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04 · ADOBE URBANISM · ≈400–300 BCE

Old Jarma

Garama before texts called it a capital

Excavations allow the city’s growth to be compared with what Roman authors reported.

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.

Specific historical reconstruction of Garama before becoming a capital in the texts, Garama/Jarma · Wadi al-Ajal, Visible from ≈400–300 BCE
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

Walls, hearths and occupation levels at Old Jarma document urban growth in the Wadi al-Ajal.

Classical sources name Garama from outside. The excavated sequence allows its development to be reconstructed without taking a hostile text as a founding act.

Old Jarma preserves a sequence of ten major building phases that extends from approximately 400 BCE to the twentieth century. The museum separates the Garamantian phases from later occupations.

Garama was a capital in external sources and an excavated urban centre, but the title alone does not fix the territory controlled in each century.

Evidence and interpretation

Stratigraphy, adobe and chronology are documented. The institutional name and political scope of each phase remain open.

Catalogue facts

Narrative date
Visible from ≈400–300 BCE
Location
Garama/Jarma · Wadi al-Ajal
Material
Adobe, hearths and pottery
Context
Urban core
Curatorial reading
The documented fact and its interpretation appear separately in the evidence block.
Sequence
Ten major building phases published
Visible beginning
Around 400 BCE
Documentary coverage
2 museum, heritage, primary corpus or research sources for this stop.

A closer look

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

The capital and its excavation history

The 2020 synthesis distinguishes several stages in the investigation of Garama: an Italian mission in 1933, extensive excavations by Mohammed Ayoub during the 1960s and work by Charles Daniels between 1959 and 1977. These campaigns left documentation of uneven quality, which affects the questions that can now be asked about the capital. An early discovery of a structure and an excavation with precise stratigraphic associations do not offer the same detail. Reconstructing the city also requires reconstructing how it was investigated and what information each archive preserves.

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

Garama/Jarma · FezzanMarker of the urban core and oasis corridor, not of an imperial frontier.

Sources and references

Expand this information and consult its sources

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