History of the Sahara / Histoire du Sahara Volumes I and II.

Proposal submitted to Oxford University Press

Short Presentation of the Project: Aims, Coordinators, Connection between the Two
Colloquia and the Volumes
Commissioned by Oxford University Press, the two-volume Oxford History of the Sahara aims
to provide a general synthesis of the history of the Sahara from prehistory to the present.
Designed to be the definitive reference work for decades to come, the Oxford History of the
Sahara will appeal not only to specialists in the prehistory and history of the Sahara in all
relevant fields, but also to researchers in those same fields who specialize in regions other than
the Sahara as well as non-specialists looking for an up-to-date synthesis.
Volume 1 (History of the Sahara to 650 CE) is coordinated by François-Xavier Fauvelle
(Collège de France, Paris, France) and Jean-Loïc Le Quellec (Directeur de recherche honoraire,
CNRS, France); Volume 2 (History of the Sahara from 650 CE to the present) is coordinated
by François-Xavier Fauvelle and Ghislaine Lydon (UCLA, Los Angeles, USA).
François-Xavier Fauvelle is a Professor at the Collège de France, where he holds the chair in
“History and Archaeology of African Civilizations.” A historian specializing in ancient Africa,
he has published or co-published numerous books, including The Golden Rhinoceros: Histories
of the African Middle Ages (Princeton University Press, 2018 [Le Rhinocéros d’or: Histoire du
Moyen Âge africain, 2013]) and L’Afrique ancienne: de l’Acacus au Zimbabwe (Paris, 2018).
Jean-Loïc Le Quellec is Honorary Director of Research at the IMAf (Institut des Mondes
africains, CNRS, Paris, France) and President of AARS (Association des Amis de l’Art
Rupestre Saharien). Prehistorian and mythologist, he is the author of Art rupestre and
préhistoire du Sahara: le Messak (Paris, 1998), Rock Art in Africa: Mythology and Legend
(New York, 2004), Du Sahara au Nil. Peintures and gravures d’avant les pharaons (Paris,
2013), and The White Lady and Atlantis: Ophir and Great Zimbabwe. Investigation of an
Archaeological Myth (Oxford, 2016).
Ghislaine Lydon is a historian of West, Saharan and North Africa. She specializes in precolonial
economies and Muslim peoples in particular. She is the author of On Trans-Saharan Trails:
Islamic Law, Trade Networks, and Cross-Cultural Exchange in Nineteenth-Century Western
Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2009), and has edited a book on written cultures in Muslim
Africa focusing on the manuscript and paper trade and the rise of desert libraries. She is the
author of numerous articles on Sahelian and Saharan history.
In order to share their expertise in different disciplines and geographical areas, contributors to
this project will attend two preparatory colloquia/webinars (not broadcasted) to be held at the
Collège de France in Paris in May 2022 and May 2023. Preliminary versions of the chapter
contributions will be precirculated one month before the respective colloquia. The authors will
formally present their drafts, and each presentation will be followed by collegial discussions
with the following aims: to share knowledge; to highlight points of discussion and research
trends; to fill in lacuna; to avoid redundancies among the chapters; and to harmonize data
presentation and editorial standards. Authors will revise their chapters accordingly and then
submit final versions no more than three months after each colloquium. If necessary, one or
more additional chapters will be solicited.

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Calendar
April 30, 2022: Circulation of preliminary versions for the colloquium History of the Sahara to
650 CE
16-21 May 2022: Colloquium (History of the Sahara to 650 CE), Paris, Collège de France.
August 31, 2022: Submission of final versions for History of the Sahara to 650 CE coordinated
by François-Xavier Fauvelle and Jean-Loïc Le Quellec.
2023: Publication of Volume 1: History of the Sahara to 650 CE.
April 30, 2023: Circulation of preliminary versions for the colloquium History of the Sahara
from 650 CE to the present
Late May 2023: Colloquium History of the Sahara from 650 CE to the present, Paris, Collège
de France.
August 31, 2023: Submission of final versions for History of the Sahara from from 650 CE to
the Present coordinated by François-Xavier Fauvelle and Ghislaine Lydon.
2024: Publication of Volume 2: History of the Sahara from from 650 CE to the Present (with
same preface as Volume 1) and publication as a two-volume set.

Why a History of the Sahara?

The notion of the Sahara as a “barrier” between two Africas – a “white” North Africa and a
“black” sub-Saharan Africa – is the result of a long history in which both natural processes,
namely the desertification of the Sahara, and social and ideological processes, such as the
mental constructs about “race” and geographical space, have played a role. This notion is part
of a “historiographical landscape” (Lydon 2015) that imposes its constraints on contemporary
perceptions of the history of these regions. However, it remains dependent on a geographical
model that conceives of the Sahara as a dividing line between two Africas.
Since Antiquity, writers, starting with Herodotus, have described the Great Desert as a
demarcating “ridge of sand.” Later, medieval Muslim geographers coined the expression bilād
al-sūdān or “land of the blacks” to designate regions below the Sahara. Twentieth-century
North Africanists scholars produced early reflections about the Sahara operating as a bridge
and not a barrier (ex. William Zartman 1963; Jean-Claude Vatin 1984). Growing awareness of
this historiographical heritage has highlighted its serious flaws, in particular the fact that the
use of current racial, ethnic and linguistic categories mask the fluid social realities of past
centuries and hinder our understanding of the formation of these concepts throughout history.
This critical consideration has led to attempts at trans-regional approaches to the Sahara,
emphasizing, as in Trans-Saharan Africa (Austen 2010), interconnections between societies on
different shores of the Sahara. All the more so as the rather fixed idea of a Sahara composed of
two shores is now overtaken by studies that showcase the multitude of Saharan shores and the
multidirectional movement traversing them. Indeed, some authors have rightly pointed out that
the adjective “trans-Saharan” has had the unfortunate consequence of promoting a false notion
of the Sahara as a transit zone, and not as an enormous living space, which was, for those who
have made it their home over the centuries, their preferred habitat (McDougall 2005). Ghislaine
Lydon (2015) has suggested we go even further by proposing that the Saharan and peri-Saharan
regions (which account for more than a third of the African continent’s surface area) be
considered a historical setting in its own right, on par with southern Africa, West Africa, East

