Français – عربي – ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ – English
The Romans often associated the new regions they conquered with divinities. During the first centuries of our era, a new goddess, Africa, a personification of the African continent, emerged in Roman North Africa.
The goddess Africa is depicted as a woman, probably Amazigh, wearing an elephant head dress. She is a goddess of fertility and abundance, in a region with very fertile land. Next to her elephant head dress, she was usually carrying a horn of plenty and often accompanied by a lion.
The elephant head dress goes back before the Roman era. It first appeared on coins commemorating Alexander the Great’s invasion of India, then on Egyptian coins. The image was later adopted by Agathocles of Syracuse, after his African campaign, as a reference to the Carthaginian war elephants. Finally, it appears on coins minted by the Numidian usurper Hiarbas. The Romans took over this symbol after their victory against Hiarbas.
As the Romans already had their own fertility gods, the worship of the goddess Africa never became very popular outside Roman Africa itself.
