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ARCHITECTURE AND LANDSCAPE · 01

Garama/Jarma: an earthen city in the oasis

Streets, houses, buildings and cemeteries formed a Saharan urban centre.

Museum documentation · free public access, no account required.

DECLARED VISUAL RECONSTRUCTION · AI-GENERATED IMAGE · TRACEKEEPERS

Generated reconstruction · Declared visual hypothesis

Declared visual reconstruction, created for museographic contextualisation; not a photograph of the original nor does it constitute documentary evidence.

Image of Garama/Jarma: earthen city in the oasis
DECLARED VISUAL RECONSTRUCTION · AI-GENERATED IMAGE · TRACEKEEPERS

Generated reconstruction · Declared visual hypothesis

Declared visual reconstruction, created for museographic contextualisation; not a photograph of the original nor does it constitute documentary evidence.

History and context

Erosion obliges reconstructing volumes with caution.

Evidence and interpretation

Synthesis based on ISAC · Archaeology of Fazzan and irrigation landscapes; UNESCO · Rock-Art Sites of Tadrart Acacus. The comparison serves to formulate questions, not to fill gaps in the record with certainties.

Catalogue facts

Civilisation or trajectory
Garamantes of Fezzan
Scope
Building and Power
Main area
Wadi al-Ajal and Garama/Jarma, in the Fezzan of present-day south-west Libya.

A closer look

About 1 min to read · 1 section. Further reading and sources · free access. Editorial review recorded: .

Fortification can also accompany growth

Mattingly and Sterry link numerous fortified structures to a peak in settlement between approximately 300 and 500 CE. Their interpretation avoids assuming that every wall reflects decline: enclosures, towers and clusters could protect crops and land within intensive agriculture. Comparison with North African cities also shows that an oasis centre could have urban functions without attaining an extraordinary size. Looking at Garama alongside its nearby villages allows settlement hierarchies, protection and movement to be studied, rather than measuring its importance solely by the size of its ruins.

Location and territory

Physical world map with routes of human evolutionPresent-day world coastline from Natural Earth in an equirectangular projection. The overlaid markers let you explore each milestone.Map base: Natural Earth 1:110m · public domain · present-day reference coastline

REGIONAL AREA

Fezzan Oases and trans-Saharan corridors; changing network, not fixed frontierFezzan Oases and trans-Saharan corridors; changing network, not fixed frontier. The footprint indicates the orientative centre of the area, not a frontier nor an exact point.

Sources and references

Consult the sources of this cultural synthesis

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