African home of the Gurunsi culture in Burkina Faso (Upper Volta) - a remnant of the type their ancestors once built before moving further southward. Many of the populations of early medieval Ghana were of similar origin to the original Mauri or Beriberi of the Maghreb (North Africa). The name Berber comes from the ethnic name Beri or Beriberi an ethnonym of the Zagha'i, Izghan or Zaghawa culture known as Sughai or Songhai throughout the Sudan in later times.
Very sorry friends, I am just seeing many comments on here due to mostly spending on my facebook page African Ark which has been around now for approximately 3 years. Had no idea people were still coming. I’ve also been spending time on my new book, The African and Arabian Origins of the Hebrew Bible: An Ethnohistorical Study, published as a dissertation this summer - 365 pages of pure afroasiatic academically-verified history.
With foreword by Fulbright Scholar and Professor Brannon Wheeler - former Associate Professor of Islamic Studies and Comparative Religion at the University of Washington and current Director of the Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies at the US Naval Academy, Maryland. Congratulations are due all of us for the wait!: ) (BTW - I have nothing to do with the pricing of the book. lol!)
The African and Arabian Origin of the Hebrew Bible
JOIN US ON FACEBOOK at this link African Ark
Remnants of the "Ethiopic" town of Germa of Fezzan in Libya.
This article covers the Pre-Islamic and pre-Christian Black Africans called "Mauri" through the Byzantine Period and their East African Origins Enjoy!: )
Wonderful vintage photo of the remnants of the Berber Mauri in the Riff region of northern Morocco. Early 20th century _ Getty photo
"Ethiopians overran Libya as far as Dyris,80 ... some of them stayed in Dyris, while others occupied a great part of the sea-board" - Strabo 1st century AD regarding a statement by Eurphorus
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/roman/texts/strabo/1b2*.html
A few centuries before the Christian era the Mauri had taken part in incursions into Spain before the Christian era,[i] Early and medieval inhabitants of Iberia were very familiar with what Africans looked like of the coast of Mauretania looked like. The 7th century Christian bishop, St. Isidore of Seville, Spain wrote poetically of the Mauri as “black” in complexion. His exact words being “The Moors have bodies black as night, while the skin of the Gauls is white.” [Etymologies XIX.xxiii.7] Of the bishop, Jonathan Conant writes, “…by the time Isidore of Seville came to write his Etymologies the word Maurus or ‘Moor’ had become an adjective in Latin, for the Greeks call black ‘mauron’. In Isidore’s day Moors were black by definition.” [ii]
Most of
the Mauri were comprised mainly of nomadic herders. Pliny and Ptolemy
claimed Mauretania extended southward to Essaouira or Mogador and included
the Atlas. In the 1st century Caligula divided the land of
Mauretania into Caesariana and Tingitana named for Tingis (Tangiers).[iii]
The 7th century text Laterculus Veronesis lists the lands of the
Mauri that were then Roman provinces as Mauretania Tingitana in northern
Morocco (with capital Tingi - the later Tangiers), Mauretania Caesariensis
(Algeria), and Mauretania
Sitifensis (Algeria) emerging from the Eastern part of Caesariensis and the
Mauri peoples there include the Mauri Quinquegentiani, Mazaceces (Mazices),
Bacquates ( Baccuates/Berghwata), and Mauri Barbares or Bavares.[iv]
[v]
Pliny
mentions the major inhabitants of Mauretania in his time as the Mauri and
Masaesyli as being decimated in his time. The Autololes were among the Mauri
tribes that arose after this time. The Bacquates were thought to be the later Bergwata inhabited the mountains
of the Middle Atlas.[vi]
The Bavares occupied
Mauretania Cesareiensis.[vii]
Mauri Mazikes or Mazazeces were found in Tripolitania, the interior of
Libya and Mauritania Caesariensis. The 4th century Expositio
Totius Mundi speaks of a people in the desert that was called Mazices and
Ethiopian. “Deinde post Africae omnem regionem adjacent et deserta terra
maxima in austri partibus: ubi aiunt in minima parte ipsius derserrti
habitare barbarorum paucam gentem, quae sic vocatur Mazicum et Aethiopum”.
