A mud-brick compound built by the mysterious Garamantes people. Photo by Toby Savage
Real-life “castles in the sand” made by an ancient culture have been revealed in the Sahara, archaeologists say.
New satellite photographs show more than a hundred fortress settlements from a “lost” civilization in southwestern Libya.
The communities, which date to between about A.D. 1 and 500, belonged to an advanced but mysterious people called the Garamantes, who ruled from roughly the second century B.C. to the seventh century A.D.
Researchers uncovered the Garamantes’ walled towns, villages, and farms after poring over modern satellite images—including high-resolution pictures used by the oil industry—as well as aerial photos taken during the 1950s and 1960s.
Located about 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) south of Tripoli, the fortresses were confirmed based on Garamantes pottery samples collected during an early-2011 expedition. That field trip was cut short by the civil war that would end the 42-year regime of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
“We were astonished to see the level of preservation” of the ancient mud-brick compounds, said project leader David Mattingly, of the U.K.’s University of Leicester.
“Although the walls of these sites have slumped a little bit, mainly due to wind erosion, they are still standing 3 to 4 meters [10 to 13 feet] high in places,” he said.
Read the rest of the story here.
Article by: James Owen, National Geographic News
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