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Ancient Libya

Ancient Libya was the region west of the Nile Valley. It corresponds to what is now generally called Northwest Africa. Its people were the ancestors of the modern Berbers.

In the Greek period the Berbers were known as "Libyans and their lands called "Libya" extended from modern Morocco to the western borders of ancient Egypt. Modern Egypt contains the Siwa Oasis, historically part of Libya, where the Berber Siwi language is still spoken.

The etymologic origin

The name Libya is found in the Ancient Egyptian, Phoenician, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Arabic and the modern European languages.

The Egyptians

The Ancient Egyptians mentioned many Libyan tribes. The most known tribes on the basis of the Egyptian Archaeologic sources are respectively: the Tjehenu, the Tamahu, the Libu (or Ribu),and the Meshwesh. Those tribes were the most important Libyan tribes in the Egyptian sources. However, other less important tribes (or minor groups) were mentioned in the Egyptian sources, too.

The oldest reference to this name goes back to Ramses II and Merneptah the Egyptian ruler of the 19th dynasty. He ruled in the second half of the 13th century BCE. The name was firstly mentioned as an ethnic name on the Merneptah Stele which is also known as the Israel's Stele:

[..]The vile chief of the Libu who fled under cover of night alone without a feather on his head, his feet unshod, his wives seized before his very eyes, the meal for his food taken away, and without water in the water-skin to keep him alive; the faces of his brothers are savage to kill him, his captains fighting one against the other, their camps burnt and made into ashes ...

Afterwards, the name appeared repeatedly in the pharaonic records. It is, therefore, supposed that the origin of the name "Libya" would be this Egyptian name for the ancient tribe Libu. According to this theory, this name would be taken over by the Greeks of Cyrenaica who may have co-existed with them. Later, the name appeared in the Hebrew language written in the Bible as Lehabim and Lubim indicating the ethnic population and the geographic territory as well.

Neo-punic

In the neo-Punic inscriptions it was written as Lby for the masculine noun and Lbt for the feminine noun of Libyan. The name was supposedly used as an ethnic name in those inscriptions.

Greeks

The first reference to "Libya" in the Greek language is found in Homer's Odyssey (IX.95; XXIII.311). The name was used by Homer in a geographic sense, while he called its inhabitants Lotophagi meaning the "Lotus-eaters". After Homer, the name was used by Aeschylus, Pindar and other Ancient Greek writers.

Herodotus used Libuwa indicating Libya while he called the Libyans Libyes in the Greek language. From his point of view, Libya was the name of the African continent, while "the Libyans" were the light-skinned North Africans, whereas the southern Africans were known as "the Ethiopians" to him.

Romans

In Latin, the name would be taken over from the Greek and the Punic languages. The Romans would have known them before their colonization of North Africa, because of the Libyan role in the Punic wars against the Romans. The Romans used the name Libyes, but it referred only to Barca and the Western desert of Egypt. The other Libyan territories became known as Africa.

Arabic derivation

In the Arabic literature, "Libya" was called Lubya indictating a speculative territory in west of Egypt. However, today, it is referred to as Libya.

Berber link questioned

It has been questioned whether the name Libu was an Egyptian name for an ancient Berber tribe or if it was the name the Berber tribe would use to refer to themselves. After that time, the Ancient Egyptians may then have adopted it as a name for them. An example of the first probability is the name Berber which is used to refer to the indigenous people of Northwest Africa, whereas they call themselves "Imazighen".

In fact, it is a difficult issue as the Berbers and the Ancient Libyans did not leave significant written sources. However, some prominent historians tried to trace the name to a Berber origin. The supporters of the Berber origin believe that the name was related to an ancient Berber tribe. The name Libu would have known many evolution from "Lebu" to "Libya" to "Lebata" to "Levata" to "Lvata" to "Lwatae".

Lwatae, the tribe of Ibn Battuta, as it was called by the Arabs was a Berber tribe that was mainly situated in Cyrenaica. However, this tribe seemed to have stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to modern Libya and was referred by Corippius as Laguatan; he linked them with the Maures.

