History of Africa · The History of Africa Podcast

Season 5 Episode 7: The Fezzan After the "Collapse"

·24 min·5 clips

The episode begins by pushing back against the standard claim that the Garamantian civilization simply disappeared at the end of the 5th century AD. It treats that version as too tidy to be believable. The real question, it argues, is what happened in the Fizan after the old system of trans-Saharan trade and slave labor broke down. The answer is not abandonment. Archaeology points instead to continuity, adaptation, and a slower but more interesting kind of change. The loss of the Fulgara irrigation system did not empty the region. There was no mass exodus away from the cities, and a similar urban agrarian way of life continued in the Fizan. The episode then turns to the rise of the Shadduf as a practical technology. That shift begins shortly before the decline of the Fulgara system and raises a classic cause-and-effect problem. Did labor shortages push people toward the Shadduf, or did the Shadduf make the older system less necessary? The episode does not pretend the answer is certain. It settles for the more careful position that the evidence suggests a likely sequence, but not a definitive one. What matters is that the Shadduf allowed sedentary farming in the Sahara to continue. Even centuries later, fossil water was still being harvested that way. Crops that require substantial water, including cotton, melon, and grapes, remained part of the picture. So the old story of collapse gives way to one of adaptation. That does not mean Garama stayed the same. The Arab records after Nafi's invasion make clear that Garama's status as the preeminent city of the Wadi al-Ajal was slipping. By the start of the 8th century, it was beginning to lose its role as the greatest city among equals as a new rising metropolis between the dunes superseded it. The episode closes this movement by following Nafi's campaign to the eastern edge of the valley. There, at the place that later chronicles would call Zuwila, the future center of regional contact appears in miniature. At the time, it was likely little more than a small oasis settlement on the outskirts of the Wadi, with a couple of classical-era Fulgaras nearby. Its position, though, mattered more than its size. It sat at the eastern mouth of the Wadi, where future Arab contact would first enter the region. The episode ends by showing how a place can begin as a minor outpost and still inherit the next chapter of history.

As heard by us

A strong challenge to the neat collapse story, though the later transition feels a bit rushed.

It works best when it resists the tidy collapse story: the Garamantis did not simply vanish, life in the Fizan continued, and farming adapted around the shadduf.

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Why you'd press play

If you want the Fezzan after the collapse, this is where the story gets real.

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