[SunkenCiv]

This reminds me of the Loulan fabrics, western China, much older than this though:

2000-year old textile produced by the Garamantes people of the Libyan Central Sahara.

[thecodont]

Very pretty fabric!

[GeronL]

Sounds like they had to regress because the acquifer ran dry. Wait, the climate was changing back then too?? How is that possible?? Aren’t we always being told that only modern human industries can do that??

[Inyo-Mono]

Bttt.

[Cisco Nix]

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

I think of them as similar to the Nabataeans, though on a lesser scale, due to the location; there was a good north-south trade route in their area, and it was their “run.” Next best thing to a river.

[worst-case scenario]

“They were depicted by Roman sources as ungovernable nomadic barbarians.”

Well, it’s pretty obvious that the Garamantes could by governed by themselves. It’s the *Romans* that they weren’t interested in being governed by.

Of course, the Romans wrote the history books after the Garamantes were gone, so they could depict them in any way they wanted. That’s usually the way it works: empires always depict the people that fight back as “barbarians,” “uncivilized,” “pagans,” “primitive.” That why I love Herodotus. He reports these civilizations as an anthropologist would, without judgment. It makes for much more informative reading.