Archaeology Odyssey, March/April 2000
Features
It is safe to say that few, if any, readers of Archaeology Odyssey have heard of the Garamantes. For about a thousand years, from about 500 B.C. to 600 A.D., however, they lived in the southwestern part of what is now Libya; then they disappeared from history—not long before the Arab-Islamic invasion. The area […]
The Garamantes are not just a vanished civilization; they are a much maligned, misunderstood African people. Ancient writers from the time of Herodotus (fifth century B.C.) through the Roman period depicted the Garamantes as barbarians who menaced the Mediterranean world from desert strongholds. The first-century A.D. Roman historian Tacitus, for instance, described them as […]
Cut into rocky pinnacles just two miles northeast of Bogûazko¬y, Turkey (the site of the ancient Hittite capital of Hattusha), are some dramatic, if puzzling, rock reliefs. These carvings at Yazilikaya (see plan and photo of sanctuary at Yazilikaya), which in Turkish means “inscribed rock,”1 wind around two natural galleries and present what is […]
Now, if a king among kings, or a governor among governors or a commander of an army should come up against Byblos and uncover this coffin, may the scepter of his rule be torn away, may the throne of his kingdom be overturned, and may peace flee from Byblos!” This warning, inscribed more than […]