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The Garamantes (possibly from the Berber ''igherman'' / ''iɣerman'', meaning: "cities" in modern Berber; or possibly from ''igerramen'' meaning "saints, holy/sacred people" in modern Berber) were a people who developed an advanced civilization in ancient southwestern Libya. They used an elaborate underground irrigation system, and founded prosperous Berber kingdoms or city-states 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, but their written language was ''"...a still nearly indecipherable proto-Tifaniq, the script of modern-day Tuaregs."''〔 http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200403/libya.s.forgotten.desert.kingdom.htm〕 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 is the abundant rock art, which often depicts life prior to the rise of the realm. ==Garamantian life== In the 1960s, archaeologists excavated part of the Garamantes' capital (modern Germa, about 150 km west of modern-day Sabha) and named it Garama (an earlier capital, Zinchecra, was located not far from the later Garama). Current research indicates that the Garamantes had about eight major towns, three of which have been examined . In addition they had a large number of other settlements. Garama had a population of some four thousand and another six thousand living in villages within a 5 km radius. The Garamantes were farmers and merchants. Their diet consisted of grapes, figs, barley and wheat. They traded wheat, salt and slaves in exchange for imported wine and olive oil, oil lamps and Roman tableware. According to Strabo and Pliny, the Garamantes quarried amazonite in the Tibesti Mountains. In 2011, Efthymia Nikita reported that Garamantes skeletons do not suggest regular warfare or strenuous activities. "The Garamantes exhibited low sexual dimorphism in the upper limbs, which is consistent to the pattern found in agricultural populations and implies that the engagement of males in warfare and construction works was not particularly intense. () the Garamantes did not appear systematically more robust than other North African populations occupying less harsh environments, indicating that life in the Sahara did not require particularly strenuous daily activities."〔(Efthymia Nikita et al. ''Activity patterns in the Sahara Desert: An interpretation based on cross-sectional geometric properties'' )〕 The discovery of the "Black Mummy" by Professor Fabrizio Mori at the Uan Muhuggiag suggests that there may have been a long tradition of mummification in the region...〔("The Great Civilisations of the Ancient Sahara: neolithisation and the earliest evidence of anthropomorphic religion - Fabrizio Mori p.63" )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Garamantes」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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