[viii]
It
is likely the people called Mauri were the same as the people occupying the
coast of North Africa in the time of Strabo, and that they were among people
that were a people self-identified as “Mauri” or Maure[ix] and later known as
“Berbers”. The first century Manilius, however, claimed the Moors derived
the name Moor “from the color of their faces” and the name proclaimed their identity [Astron. 4.729}.
[x]
he Riff Mountain Moors called Chefchaouen are reminiscent of the peoples once known as Masmuda Berbers that occupied the region. Described by medieval times (in the works of Abu Shama, Nasr Khusrau, Ibn Butlan and others as in the time of Isidore of Seville as black =skinned and of robust build. : )
The term black or black-skinned is frequently used to describe to the “Mauri” ethnic groups. William Smiths Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography and says MAURI Μαυροί, “Blacks,” in the Alexandrian dialect, Paus. i, 33 § 5, 8.43. [2.297] § 3; Sal. Jug. 19; Pomp. Mela, 1.4.3; Liv. 21.22, 28.17; Hor. Carm. 1.22. 2, 2.6. 3, 3.10. 18; Tac. Ann. 2.52, 4.523, 14.28, Hist. 1.78, 2.58, 4.50; Lucan 4.678; Juv. 5.53, 6.337; Flor. 3.1, 4.2); …These Moors, who must not be considered as a different race from the Numidians, but as a tribe belonging to the same stock…” They were also called Maurusii Numidii and likely the same population as mentioned by Euphorus of the 4th century BC according to Strabo who in his Geography states overran the North African coast and settled in the Atlas. In the first century Diodorus Siculus Book 20: 57 - – wrote of people met by the Greek Agathocles on the coast of Tunisia “men called the Asphodelodes who are similar to the Ethiopians in colour. [xiii] Oric Bates identified the Nasamones originally of the Syrtic (Sidra) coast of Libya as the people that made use of the asphodel plant in North Africa.
Strabo wrote - "the Tartesians report that "Ephorus says the Tartessians report that Ethiopians overran Libya as far as Dyris, and that some of them stayed in Dyris, while others occupied a great part of the sea-board". Dyris is another name for the Atlas Mountains. In the 1st century, Diodorus Siculus Book 20:57 – wrote of people met by the Greek Agathocles on the coast of Tunisia “men called the Asphodelodes who are similar to the Ethiopians in colour. [xiii] Oric Bates identified the Nasamones originally of the Syrtic (Sidra) coast of Libya as the people that made use of the asphodel plant in North Africa.[xiv] Today their descendants the Kel Inusamani are part of the the Tuareg.
In the 1st century, Diodorus Siculus Book 20:57 – wrote of people met by the Greek Agathocles on the coast of Tunisia “men called the Asphodelodes who are similar to the Ethiopians in colour. Oric Bates identified the Nasamones originally of the Syrtic (Sidra) coast of Libya as the people that made use of the asphodel plant in North Africa.[xiv] Today their descendants the Kel Inusamani are part of the Tuareg who still go in some places to graves of their ancestors to receive messages like the Nasamones.