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Africa and North Africa.
The development of Saharan studies is a relatively new field. In the past decade or so,
Africanists, many with training in Arabic and much less frequently in Amazigh languages
(primarily Tamasheq and Kabyle), have turned their attention to the study of Saharan societies.
Still, the scholarship by historians and archaeologists is relatively limited, with scholarly
expertise focused on only a few Saharan regions (Western Saharan region, including Mauritania
and northern Mali, and the Fezzan region of southern Libya). Few scholars engage in trans-
Saharan research proper, following in the footsteps of nomadic, scholarly, caravanning, migrant
and enslaved communities in northern, western and central Africa.
Historical approaches are rare within the abundant editorial production devoted to what has
sometimes been called the Saharan “hemicontinent.” Those that exist are for the most part very
incomplete or privilege a limited area or theme. Thus, it is easy to find excellent work on
Saharan botany (Ozenda 2004); the colonial period (Brower 2011); or various human
groupings, especially the Tuareg (Nikolaisen & Nikolaisen 1997, Biagetti 2014) and the Tubu
(Chapelle 1982, Baroin 2003). Similarly, there are excellent syntheses of the Sahara as a space
of intellectual exchange and commercial circuits starting from the Middle Ages (Lydon 2009,
Austen 2010, Krätli & Lydon 2011), but few works treat the Sahara in its entirety, and over the
longue durée. Pierre Rognon’s Biographie d’un désert focuses on the earliest periods, the
geological past, paleohydrology and climatic variations (Rognon 1994). In German, the
magnificent catalogue of the exhibition Sahara, 10.000 Jahre zwischen Weide und Wüste
assembles contributions of unequal quality without providing a real synthesis (Kuper 1978) and
Wüste, the more recent collective work directed by Ulrich Joger and Uwe Moldrzyk (2002),
focuses mainly on the archaeology of the central massifs and the Libyan desert, before
discussing current nomads, particularly in present-day Sudan, and the caravan trade in salt. In
English, the recent collective work Caravans of Gold (Berzok 2019), also an exhibition
catalogue, brings together disparate contributions that reflect the varying states of current
research depending on the subjects and regions covered. Other general reference works are
more compilations (Nantet 2008, Pierre 2014) or collections of heterogenous articles (Keenan
2013) than comprehensive overviews. Moreover, the Sahara has continued to appeal to Western
journalists and travelers who contribute to the propagation of errors, prejudices and myths (e.g.
Benanav 2006). Worse still, some books, although published by academic presses, continue to
disseminate outdated chronologies, as well as theories that contribute to popular western
legends (e.g. Gearon 2011). As for Heinrich Schiffers’s veritable encyclopedia of the Sahara,
published in three large volumes in Munich from 1971 to 1973 with contributions from the
era’s leading specialists, it is now outdated and no longer serves as a reference work (Schiffers
1973). In addition, Ghislaine Lydon is currently writing a book on the history of the Sahara that
aims to serve as a general introduction and teaching tool.
Thus, no publication currently addresses the need for a history of the Sahara stripped of the
dregs of a colonial narrative always repeating the same stories rooted in a largely shared
imaginary (Roux 1996, Lydon 2003). It is no longer possible, for example, to continue to speak
of the supposed conquests of “Mediterranean Leucoderms” who dominated the indigenous
black peoples they encountered along imaginary “chariot routes,” or to use categories such as
“Whites/Blacks” or “Arabs / Berbers” without taking into account the fact that these are

3
complex constructs that do not cover simple chromatic or ethnic oppositions (Hall 2005).
The proliferation of archaeological data over the last twenty years that have forced us to revise
what once seemed securely established evidence, together with the emergence of a generation
of scholars with different visions and methods than their predecessors, lead us to offer a new
history of the Sahara. By attempting to avoid the determinisms of mental categories and racial
vocabulary, and by highlighting new historical perspectives, this heuristic method enables us
to refocus our narratives on the Sahara itself. This is the challenge this project sets for itself.
Geographical Scope
This history seeks to covers the entire Sahara. It does so at different scales, giving due attention
to several types of dynamic relationships:
- On the grandest scale, between the “mass” of the Sahara and its peripheries: the Maghrib
(to the north), the Sahel (to the south), the Nile Valley (to the east), as well as the
Atlantic and Red Sea coasts. Throughout prehistory and history, the relationship
between the Sahara and its peripheries has fluctuated with climatic oscillations and
economic innovations (e.g. pastoral lifestyles, enslaved labor, long-distance trade),
offering varying opportunities or constraints. Thus, the settlement of Pharaonic Egypt
can no longer be understood independently of a knowledge of the rock art of the Libyan
desert (Le Quellec and al. 2005); similarly, the rise and success of the Almoravid
movement in North Africa and Spain in the 11th and 12th centuries can only be grasped
in relation to the Amazigh, Saharan and Sahelian origins of the movement.
- On a medium scale, between the central Saharan massifs (Mesāk and Akukas in Libya,
Tassili-n-Ajjer and Ahaggar in Algeria, Aïr in Niger, Ennedi and Tibesti in Chad) –
which are the oldest areas of permanent settlements – and the arid zones surrounding
them. Over the millennia, the connections between the massifs and the arid zones largely
determined the relationships between the sedentary and nomadic groups inhabiting
them, as well as the geography of the routes traversing them, whether they were used to
spread cultural (pottery, domestic animals and plants, metallurgy) or commercial
innovations.
- At the local level, the project aims at providing detailed case studies of the best-known,
most recent and most pertinent documentary contexts. These may include
archaeological sites or vestiges, sites or panels of rock art, written documents and library
collections, modern social facts (languages, oral traditions…) that enable us to
reconstruct expired social states, etc. The authors are aware, however, of the lure of
generalizing from better documented contexts; they will therefore be deeply committed
to assessing the significance of each documentary context at the local and regional
levels.

