot of all men.

www.livius.org...
Interesting art and history, and they were once a threat to the Romans, but later traded with each other.

It would be wrong, though, to conclude that the Garamantes and Romans were always at each other's throats. The Romans needed gold, salt, slaves, ivory, and exotic animals for their gladiatoral contests (e.g., ostriches and rhinoceroses); the Garamantes needed metal, ceramics, olive oil, and other products that were found by archaeologists. Usually, the relations were good, and the Bu Njem ostraca suggest that there was an understanding that runaway slaves from the Roman cities who reached Garama, were returned (ostracon 71). The Garamantian warriors had become tradesmen, and it is indicative of the now friendly relations that the Romans believed the Garamantes to be descendants from no less a forefather than Apollo (Isidore of Seville, Etymologies, 9.125), and that the city converted to Christianity in 569 (John of Biclar, Chronicle a.III Justini imp. = Mommsen, Chronica Minora 2, p.212, 4-5).

Peace,
spec

Originally posted by inivux
This is definitely interesting, but a civilization dated to 1 to 500 AD isn't exactly one of the alleged lost "ancient" civilizations (that is, the civilzations alleged in Fingerprints of the Gods and other similar books).

S&F regardless.

Maybe the use of ancient was a bit off so my bad. What I was thinking with regards to how old / where / abandoned cities was totake into account the possibility that we have possible royally screwed up with dating these discoveris.

We know throughout recorded history we changed how we track days / times / years etc. Do researchers / archeologists / etc take this into account when presenting their findings? I know there is some debate / conspiracy theory that instead of living in the 21st century, we are actually still in the 18th century.

The video is from Stuff they dont want you to know. I figured this video better exaplins what im trying to say. By the way I posted the video to demonstrate and not to substantiate.

Originally posted by Mitch555
There are so many lost civilizations spread throughout the world that we haven't located yet. What is amazing is all of the unknown ones that were swallowed by the oceans over the millenia. We really have no clue as to our ancient past.

Completely agree.. Science is now looking in that area and have been finding a lot of under sea cities. Apparently the ocean levels in the past were about 200 feet lower than they are now.

I think it would be cool to empty the oceans just to have a look.

Wow. Things are always popping up we don't expect.

What about Cambyses army they found?

Originally posted by daggyz
Wow. Things are always popping up we don't expect.

What about Cambyses army they found?

Who knows... Supposedly a lost army was located in the desert in Egypt if I remeber right that was supposedly the lost Roman legion (5th legion if I remember right). There is also another weird lost army tale as well, where in ancient Chinese texts they refer to open warfare against a group of people from the west who had fish scale like armor. That armor would be the armor used in the European area. The other interesting discovery was of the bodies located in the Western reaches of china. Bodies that have been located are not of asian decent, but European.

The "coincidences" between ancient texts by different civilizations on seperated continents has moved beyond the realm of coincidence in my opinion. We are seeing a global civilization like what we have today.

When we have scientists stating that construction techniques used back in antiquity are just now being developed in todays world, it certainly makes on stop and take notice.

How can we as a society today claim to be intelligent, advanced, sophisticated etc when we cant even have open discussions about our history?

The begining of the quest for knowledge and answers begins with the saying "I dont know".

I think the mentality of our society now is whats holding us back from advancing. Instead of finding the truth and having open debates, ego's and credit are more important.

A lot of good that will do when in 5years or 5k years the holdouts are proved wrong.

Lost City of Brass?

reply to post by Xcathdra


WoW!! If the phantom time hypothesis is infact correct then the 2012 prphesy hasn't even came near fruitition! Interesting observation to behold.....

civilizations haven't really changed for thousands of years. 100 years ago we were still riding horses to get around.

then all of the sudden this technological boom. something's fishy here and it ain't the tuna.

Not really a lost civilization per se, my 1962 encyclopedia has a decent entry on the Garamantes, as does Wikipedia; more like the extent of ruins left behind by them was fully understood with Gaddafi preventing any sort of research or excavation on them during his rule. I hate headline writers that engage in this sort of hyperbole.

Originally posted by Blackmarketeer
I hate headline writers that engage in this sort of hyperbole.

Im not sure who you are referring to with this comment.

I didnt make the headline. I just used the one from the article.

Even if its not ancient or new news, the discovery of the ruins are (to my knowledge anyways). Heck its possible the info from the 60's might be incorrect now that we have the chance to delve farther into that society and daily life.

This kind of thing always makes me wonder about how much more we could possibly know about our history had records not been destroyed long ago, eg, the library of alexandria.

This story caught my eye as well.
Some more information to play connect the dots with.
Thanks for sharing!!

PLPL

reply to post by Xcathdra


Apologies, it wasn't directed at you, but the author of the article.

Originally posted by Blackmarketeer
reply to post by Xcathdra

 

Apologies, it wasn't directed at you, but the author of the article.

Its cool no worries. I didnt think it was but just wanted to clarify.