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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Libya
Index
Archaeological evidence indicates that from at least the eighth
millennium B.C. Libya's coastal plain shared in a Neolithic
culture, skilled in the domestication of cattle and cultivation of
crops, that was common to the whole Mediterranean littoral. To the
south, in what is now the Sahara Desert, nomadic hunters and
herders roamed a vast, well-watered savanna that abounded in game
and provided pastures for their stock. Their culture flourished
until the region began to desiccate after 2000 B.C. Scattering
before the encroaching desert and invading horsemen, the savanna
people migrated into the
Sudan (see Glossary)
or were absorbed by the Berbers.
The origin of the Berbers is a mystery, the investigation of
which has produced an abundance of educated speculation but no
solution. Archaeological and linguistic evidence strongly suggests
southwestern Asia as the point from which the ancestors of the
Berbers may have begun their migration into North Africa early in
the third millennium B.C. Over the succeeding centuries they
extended their range from Egypt to the Niger Basin. Caucasians of
predominantly Mediterranean stock, the Berbers present a broad
range of physical types and speak a variety of mutually
unintelligible dialects that belong to the Afro-Asiatic language
family. They never developed a sense of nationhood and have
historically identified themselves in terms of their tribe, clan,
and family. Collectively, Berbers refer to themselves simply as
imazighan, to which has been attributed the meaning "free
men."
Inscriptions found in Egypt dating from the Old Kingdom (ca.
2700-2200 B.C.) are the earliest known recorded testimony of the
Berber migration and also the earliest written documentation of
Libyan history. At least as early as this period, troublesome
Berber tribes, one of which was identified in Egyptian records as
the Levu (or "Libyans"), were raiding eastward as far as the Nile
Delta and attempting to settle there. During the Middle Kingdom
(ca. 2200-1700 B.C.) the Egyptian pharaohs succeeded in imposing
their overlordship on these eastern Berbers and extracted tribute
from them. Many Berbers served in the army of the pharaohs, and
some rose to positions of importance in the Egyptian state. One
such Berber officer seized control of Egypt in about 950 B.C. and,
as Shishonk I, ruled as pharaoh. His successors of the twentysecond and twenty-third dynasties--the so-called Libyan dynasties
(ca. 945-730 B.C.)--are also believed to have been Berbers.
Data as of 1987
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