Examining Saharan scholarship as a whole, there are far more works on prehistory and early
history, than on the two millennia covered in the second proposed volume. Works on Algeria
and Mauritania outnumber those for other Saharan or partially Saharan countries. In the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Algerian Sahara was the subject of a voluminous
literature produced by French colonial ethnographers, travelers and scholars, who also
developed so-called Berber studies, with an initial interest in North Africa’s Kabylia. In the
current state of research, the two most popular subjects, primarily undertaken by

4
anthropologists and political scientists, are the Polisario’s Western Sahara and the trans-
Saharan – trans-Mediterranean migrations. Moreover, the various branches of the Tuareg
confederation, especially those of Mali and Algeria, have attracted considerable scholarly
interest (Norris 1975, Bida 2012, Boilley 2012, Lecocq 2010, Hureiki 2003).
There are too many neglected areas, and we can only mention a few glaring thematic gaps:
cultural history (e.g. art history, oral literature, musical traditions and material cultures);
environmental history (e.g. climate change, sedentism, domestic and wild animal stocks),
economic history (e.g. market economies, resource exploitation (from salt and dates to petrol
and uranium); labor markets; transportation systems). There also is unevenness in terms of
temporal coverage, with the periods from the eleventh to the sixteenth century, and from the
nineteenth century onward, being those best documented. Regrettably, there are no
contemporary scholars of the caliber of H. T. Norris, whose writings on the Tuareg, Saharan
legends and Arabic scholarship, and much more, remain seminal.
On the other hand, we cannot minimize the fact that the academic literature is uneven in its
treatment of all regions of the Sahara and its margins at all periods of the past. For instance, if
the relationships between the desert (Libyan and Eastern) and the Nile River during the
Prehistory up to the formative period of the Egyptian civilization have prompted a number of
studies, researchers of the historical period tend to focus more on the central and westerly
regions of the Sahara (Moreno Garcia, 2013, 2014). In these volumes we try to account for this
unevenness in two ways: by exploring the histopriographic reasons behind it, and by
counterbalancing with the best available data. In many case, we can only point to areas that are
in need of further research.

Thematic Scope
By Sahara we do not mean a space defined negatively as either a vacant world, no-man’s-land
or geographic obstacle surrounded by areas inhabited by societies throughout history. Rather,
we mean a space itself subject to continual historical change over the long durée (geological,
climatic) that structures the human and physical geography of the northern third of Africa, and
that conditions the social organization, ways of life, economic cultures and interactions between
the desert and its margins. At the same time, however, this project eschews an environmental
determinism focusing solely on the supposed unidirectional impact of the Sahara’s arid
environment on societies that would have had no choice but to “adapt” to them or migrate to its
margins. Instead, it emphasizes the diversity of Saharan peoples and environments and their
evolution over time, the ways societies faced the constraints of the desert or desertification, the
forms of anthropization and the “domestication” of the Sahara, as well as the multiple indicators
of cultural innovation, technical circulation and long-distance trade this space reveals. In this
regard, we will focus on several aspects:
- The diversity of Saharan peoples and environments in time and space. The designation
“Saharan” encompasses different groups at different times, groups distinguished by their
languages (primarily Afrasian and Nilo-Saharan), their cultural and economic traditions, their
beliefs, their knowledge and their institutions (McDougall 2012). At the same time, however,
groups did not live in isolation and there was always a certain amount of population intermixing
due to voluntary or involuntary (i.e. the slave trade) migratory movements. Far from being a

5
homogenous, mineral “emptiness,” the Sahara is a space made up of multiple environments
(arid, steppe, lacustrine, mountain) with very different landscapes presenting different
constraints to human occupation or exploitation. This environmental diversity is also subject to
long, millennia-old fluctuations, which have imposed themselves at different rhythms in
different environments, creating a physical and human geography that fluctuates over time.
- The variety of land use in the Sahara and the interactions between societies and the
environment. Confronted with the physical conditions of the Sahara, societies along its edges
(themselves shifting over time) and inhabiting its interior employed multiple strategies to adapt
to them: they transformed their way of life and their economies to match the change in, and
accessibility of, resources (oases, pastures, game, mines, wells); revaluated their land use
(sedentism, regional transhumance, pastoral nomadism); introduced technical advances
(irrigation), domestication (palms, camels) and enslaved labor dependencies in order to manage
the environmental constraints; and witnessed waves of in and out migration. These strategies
varied over time and place, yet they all contributed to the emergence of the Sahara as a shifting
patchwork of landscapes and societies.
Saharan societies have always maintained a strong dialectical relationship with their
environment. Consequently, the Sahara was as much a zone of circulation and exchange as it
was a living space. While the big question of “trans-Saharan trade” (its chronology, its actors,
how it functioned) – documented from at least the beginning of the first millennium of our era
– comes to mind, the question of circulation and exchange within and across the Sahara should
not be reduced to this commercial system alone. Doing so would have the effect of playing
down the importance of regional circulation as well as the historicity of the feasibility of
nomadism and pastoralism in Saharan environments and the agency of societies. Attention,
therefore, will be paid as much to areal landmarks and patterns that have shaped Sahara
landscapes during prehistory (industrial, artisanal, monumental) and regional interactions
between the Sahara and its peripheries (the Maghrib, the Sahel, Libya, Egypt and Nilotic
Sudan). Similarly, we will critically assess received ideas in the literature regarding supposed
routes such as the “chariot routes” of Protohistory (Lhote 1963); evoke the routes brought to
light by recent research such as the Abu Ballas trail of the Libyan desert (Förster 2007, Riemer
2007-b, Schneider 2010, Riemer & Förster 2013); and will reexamine the material and
ideological conditions of the trans-Saharan commerce in light of recent archaeological
discoveries (Nixon 2017).
- Early-modern and modern social dynamics in Saharan societies. The societies of the Sahara
and its peripheries continued to interact with one another into the early-modern period and beyond.
Saharan societies in multiple oases and nomadic settings prevailed in the face of the waves of
foreign incursions, from the Ottomans in central and eastern Sahara, the Moroccans in Touat and
Gourara-as a prelude to the conquest of the Niger River Bend in the 16th century, through the
European colonial period and wars of independence, and into the current al-Qaʿida-affiliated
Islamist movements.