The 1st c. AD Silius Italicus wrote of “black-skinned Moors and Numidians, and the Garamantes whom the god Ammon
sees…” Elsewhere (Pun. 2.432-52) he states, “Not far off, the sunburnt sister of a black Moor soothes the
lionesses trained by her native tongue.” [xv] Similarly Juvenal in his
Satires (V. 53) refers to “A black, deformed Gaetulian noted for his villainy,or a Moor with long,
black, scrawny hands, whom he would even hesitate to pass on the street,
waits on him.”[xvi]
Another translation reads,
“a running footman from Gætulia, or the bony hand of some Moor, so black
that you would rather not meet him at midnight”
[xvii]
As well, the 1st century Roman poet Martial (born in Spain) in his
Epigrams (p. 213) described the hair of a Moor as woolly or kinky. A
recent translator says, “Santra a fictional slave cook in a scurrilous epigram of Martial,
fathers on his master’s wife a Moorish looking boy with crinkly
hair”
[xviii]
A little later speaking of the Moorish inhabitants of North Africa and their dealings with Syro-Roman women, Claudian writes “When tired of each noblest matron Gildo hands her over to the Moors. Married in Carthage city these Sidonian mothers needs must mate with barbarians. He thrusts upon me an Ethiopian as a son-in‑law, a Berber as a husband. The hideous half-breed child affrights its cradle.”[xix]
Another later translation of this same passage of Gildo reads,
“He gives us an Ethiopian son-in-law, a Nasamonian husband, the mixed-race infant frightens its
cradle“ (De Bello Gildonico 192-193)
[i]
The Nasamones were closely tied ethnically
to the Garamantes who are also clearly referenced as
black-complexioned or nearly black population Ptolemy [1.8.5; 1.9.7]
Frontinus, Strat. [1.2.18] and Diodorus [20.57.5]
[ii]
and in some instances they even classified as an
“Ethiopian” people. “The dregs of the Garamantes have now advanced to our region and
the house slave Niger …rejoices in his pitch-black body. If the
voice discharged from his lips did not make him sound human, the
gristly demon would terrify living men…." [xxii] Isidore in the 7th c. wrote that “There are three tribes of Ethiopians: Hesperians, Garamantes and Indians” (Book IX ii 128). [xxiii] The Hesperians were said by Pliny (in Natural History, 8:32) to have lived in the area of the Atlas and river Nigris.[xxiv] (Gaetulia stretched as far as Nigris which separated Africa (Tunisia) from Ethiopia (the Sudan). They worshipped Mt. Atlas considering it their temple (Maximus Tyrius). Hesiod speaks of the Atlas as the home of the Hesperian Nymphs. [xxv]
[i]
p. 162, Ware, Catherine. (2012).
Claudian in Roman epic Tradition. Cambridge University Press. p. 162.
[ii]
De Marre, Martine Agnes. (2002). Dissertation: “The Role and
Position of Women in North African Society.” p. 27, fn. 26.
Another later translation of this same passage of Gildo reads, “He gives us an Ethiopian son-in-law, a Nasamonian husband, the mixed-race infant frightens its cradle“ (De Bello Gildonico 192-193) [xx] The Nasamones were closely tied ethnically to the Garamantes who are also clearly referenced as black-complexioned or nearly black population Ptolemy [1.8.5; 1.9.7] Frontinus, Strat. [1.2.18] and Diodorus [20.57.5] [xxi] and in some instances they even classified as an “Ethiopian” people. “The dregs of the Garamantes have now advanced to our region and the house slave Niger …rejoices in his pitch-black body. If the voice discharged from his lips did not make him sound human, the gristly demon would terrify living men….”[xxii] Isidore in the 7th c. wrote that “There are three tribes of Ethiopians: Hesperians, Garamantes and Indians” (Book IX ii 128). [xxiii] The Hesperians were said by Pliny (in Natural History, 8:32) to have lived in the area of the Atlas and river Nigris.[xxiv] (Gaetulia stretched as far as Nigris which separated Africa (Tunisia) from Ethiopia (the Sudan). They worshipped Mt. Atlas considering it their temple (Maximus Tyrius). Hesiod speaks of the Atlas as the home of the Hesperian Nymphs. [xxv]
Fabulous early 20th c. vintage photo of the Algerian Moors or Mauri
of Wargla oasis who epitomized by the Berber people of Corripus time
in Algeria and Tunisia and whose inhabitants were said to
have been Jews since the time of Solomon. : ) "Black
faces filled up the tents..." Corripus 6th century
Flavius Corripus of the 6th century in writing of the Moors under Antalas of Central Algeria mentioned their black faces in their tents comparing them to a scene out of hell. One classical historian writes, “…during an officers’ meeting, the Moorish chief Antalas is ‘Hades’ surrounded by ‘black faces’ (nigra facies), a war council of a ‘thousand monsters’ lining the ‘broad path out of Hell’.”[xxvi] And, “Roman citizens in Carthage triumphantly deride Moorish female captives and their children”, and Corippus describes one mother with her children as looking like the crow or raven with her chicks.[xxvii]
Another of the tribes he mentions under the Moorish chiefs were
Silcadenit[xxviii]
or Kel Cadenit and the
Macares probably designations
for the Tuareg tribes of Kel Cadenit and Imaqqoran.
