David Mattingly
speaker
188 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jun 2026
last heard 11 Jun
David Mattingly’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
of the Garamantian heartlands.
In other words, the Garamantis preferentially consume those Mediterranean goods in their own society.
And, you know, we can estimate there were hundreds of thousands of amphorae and hundreds of thousands of tableware vessels imported into the Garamantian lands.
So this isn't small-scale trade, this is large-scale trade.
But the Garamantis are also manufacturing.
They build up capacity for metalwork, producing little metal barringots, which are perfect for carrying on Saharan trade caravans.
We know there are expert textile producers and garment producers, and cotton is a very new crop in the Sahara, in the Mediterranean world at this time.
That
has to have a high value in trade.
They're producing masses of beads in glass, in semi-precious stones, in ostrich eggshell.
And again, beads historically have been currency in Saharan trade.
Well, I think it's no surprise that a long-established kingdom will eventually start to run out of steam.
So perhaps, you know, almost the more important question is, how is it they endure so long?
And I think, you know, the key to that is that they are clearly early adopters of oasis agriculture.
They are early adopters of the horse, which is a transformative technology in the Sahara in the first millennium BCE.
and through those two things they build a powerful society, and then through that they establish control over far-flung regions and a monopoly position in this Saharan trade.
That's a very powerful position, but of course it's not going to go unchallenged.
Firstly, you might think about challenges from inside Garamantean society.
So is that kingly power always unchallenged by other groups?
The rise in defensive architecture at Garamantean settlements in the late times, that might suggest that actually that competition within Garamantean society is growing.
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