Chronological Scope
The different data and applied methods covered in the project require different chronological
frameworks. However, except for the paleoenvironmental data discussed in Chapter I-1, the

6
project’s chronology begins in earnest with the final episode of the macro-Sahara around 18,000
BP. This episode and the subsequent humid period (Holocene), which saw the resettlement of
the Sahara and its edges, provides the chronological horizon to which it is possible “to go back”
with the help of archaeological, artistic, linguistic, and other data.
The chronological cutoff between the two volumes is a question rendered more complex,
because, on the one hand, the multidisciplinary data taken into consideration fall within
different chronologies; and, on the other hand, the different Saharan and peri-Saharan regions
did not all experience the same breaks. Furthermore, we do not want to divide up the two
volumes according to the “prehistoric” and “historical” periods, as it seems to us that this
division has little epistemological relevance or applicability to the history of the Sahara in
general, especially if we take the appearance of writing in Egypt by 3200 BCE to be history’s
starting point for the entire region. Moreover, the intermingling of disciplinary approaches we
favor prohibits dividing the volumes between a “prehistory” that would be the exclusive domain
of archaeology and a “history” that would be exclusively documented by written and oral
sources.
We have therefore opted for a cut-off date of around 650 CE, allowing for a reasonable overlap
between the two volumes. This choice enables us to place the appearance of the “the oasis
complex,” as well as of writing systems and written sources, which found their full development
during later periods, in the first volume. It also enables us to start the second volume
approximately when Islam becomes a factor in North African history, with far-reaching
implications in subsequent centuries in terms of trade and religious expansion across the Sahara.
The chronology of this project extends to the present. This derives from two necessities. The
first necessity is that many of the approaches followed therein are based on current cultural
data, for example, languages spoken today, and allow for the reconstruction of the past
according to a “genealogical” or “reconstructive” method, such as comparative linguistics,
population genetics and the genetics of animal and plant species. The second necessity is to
provide readers with historically nuanced insights into current phenomena affecting the Sahara
and peri-Saharan regions, such as migration, the spread of Islamist networks, warfare or
smuggling.
Challenges of this Project: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach
Such a project is necessarily multidisciplinary. It aims to bring together and put in dialogue
specialists in a wide range of disciplines in order to arrive collectively at a state of knowledge
greater than what could be achieved by any one scholar, indeed, any one discipline. There is a
pressing need for such a dialogue because of 1) the lack of a satisfactory and up-to-date
synthesis on the history of the Sahara; 2) the enormous amount of literature and data in each
field or on each region; 3) the highly technical nature of many of the disciplines concerned.
Thus, in order to write a history of all Tuareg populations – which is still lacking – one would
first need to engage the extensive ethnographic literature devoted to them since Henri Duveyrier
(1964) and Maurice Benhazéra (1908), while also synthesizing and archaeological (Maître
1976, Bernus 1996, Muzzolini 1995: 202-205), ethno-archaeological (Trost 1986, Biagetti
2014), linguistic (Brugnatelli 1995, Springer Bunk and al. 2007, Casajus 2015), genetic (Flatz
et al. 1986, Coudray et al. 2009, Pereira et al., 2010), sociological (Keenan 2003, Badi 2008,
Kohl 2010, Gardelle 2010, Claudot-Hawad 2018, Chatelard 2018, Randall & Giuffrida 2018),

7
socio-linguistic (Bourgeot 1972) and mythological (Badi 1994, 2001-2003, 2010) approaches,
as well as historical studies of distinct Tuareg groups (e.g. Badi 2010, 2012; Boilley 2012).
Such a history should also reflect upon the origin, validity, meaning and use of “Tuareg”
ethnicity; on the place of Targui dialects in the Amazigh language family and the differentiation
of the latter; on the origin of writing in the Tifinagh script and hypotheses that trace its origins
to rock art; on the introduction of camels and caprines in the central Sahara and in Africa more
broadly; on the origin and evolution of the Garamantes; on the differentiated distribution of
funerary monuments throughout the Sahara, and so forth. The same, of course, would be true
for a history of other groups or particular Saharan provinces, and it quickly becomes clear that
an overall history of the Sahara must crisscross the boundaries of documentation highly
compartmentalized by sites, periods, human groups, disciplines and sources.

The Project’s Guiding Philosophy and Recommendations to the Authors

This project is designed to be the definitive reference work on the history of the Sahara for
decades to come. The editors are aware of the effort this objective requires and will work closely
with the contributors. It is particularly important that the chapters exhibit a similar organization
and narration, and that equal space is devoted to local data and broader generalization. Specific
attention will be given to the interplay between the various contributions in order to avoid
redundancies among chapters and to deliver honest, balanced appraisals of debates – indeed,
disagreements – among specialists. The colloquia at the Collège de France will be used for this
purpose.
In addition to the chapter contents summarized below, the submissions must meet the following
specifications:
- Be of interest to non-specialists without sacrificing disciplinary rigor.
- Establish an honest record of research by highlighting theoretical and methodological
tipping points, research advances, essential authors and literature, including corpuses.
- Situate the author’s positions within a historical, critical approach.
- Present the current state of knowledge in an organized manner, without neglecting gaps
in research and the reasons for these gaps (e.g. geopolitics).
- Mention current research trends as well as new research directions and methodological
or technical innovations that will enable advances in knowledge.
- Adopt an approach that takes into consideration the relations between the Sahara and
the regions along its edges, while focusing on the comparative historical study of these
various regions.
- Give an account, when data allows, of gender relations.

Editorial Standards
All texts will be delivered in English. The scientific editors can provide a limited amount of
money for translation. All texts will be edited by a native English-speaker.
For ethnonyms we will follow Anglophone conventions, i.e. making names and adjectives
invariable (Fulani, Tubu, Tuareg culture), and capitalizing the first letter (the cultural practices
of the Tuareg).
For toponyms, we will opt for the transcriptions that best match local naming practices:

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Ahaggar, Tassili-n-Ajjer, Mesāk …
For common and proper Arabic and Amazigh names, a single policy will be even more vital as
transcriptions differ according to the systems adopted by the various countries of the region. A
compromise will be sought among the contributors so as to achieve the greatest possible
coherence. For Arabic, the system of transcription will either be that of the Encyclopedia of
Islam or the International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. As far as African common, proper
and geographical names are concerned, a joint system will be discussed with the authors. The
volumes will also contain a glossary and an index allowing for possible cross-referencing of
competing transcriptions.
Dates: Radiocarbon dates are calibrated. Calendar dates will be given as “BP” (Before Present),
“BCE” (Before Common Era) or “CE” (Common Era). For the second volume, the hijrī dates
(Islamic calendar) will also be given in certain articles.
Maps: Each author will provide their own maps for the preliminary versions to be circulated
before the colloquium. The maps for the published version will be redrawn from templates
provided by the editor (to be discussed with the editor).
Illustrations: Authors are invited to provide illustrations from private sources and the public
domain, or for which they accept to release the rights. The publisher needs World English rights
for print, e-book, and electronic formats for all copyrighted content. The press will provide
permissions and guidelines for images and text. The final list of illustrations will be drawn up in
consultation with the authors and the editor. Authors will need to reprocess photographs in black
and white in order to be printed in grayscale (halftones). In some cases (rock paintings), color
will be accepted. The authors will provide a list of the illustration credits to accompany their final
chapters.