Ethnic Connections of the Moors with the Horn of Africa and the Yemen
For the most part, ancient black-skinned inhabitants of Libya known as
Mauri, Gaitules and Berbers were linked by ancient authors to the peoples of
East Africa and southern Arabia. In the medieval era much of Arabia was
otherwise referred to as India Minor or Little India,[xxix]
while the region of Abyssinia is “Middle India”.[xxx]
From the early Byzantine era
until a late period, southern Arabia and parts of the Horn were at times
referred to as “Indian”, just as parts of India would be referred to as
“Ethiopian”. (For example, the famed Christian Theophilus, the Indian, is
also called “the Ethiopian’ and was thought to have been born in the Maldive
Islands.)[xxxi]
Marco Polo (13th
c.) specifically makes reference to both Aden and Abyssinia as “Middle
India”. As well “Benjamin of Tudela speaks of Aden as being in India.[xxxii] This may in part explain the tradition of the Moors being led to North
Africa by the “Indian” Heracles/Hercules.
Josephus
considered the “Evileans” (biblical “Hevila”) of Somalia to be ancestors of
the Getulians (Berbers) that later became the Masyli and Masaesyli of North
Africa by Herodotus. Josephus in Antiquities 1.134 claimed
the “children of Ham” were “Sabas, who founded the Sabeans; Evilas, who founded the Evileans, who are
called Getuli; Sabathes founded the Sabathens, they are now called by the
Greeks Astaborans; Sabactas settled the Sabactens…”[xxxiii] The “Evileans” are considered to be the trading people between Arabia and
Africa that founded and gave their name to the town of Zeila (ancient
Avalis).[xxxiv]. The “Astaborans” were considered people of the Blue Nile or river
Astapus. Strabo also
considered the inhabitants of Meroe to be Sabaeans. The idea of the Fezzan being descendants of Ham was reiterated by medieval writers who includes among the children of Canaan - the "Nubians, Fezzan, Zanj, Zaghawah, and all the peoples of the Sudan” (al-Tabari 2: 11).
In Arabia the tribe appears
to be the traders that were named
Hawila or Huwaila.[xxxv]
The 12th c. Yakut al-Hamawi informs the Mahra dialect in
Hadramaut was actually still named “Hawil”.[xxxvi]
In ancient South Arabian
inscriptions the name Havilah is found as Khawlan and they are dwelling near
Sanaa in Yemen.[xxxvii]
Some ancient authors distinguished the Getules from the Mauri. Others such
as Pomponius Mela made no distinction bwtween the two.
[xxxviii]
Around the 3rd
and 4th centuries BC, the tribes of Masaesyli and Masyli arose
in Numidia from the Getuli.[xxxix] The name of the Masyli of Numidia is very possibly linked to that of the Mosyli in the
Horn of Africa and the coastline of Aden.[xl]
According to Pliny (6, 174) there was also Ethiopian harbor of the
Mossylites (in Somalia),[xli]
now considered Ras Antarah.
The
ancient Garamantes occupied the area then called Phazania or Fezzan, with
Germa as its major city. Some consider they were anciently called
Gamphasantes.[xlii]
Peoples called Phazaniae are mentioned by Ptolemy not far from the
“Ethiopian mountains” and west of Meroe.[xliii] The Phazani are thus
mentioned in an area stretching between North Africa (“Libya”) and Ethiopia
(the areas south of Egypt). Pliny [5.5.35] for example mentions the Phazania
tribe in relation to the region of the Libyan towns of Zala (Zeila?),
Sabratha and Ghadames.[xliv]
As with Germa of the Garamantes. The Libyan Ghadames was once a town of Numidia and otherwise called "Sudaniyya" and the people were once one and the same.
