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The Saharan Amazigh, unlike their kinsmen in the coastal region, only had distant contacts with other Mediterranean civilisations, and are thus quite rarely mentioned in historical sources. As they have never been under Carthaginian or Roman domination, they were able to maintain a more authentically Amazigh culture. The ancient historians mention two people groups: the Getulians, who were living beyond the Atlas mountains, to the South of Numidia; and the Garamantes, in the Fezzan, possibly the ancestors of the modern-day Tuareg.
The Getulians
According to Roman historian Strabo, the Getulians were the most numerous people of North Africa, but also the less well-known. Their nomadic tribes lived in the semi-desert regions to the South of the Atlas mountains, all the way to the Saharan desert. Their region corresponds to the Southern parts of modern-day Algeria and Tunisia. Due to the strong climate variations inside their territory, they were forced to adapt to highly diverse living conditions. They lived on agriculture, herding, and hunting, wore animal skins, and mostly ate meat and drank milk. Their emblematic animal was the Getulian lion.
The Romans discovered the Getulians during the Jugurthine wars. The Numidian King Jugurtha recruited Getulian cavalry regiments as auxiliary forces in his army. The Roman troops feared these fighters a lot. Later, during the Roman era, some Getulian tribes moved to the South of Mauretania, in modern-day Morocco, where they mingled with the Moorish populations who had remained free from Roman sovereignty. The Getulians took part in all successive African rebellions against Rome. The major rebellion was led by Tacfarinas and the Musulami, a Getulian tribe, in 17 CE.
The Garamantes
The Garamantes, another Amazigh people in the Sahara, lived in the Fezzan region (which the Greeks and Romans called Phazania), in Southern Libya. They appeared around 1.000 years BCE, and their civilisation reached its peak around the 2nd Century CE.
The Garamantes were known as great builders: the first major Saharan civilisation, they developed an urban society in the middle of the desert, with a network of city-States centered on the oases of Garama (Djerma, 150km South-West of Sabha), their capital, and Murzouq, further South. To bring water to their cities, in a region without rivers, they built a highly elaborate underground irrigation system (qanat). This infrastructure enabled them to practice agriculture at the heart of the Sahara! At their peak, the Garamantes were the richest Saharan civilisation of Antiquity.
The Garamantes, like the Getulians, were famous as horse-breeders. According to Greek historian Herodotus, the Garamantes taught the Cretans how to drive hose chariots.
The Garamantes also were a major actor in the slave trade: they captured slaves through raids to the South of the Sahara, and then sold them in Mediterranean Libya.
In 202, Roman Emperor Septimius Severus conquered Garama. However, the Roman domination in the region remained weak and would not last long.
The Garamantes converted to Christianity around the 6th Century, under the influence of preachers who came from Tripolitania.
The Garamantian civilisation entered a long decline starting in the 4th Century, due to climate change and water depletion. They seem to have disappeared before the Arab conquests. However, some specialists believe the Garamantes to be the ancestors of the Tuareg, a nomadic Amazigh people group who live nowadays in the Saharan desert.