The word limit for each chapter including number of endnotes (to be determined in consultation
with the editor).

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 Volume 1
History of the Sahara to 650 CE
François-Xavier Fauvelle and Jean-Loïc Le Quellec (eds.)
244,000 words and 125 illustrations (maps, line drawings, halftones)
Authors’ names that are underlined are those who were contacted and gave their verbal
acceptance

Preface to the Two Volumes (François-Xavier Fauvelle, Jean-Loïc Le Quellec, Ghislaine

Lydon)
4000 words
Points to address:
Historiography of historical research on the Sahara: The Sahara as non-object and object.
The Sahara as camera obscura, a site of ideological investment misconstruing archaeological
data (cradle of the Fula, prehistoric pan-Amazigh world, “chariot routes”, invasions of
Mediterranean pioneers, even extraterrestrials, Atlantis). Site of ahistorical projection (“the
Sahara has always been there”), eternal “barrier” and “contact zone” between blacks and whites.
Aim of this book: historicizing the Sahara and presenting the state of field.
Construction of the five large areas: West, Center, Tubu-speaking area, Libyan Desert and
Egypt/Nubia: natural habitats or historiographical constructs?
Research conditions in the Sahara: from colonization to contemporary geopolitics.
Justification of the chronological break between volumes 1 and 2.
Presentation of the two volumes.

Introduction to Volume 1 (François-Xavier Fauvelle, Jean-Loïc Le Quellec)

8000 words
Points to address:
Brief description of research on the prehistory of the Sahara: colonial officers and amateurs,
implications for current research.
Current research trends: the contribution of the natural and material sciences.
Several documentary registers come with a specialized historiography which makes synthesis,
whether regional, chronological or cultural, increasingly difficult.
Inventories and corpora.
Justification of the chronological starting point for volume 1. Explain both parts, and insist on
the originality of chrono-cultural syntheses.
Presentation of volume 1.

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 Part One: Documentary and Disciplinary Registers

1 – Paleo-Environmental Framework (Aziz Ballouche)

16000 words
Points to address:

(A): The Sahara on a macro-geographical scale; its African and macro-chronological

environment from 300,000 BCE to 12,000 BCE.
Environmental fluctuations of wet and dry epochs, expansion and contraction of the Sahara.
Presentation of the spaces and massifs, lakes (Mega-Chad).
Geoarcheological data associated with environmental changes.
End with the return of the rains.
Provide comparative maps.

(B): From 12.000 BCE to the arid present

For this period, the chronological resolution of the data is more accurate (but insufficient
samples).
A focus on the Libyan desert, the Tibesti and the eastern Sahara. Lakes and ancient river beds
(Wâdi Hawar, Lakes of Ounianga). Natural conservatories or “Refuge areas”.
A focus on the northern and southern margins of the Sahara: their role in the development of
an early agriculture and pottery-making.

2 – Rock Art: State of the Documentation (Frédérique Duquesnoy)

16000 words
Points to address:
Historiography of the discipline from its beginnings to the present day: principal authors,
chronological milestones, major historiographical discoveries and debates; methods, schools,
and surveying techniques.
The question of genres (engravings versus paintings): is this a relevant dichotomy? Engraver-
hunters and pastoral-painters?
The question of the styles of rock art for the main authors in this field (comparative tables of
the various chronologies). Definition and criticism of styles, possible confusion between the
fauna and bestiary. Styles: the current state of research.
The problem of chronological attribution. Where things stand regarding direct and indirect
dating of images? (superimpositions, radiocarbon dates)
What are the state, locations and accessibility of the documentation,

11
Current methods in Saharan conditions: why is mapmaking particularly relevant as a heuristic
tool in relation to chronological correlations? The interest of new digital surveying techniques
and image processing.
Prospects: what should we start or start again?
This chapter does NOT deal with the relationships between rock art and other data (see chapter
4 for the areological approach)
This chapter will NOT deal with the interpretation of the images (see Chapter 10, 11).

3 – Physical Anthropology: A Critical Assessment (Scott MacEachern)

16000 words
Points to address:
Despite its potentially alarming topic (physical anthropology) and because of the weight of
colonial science in the academic as well as popular literature, this chapter is a necessary one. It
aims at providing a critical examination of all biological data regarding human societies in the
Sahara.
Historiography of physical anthropological research in the Sahara: from raciology to current
paleogenetic research.
Dismise of problematic concepts such as “Pouloid,” “Leucoderm,” “Mediterranean,”
“Melanoderm” and “Caucasoid” populations…
Art, skeletons and “races”: an obsolete anthropology.
The debates around the skin colour of the ancient Egyptians (Eurocentrism, Afrocentrism,
Black Athena, etc): A mirror of the complex relationships of phenotype, race, perception, and
prejudice.
Is a reformulation of physical anthropology possible? Contributions and limitations of
phylogenetics, proteomics, ZooMS (ZooArchaeology by Mass Spectrometry, Collagen peptide
mass fingerprinting).

4 – Stone monuments and monumental structures (Yves Gauthier & Hamady Bocoum)
Points to address:
Thousands of stone structures in the Sahara and its Sahelian peripheries: a corpus of
monumental archive in their own right.
Sub-sections of this chapter are based on typo-chronology: A): Stone monuments of the Sahara
and the Sahel (4th-1rst millennium BCE); B): Protohistoric and medieval tumuli and megaliths
of the Sahel region.