In addition, the Aramaic Targums or commentaries on the Torah persistently identify the people of northwest Africa especially with the children of Cush. Zingain another name for the Zaghawa appears as Sabtecha, and Mauretania is connected with Ra’amah son of Cush. Ezekiel 27:22 reads - “The merchants of Sheba and Raamah were your merchants. They traded for your wares the choicest spices, all kinds of precious stones, and gold. They were traders in spices, precious stones and gold..." "The Targum related the name of of the Lubai or Lehabim and Raamah, however, the Targum (Yonathan) has Mavryatinos, which is Mauretania, the area of what is now Morocco and Algeria.. Mavry in Greek came to mean "the blacks". (cf. Yebamoth 63a;) In an earlier post I mentioned that "Zingani were also Zaghawa and Zaghai whom further west were called 'Sungai' ” or Songhai further south.
According to Harold MacMichael, the colonial ethno-historian, Ibn Sa'id documented Zaghai as being the name of nations extending between Abyssinia, Nubia, to Barka in the North and Tekrur in the West. The word is also translated in various texts Soki or Zakkai and Sangii or Songhay. The name of the Sanhaga or Sanhaja, one of the three major tribes of Berbers may be related. See the The Tribes of Central and Northern Kordofan, first published by Frank Cass, p. 107.
By the time of the ancient Greeks and later Romans, the ancestors of the Zaghai are found in ancient sources under similar names in North Africa. An encyclopedia on the Islamic world relates the name to that of the ancient Zaueces of Herodotus (6th c. BC) who lived just south of Carthage and the Arzugitani or Arzuges of Orosius, which is connected to the region named Zeugitana by Pliny (1st c.).[1] The name Zaghawa or Zawagha the Arabic plural for Zaghai or Zakkai was probably etymologically connected as well.
The name may also have some connection to that of the Zenata Berber ancestor Zakiyya meaning “pure meat”, and thus also the Hebrew name "Zaccai" one of the tribes of Judah. The author of one encyclopedia entry stated of the name the Zaghai or Zaghawa - “ It is very probable that this name is composed of two elements, Zakiya, which is merely a variant of the Zakiya of the Berber genealogists and Ar is second element recurs in the name of the ancient Libyan tribe of Arzugitani (Ar-zug-itani), identical with the Zauekes of Herodotus and the Zawagha of the Arab historians…” Najendra Kr Singh, A. B. K. (2001). Encyclopaedia of the world Muslims: tribes castes and communities Vol. 1, Global Vision Publication House p. 153).
The name may thus have some connection to that of the Zenata Berber ancestor Zakiyya meaning “pure meat”, and thus also the Hebrew name "Zaccai" (one of the children of Judah). The Zaghawa are said to be named after their sheep, The other common endonym or indigenous name for the Zaghawa is "Beria" or “Beriah” or Beribra, which appears to have the same significance as Beria (or Beriah - father of Heber as well a Benjaminite in the Torah). It seems to have some connotation of mouth, spout or fount. From this root also comes the term barbarian, which for Greeks originally referred to people of incomprehensible speech. This is the folk etymology that has been attached to the name "Berbers" just as Babiru or Babel is often said to signify to "babble" due to the allegorical story of the division of tongues in the Hebrew Bible/Torah. In actuality the word babble like Bible and Babil are all originated from the same etymological root.
It was considered that the Zawagha or Azouagha (Zaghai or Zaghawa) people before moving southward into the Sahel and West Africa founded the famous city called Carthage in Tunisia ruled or led by a mythical Queen named “Dido” a Phoenician princess.
Less
than 500 years ago a visitor to Africa from the town of Granada in Spain named
Louis del Marmol Caravajal (1573 AD)
wrote the following –
[i]
Bates, Oric. (1914). The Eastern Libyans, p. 235.
[ii]
Conant, Jonathan. (2012).
Staying Roman: Conquest and Identity in Africa and the
Mediterranean, 439-700, Cambridge
University Press. p. 269.
[iii] Sigman, Marlene C. The
Romans and Inigenous Tribes of Mauretania Tingitana
[iv] p. 172, Leveau, P.
(1973). L'aile II des
Thraces, la tribu des Mazices et les praefecti gentis en Afrique du
Nord. Antiquites Africaines. 1.7. https://www.persee.fr/doc/antaf_0066-4871_1973_num_7_1_1450
[v]
“Bacquates” Desanges, J.