Ibn Khaldun reports in the The History of Ibn Khaldun that Luwa was an ancestor of this previous tribe. He stated that the Berbers add an "A" and "T" to the name for the plural forms. Subsquently, it became Lwat.

Conversely, the Arabs adopted the name as a singular form adding a "H" for the plural form in Arabic. Ibn Khaldun goes furthermore denying the claim of Ibn Hazam who maybe singifically claimed on the basis of the Berber sources that Lwatah in addition to Sadrata and Mzata were from the Qibts (Egyptians). According to Ibn Khaldun his claim is incorrect because Ibn Hazam had not read the books of the Berber scholars.

Oric Bates is a historians who considers that the name Libu or LBW would be derived from the name Luwatah whilst the name Liwata is a derivation of the name Libu. Other historians like the Libyan historian Mohammed Moustapha Bazam tend to confirm this theory.

Evidence

Compared with the History of Egypt, there is a little known on the History of Libya as there are few written texts.

The Libyco-Berber script (also known as Tifinagh) was used in Libya was mostly used as a funerary script. It is difficult to understand and there are a number of variations.

Information on Ancient Libya comes from archaeologic evidence and historic sources written by Egyptians neighbours, the Ancient Greeks, Romans and Byzantines in the addition to the Arabs from the Medieval times.

The territory

The boundaries of Ancient Libya have yet to be determined.

It was to the west of Ancient Egypt, and it was known as "IMNT" to the Ancient Egyptians Libya was an unknown territory to the Egyptians: it was the lands of the spirits.

To the Ancient Greeks, Libya was one of the three known continents besides, Asia and Europe. In this sense, Libya was the whole African continent to the west of the Nile Valley. Herodotus distinguished the inhabitants of Libya into two people: The Libyans in North Africa and the Etheopians [sic] in the south. According to Herodotus, Libya begins where the Ancient Egypt ends, and ends in Cape Spartel in the south of Tangier on the Atlantic coast.

Later sources

After the Egyptians, the Greeks, Romans, and Byzantines mentioned other various tribes. The late tribal names are different from the Egyptian ones. But it is supposed that some tribes were named in the Egyptian sources and the later ones, as well. The Meshwesh-tribe is an example for this assumption. The scholars believe it would be the same tribe called Mazyes by Hektaios and Maxyes by Herodotus, while it was called as "Mazaces" and "Mazax" in the Latin sources. All those names are somehow similar to the name used by the Berbers themselves Imazighen.

The sources of the late period gave more detailed descriptions on Libya and its inhabitants. Herodotus is the most notable ancient historian who tried to cover Libya and the Libyans in his fourth book, which is known as "The Libyan Book". In addition to him, Pliny the Elder, Diodorus Siculus and Procopius are considered as the basic sources on Libya and the Libyans.

Ibn Khaldun, who dedicated the main part of his book Kitab el'ibar, which is known as "The history of the Berbers", did not use the names: "Libya" and "Libyans" in his works. He used instead Arabic names: "The Old Maghreb" (El-Maghrib el-Qadim) and "The Berbers" (El-Barbar or El-Barabera(h)).

Unlike Ibn Khaldun who divided the Berbers into the Batr and the Baranis, Herodotus divided them into Eastern Libyans and Western Libyans. The Eastern Libyans where the nomadic Libyans to the east of the Lake Tritonis. They lived as nomadic shepherds, while the Western Libyans who lived to the west of the Lake Tritonis were farmers who led sedentary life.

Neither Ibn Khaldun nor Herodotus distinguished the Libyans on the basis of their ethnic background, but according to their lifestyles. The distinction of Herodotus was also followed by the modern historians, like Oric Bates in his book "The Eastern Libyans". Some other historians used the modern name of the Berbers in their works like the French historian Gabriel Camps.

The Libyan tribes mentioned in these sources were: "Adyrmachidae", "Giligamae", "Asbystae", "Marmaridae", "Auschisae", "Nasamones", "Macae", "Lotus-eaters (or Lotophagi)", "Garamantes", "Gaetulians", "Maures(Berbers)", "Luwatae" and still many other tribes.