(A): Stone monuments of the Sahara and the Sahel (Yves Gauthier) 8.000 words.
Historiography of knowledge about the stone monuments of the Sahara: missions, archives and

12
inventories, authors, publications, and methodological biases.
Typologies (monoliths, circles, « pyramids » of the Garamantian Fezzan, « stone villages » of
the Akreijit style, kraals, etc.).
Significant sites and regional variants (Nabta Playa, Germa and the Central Sahara, Western
Sahara, Meroe, Sahelian fringes…).
What were the functions of these monuments? Mortuary archaeology, knowledge and beliefs
(astronomy…).
The so-called tomb of Queen Ti-n-Hinan: myth and archaeological site.
Is it possible to attribute these monuments to populations or social groups? What information
can be drawn from other archaeological data (including rock art)? What we can learn from an
areological approach (spatial analysis) of the distribution of monuments, archaeological sites,
and art.
Biases of current research: the small number of excavations and their irrelevance.

(B): Megaliths and Tumuli of the Sahel region (Hamady Bocoum) 8.000 words
From Senegambia to Mali, Niger and Tchad: an overview of stones monuments and
monumental structures.
History of research, majors missions and publications, main sites.
Typology: tumuli (from the Senegal valley to the Mema region), megaliths (in Senegambia).
Functions of these monuments and structures. Excavations and chronological data.
Again, is it possible to attribute these monuments to populations or social groups?
Limitations and biases of the interpretation.

5 – Archaeology of Material Cultures (Latifa Sari & Friederike Jesse).

16.000 words
Points to address:
Historiography: history of main existing collections, illicit trafficking and the Western cult of
the beautiful object.
The biases and insufficiencies of collections given the history of how they were assembled.

(A): Stone artefacts (Latifa Sari) 8.000 words

Figurines, wheels, hammers, axes, arrowheads.
Geoarcheology, important archaeological sites.
Typologies, spatial distributions and chronology,
Geographical distribution and chronological attributions.

13
(B): Ceramics (Friederike Jesse) 8.000 words
Distribution and circulation across the Sahara and its peripheries, based on technological data
and the study of decoration.
Geoarcheology, important archaeological sites.
Independent invention or diffusion?
Wavy line ceramics and the “aqualithic” hypothesis: state of the question.
Analysis of residues and functions (milk pots).

6 – Zoological History of the Sahara (Joséphine Lesur)

16000 words
Points to address:
From wild animals to domestic animals: paleo-environmental and archaeological data, at the
scale of the Sahara and its southern and northern peripheries.
What is the relationship between contemporaneous wildlife (based on paleoenvironmental and
archaeological data) and the rock images?
Disappearance and continuity of species, relict species, conservation zones.
Zootechnics (deformed horns, rituals, etc.)
Migrations and domestications (donkeys, camels, oxen/cattle): a synthesis (maps and/or tables
phased by species).

7 – Floral History of the Sahara (Anne-Marie Lézine)

16000 words
Points to address:
Data: Palynology, anthracology, residues…
Floral conservatories.
Wild grasses and vestiges of exploitation (millstones…)
Introduced species
Wild species selected.
Inventories, maps, phasing.
From wild flora to domestic species. The question of the palm tree cultivation and oasis
agriculture.
Representations of flora in rock art.

14
8 – Linguistic History of the Sahara (Lameen Souag)
16000 words
Points to address:
Historiography of the linguistic study of the Sahara: main authors, advances and biases.
Methodology of comparative linguistics; how to go back in time from the present? The limits
of linguistic reconstructions.
Introduction to the language families (Afrasian, Nilo-Saharian…) and main languages spoken
in the Sahara, their spatial distributions (in relation with languages spoken around the Sahara).
What can we say about phasing and chronology of language diversification and peopling?
Utility of cultural vocabulary for the chronology of economic innovations.
The question of Berber (and Libyco-Berber?): a recent or ancient appearance? (Historiography,
competing arguments, state of the question).

Part Two: Cultural histories

9 – Resettlement at the Beginning of the Holocene, 12000-5000 BCE (Barbara Barich)

16000 words
Points to address:
Based on data from various documentary registers (lithic and ceramic, geoarchaeology), what
sort of history can be recounted: problems and uncertainties.
Differential phasing of resettlement according to geographical areas and massifs.
Summary of diffusionist hypotheses.
Is a social and cultural approach possible? Ethnographic comparisons and their risks.
A Saharan space or several? What about categories such as the “Aqualithic” and the “Saharo-
Sudanese Neolithic”? Are there pan-Saharan continuums (in techniques, ways of life…)? Or,
on the contrary, do we see particularisms beginning to appear?
(“Aqualithic” may also be defined in Chapter 5B)

10 – The Sahara as a pastoral and agrarian space (from 5000 BCE to 1500 BCE) (Jean-
Loïc Le Quellec)
16000 words
Points to address:
How the appearance of a new documentary register/monumental archive (i.e. rock art) changes

15
our understanding of the Sahara by opening up an anthropological approach.
Historiography of the interpretation of images (Hampaté Bâ, Dieterlen, scene of Lootori, etc.).
Possibilities and limitations of a social-anthropological reading of the images beyond the literal
reading.
The question of the relationship between the Nile and the Sahara: Historiography and what is
at stake in the debate. Economic innovations, relations between groups. Coexistence of
populations (Tassili-n-Ajjer / Mesāk), exchanges… What about Eastern and Western Sahara?
Possibility of an archaeology of features not classically accessible: archaeology of gestures,
mythology, technology (the question of the composite bows, the “Guinean socketing”, the
“beer drinkers”).
Linking archaeological and environmental data.
Agrarian cultures in the Sahara (Tichitt, etc).
How to think of Saharan mobilities, social interrelationships and innovative exchanges across
the Sahara?

11 – The Protohistory of the Sahara: Chariots and Metal (Yves Gauthier)

16000 words
Points to address:
Historiography: the “chariot route”, with a pro-phase, an anti-phase. What is the reality behind
the rock chariots: were they present in the Sahara or not? Where are their vestiges?
The appearance of chariots in art seems to imply profound changes and technological
innovations: metalworking, wheel, horse, harness and bits.
Other applications of metallurgy: weaponry (sword, dagger, spearheads, etc), farming
impliments.
Do these changes illustrate a change in population, new social interactions?
New approaches: cartography, typology and technology of rock chariots.
Economy and culture of chariot societies. How to characterize the societies that depicted the
chariots: warriors? What was their social status? What does horse-breeding in the Sahara at the
time imply?
The question of ancient trails in the Sahara (Egyptian examples attested).
Appearance of horses and camels in the art, as well as inscriptions in Tifinagh script (only
briefly mentioned in this chapter): what chronology? What relationship with the chariots?
What was the relationship between the society that depicted the chariots in the Sahara and
Copper and Bronze Age societies in Mauritania, Niger, Egypt? What was their relationship with
the Mediterranean, the Garamantes and the Greek then Roman colonies?