(1991) Baquates », in Gabriel Camps (dir.), 9 | Baal – Ben Yasla,
Aix-en-Provence, Edisud (« Volumes », no 9) [En ligne], mis en ligne le
01 décembre 2012, consulté le 19 avril 2019. URL :
http://journals.openedition.org/encyclopedieberbere/1285; G. Camps, « Bavares », Encyclopédie berbère,
9 | 1991, 1394-1399.
[vi] Marlene C. Sigman. (1977). The Romans and the Indigenous Tribes of
Mauritania Tingitana. Historia: Zeitschrift Für Alte Geschichte, 26(4), 415-439. Retrieved August 24, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4435574
[ix] Geography of
Strabo 17.3. 26 https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/17C*.html
[x]
P. 27 Martine de Marre.
(2002). Dissertation: “The Role and Position of Women in North African
Society.”
[xi] Geography of
Strabo. 1.2 26.
[xii] (“Dyris”)
Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) William
Smith http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0064%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DD%3Aentry+group%3D7%3Aentry%3Ddyris-geo
[xvi] Starks, John H. “Was
Black Beautiful in Vandal Africa”, African Athena: New Agendas. Editors
Daniel Orrells, Gurminder K. Bhambra, Tessa Roynon;
See also Connery, John R.
(1941) Juvenal and the Foreigner , MA Thesis, p. 253. https://ecommons.luc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1111&context=luc_theses
[xviii]
Dalby, Andrew.
(2002). Empire of Pleasures: Luxury and Indulgence in the Roman World.
Routledge. p. 87.
[xix]
P. 113, Platnauer, Maurice. ( 1922 ). Claudian The War Against Gildo by Claudian, Vol. 1, p. 113. http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Claudian/De_Bello_Gildonico*.html
[xx] p. 162, Ware, Catherine. (2012).
Claudian in Roman epic Tradition. Cambridge University Press. p. 162.
[xxi]
De Marre, Martine Agnes. (2002). Dissertation: “The Role and Position
of Women in North African Society.” p. 27, fn. 26.
[xxii]
Conant, Jonathan. (2012).
Staying Roman: Conquest and Identity in Africa and the Mediterranean,
439-700. Cambridge University Press. P. 271
[xxiii] Barney, Stephen.
(2006). The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville. Cambridge
University Press. p.
199.
[xxiv]
Pliny’s Natural History.
8:32
[xxv] Malte-Brun, M. (1834).
A System of Universal Geography, Or a Description of All Parts of the
World. Vol. 2, p. 52.
[xxvi] Starks Jr., John H.
(2011). “Was Black Beautiful in Vandal Africa”, African Athena: New
Agendas.
Daniel Orrells, Gurminder K. Bhambra, Tessa Roynon. p. 256.
[xxvii]
Conant, Jonathan. (2012).
Staying Roman: Conquest and Identity in Africa and the Mediterranean.
439-700, Cambridge University Press, p. 272.
[xxviii] Mattingly, D. J. ( 1983 ). “The Laguatan: A Libyan Tribal Confederation
of the late Roman Empire”,
Libyan Studies 14. p.
100.
[xxix]
Mayerson, P. (1993). A
Confusion of Indias: Asian India and African India in the Byzantine
Sources. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 113(2), 169-174. pp.
172-174.
[xxx]
Adler, Marcus Nathan ( 1907).
The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela: Critical Text, Translation and
Commentary (New York: Phillip Feldheim, Inc.
“ fn. 148. https://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/tudela.html
[xxxi]
Vasunia,
Phiroze. “Ethiopia and India: Fusion and Confusion in British Orientalism”. The
East Africa Review.
https://journals.openedition.org/eastafrica/314
[xxxiii] Josephus Antiquities of
the Jews https://lexundria.com/j_aj/1.134/wst
[xxxviii] Note 62 - Piny the Elder
Natural History http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:abo:phi,0978,001:5:1
[xxxix] p. 192, Ilẹvbare, J. (1974). The Impact of the Carthaginians and the Romans on
the administrative System of the Maghreb. Part I. Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, 7(2), 187-197. Retrieved August 13, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/41857007
[xlvii] P. 67, Bates,, Oric.
(1967). The Eastern
Libyans.