12 - The Sahara: An Inscribed Landscape (Dominique Casajus)

16
16000 words
Points to address:
Written witnesses incised on stone in and on the margins of the Sahara (Egyptian, Phoenician,
Libyco-Berber and Tifinagh) make the Sahara an inscribed landscape, that raises questions
about the cultural reasons behind these inscriptions, their social uses, and the development of
writing systems.
Egyptian inscriptions in the Sahara: characteristics, chronology, and content.
Phoenician, Libyco-Berber, and Tifinagh incriptions: geographical distribution by types of
inscriptions.
History of research. Authors, principal works.
State of the corpus, and accessibility of the documentation (publications, internet…).
Hypotheses concerning the Phoenician / Libyco-Berber and Tifinagh filiations... How to
position ourselves between hyper-prudence and hyper-boldness…?
Scripts and languages; alphabetic variants.
Instrumentalization and political use of interpretations, from the start of research to neo-
Tifinagh.
The functions of the written word: funerary epigraphy; poetry, etc.
Can we make comparisons with other written expressions (e.g. marks of private property,
branding)?

13 – Oasis Systems, Mobility and Trade within and across the Sahara (800 BCE-650 CE)
(David Mattingly)
16000 words
Points to address:
The oasis: a natural or anthropogenic environment?
History of the word “oasis” and its Egyptian origin.
Beginning with Egyptian oases, tracing the history of the establishment of the “oasis system,”
through a combination of donkeys and camels, the palm and irrigation. Other technical
innovations: qanat and foggara. Description, operation, social uses.
The oasis system in an arid landscape. How does it diffuse across the Sahara: archaeology,
dating, circulation. Comparative data from the Maghrib to the Fazzan (Sijilmasa, Ghadamis,
Zuwila…).
The Garamantian state and society: history of research and archaeological state of the art:
geography, cultural characteritiscs, chronology.
Jarma as a Saharan crossroads?
An ancient (up to 650 CE) trans-Saharan trade? History of the question and recent new
archaeological evidence (findings in the Sahel region, provenance analysis). When, how, and

17
which commodities?

14 – The Sahara in the Ancient Written Sources (until 650 CE) (Pierre Tallet, Mohamed
Tahar & Thouraya Belkahia-Karoui)
24000 words
Points to address:
What written testimonies from Antiquity about the Sahara reveal about Egyptian, Phoenician,
Greek, Roman and Byzantian activities in, and perception of, the Sahara.

(A): Egyptian texts and depictions (Pierre Tallet) 8000 words

Egyptian written mentions and depictions of peoples from the desert: Libyan Desert (Lebū /
Libyans) and Eastern Desert (Blemmyes)…
What is known of these social/ethnic groups?
What do these texts say about the relationships between the Egyptian society and the peoples
of the desert, the Egyptianization of the western oases, and the role of nomadism and trade?

(B): Phoenician and Greek period (Mohamed Tahar) 8000 words

Phoenician, Persian, and Egyptian tales of circumnavigation: the Sahara as limit of the
perception?
Phoenician settlements along the Moroccan coast: what experience of the Sahara? Written
sources and archaeology.
Herodotus (5th century BCE) and other Greek and Latin sources about the desert, routes, and
peoples.

(C): Roman and Byzantian period (Thouraya Belkahia-Karoui) 8000 words

Greek and Latin sources regarding the Sahara from 2nd c. BCE to around 650.
The Roman limes (border) and beyond the limes: trade and nomads.
The Alexandrian Geographic school: Ptolemy and the question of the ancient cartography of
the Sahara.

Volume 2
History of the Sahara from 650 CE to the present
François-Xavier Fauvelle and Ghislaine Lydon (eds.)

18
 252,000 words and 125 illustrations (maps, line drawings, halftones)
Authors’ names that are underlined are those who were contacted and gave their verbal
acceptance

Preface to the Two Volumes (François-Xavier Fauvelle, Jean-Loïc Le Quellec, Ghislaine

Lydon)
4000 words

Introduction to Volume 2 (François-Xavier Fauvelle and Ghislaine Lydon)

8000 words
Points to address:
The “Invention” of the Sahara: at the intersection of Arabic, early modern European, and
colonial historiographies.
Overview of the Saharan studies literature
Scholarly debates and unresolved questions.
Future research prospects.

1 – Religions, Polities and Economies 7th-15th c. (Ann McDougall)

16000 words
Points to address:
Waves of migration and displacement of Saharan populations (ex. Bafurs…).
Conquerors, clerics and traders: moving frontiers in the Sahara.
Main Arabic sources and archival repositories for the period.
Role of the Ibāḍīs in the Western and Central Sahara. Their articulation with Jewish
communities.
Early trade routes and the adoption of Islam across the Sahara: a geographical and chronological
overview.
The Almoravids: the first Saharan jihad and the dissemination of Mālikī tradition.
Saharan oases as portal city-states; the emirate system of the Western Sahara and few Saharan
sultanates (Ouargla…).
The Sahara as a diplomatic space: Saharan-Sahelian diplomacy between the kingdoms of Gao,
Ghana, Kanem-Bornu, Mali, and North African and Mamluk rulers.
Saharan Jews: Debates and state of research. Pogroms and trans-Saharan anti-Jewish
movements (al-Maghili…).

19
Saʿadian occupation of oases of Touat and Gourara, and Teghazza: prelude to the conquest of
Songhai and Ottoman incursions (from Ouargla to the Fezzan).
(Elements to coordinate with Chapters 2, 4, 7 and 8)

2 – Markets and Materials in the Saharan Middle Ages, 7th-15th c.: An Archaeological
Perspective (Kevin McDonald)
16000 words
Points to address:
Literary sources, numismatic and archaeological data: sources and methodological questions.
Trade and traders: routes, organization, changing patterns. Spread of Islam and role of Muslim
merchants and Islamic institutions: law, gold weights and measures (mithqāl)…).
Commodities: an overview.
Gold. Note on the gold trade in pre-Islamic times to Byzantium’s Carthage (to coordinate with
Chapter 13 in vol. 1). Shifts in gold mining regions of Africa (from Buré to Nubia). New
evidence on gold coinage (Essouk-Tadmekka). The golden trade of the Almoravids: the
numismatic evidence.
Salt (Teghaza, Taoudeni, Idjil, Bilma/Kawar).
African states and kingdoms and salt/gold trade revenue.
Case studies of some places: Koumbi Saleh, Awdaghost, Tadmekka, Gao, Djenné-Jeno, Dia…
Starting point of this chapter in the 7th (or 6th or 5th) to be articulated with Vol. 1 chap. 13.

3 – Nubia and other crossroads in the Eastern Sahara, 7th-16th c. (Claude Rilly)
16000 words
Points to address:
Longue durée perspective since Antiquity
The Middle Nile Valley: a Saharan corridor.
The question of the eastern Sahel (from Lake Chad to Darfur)
Literary sources and archaeological data.
The role of peripheries in the rise and demise of Christian Nubia, and the advent of Islam.
Links to Aksum and Ethiopian Highlands.
The nomadic factor: Nuba, Beja, Zaghawa…

4 - Comparative History of Saharan Oases from the Medieval Period (Ahmed Maouloud
Eida El-Hilal)
16000 words

20
Points to address:
Nomads and cities, the tent and the oasis: theoretical considerations (Ibn Khaldūn…).
Crossroads, forts and oases: evolution of Saharan urbanisms (from Siwa, Ghadamis, Ghat,
Zawila and Murzuk (Libya), Touat, Tidikelt and Gourara oases and Ghardaïa (Algeria), to
Wadan, Shingiti, Tishit and Walata (Mauritania).
Comparative architectural traditions and archaeology of Islam (from Libya to Mali).
Palm tree cultivation; water management technologies (presence and absence of foggaras), and
evolving reliance on slave labor.
Shifting pilgrimage relay stations.
Oasis cosmopolitanisms.

5 –Trans-Regional Trade to the 1800s (Ghislaine Lydon)

16000 words
Points to address:
Historical shifts in the camel caravans of salt from the Idjīl (Mauritania) to the Danakil
Depression (Ethiopia).
Early Saharan crossroad markets (Siwa; Awjila, Germa, Zawila…), versus later medieval
markets across the Sahara (Tahert, Sijilmasa, Ouargla, Tadmekka-Essouk, Gao, versus
Ghardaïa, Guelmim, Ghadames, Ghat, Murzuk, Agadez).
Evolving global demand after the fifteenth century.
Sixteenth-century Ottoman Africa and Moroccan conquest of Songhai Empire, which causes
shifts in traffic eastern (Tripoli-Kanem-Bornu and Ghat/Khufra-Awjila-Siwa-Cairo).
Ottoman rule and caravan traffic in central and eastern Sahara (Libya, Wadai, Sudan, Darfur..)
Atlantic and Mediterranean developments in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
(Coordination needed with Chapters 2 and 3).

6 – The Tuareg Then and Now (Baz Lecocq and Dida Badi)
16000 words
Points to address:
Origin myths and legends of the Tuareg.
Migrations over the longue durée and shifting lifestyles.
Philosophies, musical and artistic expressions (and change over time).
Relations with other social groups (ex. Songhai; Sanhājas).
Political structures; the debates around the social strata and tribal structures.

21
Pastoralism proper, sedentarisation and longue durée forms of sedentary existence (oasis, cities)
and their interactions.
Colonial conquests and experiences, Tuareg resistance versus collaboration, Postcolonial
developments, and the politicization of the Azawad, will be mentioned only cursively as they
will be fully developed in Chapters 12 and 13.

7 – Nomads and Semi-Nomadic Societies in the Western Sahara, 17th-20th c. (Abdel

Wedoud Ould Cheikh)
16000 words
Points to address:
Theoretical considerations about nomadic groups.
Arab/Amazigh terms, origins and shifting identities
Tribal/clan structures (ʿasabiya; Shifts in matrilineal and patrilineal descent patterns).
Lineage groups (warriors versus clerics…).
Political institutions (polities, emirates).
Islamic conversions and genealogical reconfigurations.
Western Saharan saints and sites of worship.
Sanhājas and the Almoravid factor.
Jihads and nomads in later periods (up to Shaykh Ma’ al-ʿAynayn).
Nomadic societies during French and Spanish colonial rules.
Desertification and “de-nomadisation.”
(Elements to coordinate with chapter 3).

8–Manuscript Cultures and Library Collections of the Sahara, 15th century to the
Present (Bruce Hall)
16000 words
Points to address:
Evidence of Arabic (and ʿAjami) scriptural traditions in Saharan regions: a historical overview.
Development of centers of scholarly production from the early medieval period.
Intellectual exchanges across the desert: circulations of clerics, books and texts.
Centers of Islamic learning, scholarly production and library formation (Timbuktu, Wadan,
Chinguetti (Shinqit), Walata, Touat, Ghardaïa, Ghadamis…
Saharan chronicle genres (Ghadamis, Timbuktu, Walata, Tichit, Agadez…) and Islamic
theological scholarship.
Chronicles of Timbuktu: historiography and state of the art.

22
Saharan Libraries, manuscript preservation and heritage questions.
(Elements to coordinate with chapter 10)

9– Saharan Jurists, Islamic Legal Corpus and Scholarly Debates, 15th to 19th century
(Ismael Warscheid)
16000 words
Points to address:
The evolution of Saharan legal spaces and traditions (Shīʿī, Ibāḍīs, Sunnī Mālikīs) from the
early medieval period.
Sufi Orders and Islamic legal currents.
Main centers and key figures of Saharan legal jurisprudence.
Saharan legal curriculum and major legal reference manuals.
Legal debates and scholarly exchanges from 1000s-1800s.
Saharan legal texts (Ghunya, Kitāb al-Bādiya, the nawāzil genre), discourse and debates among
Saharan scholars.

10 – Saharan Travels Across the Ages (Hadrien Collet et Mohamedou Ould Meyine)
16000 words
Points to address:

(A): Before the 19th c (Hadrien Collet) 8000 words

Medieval and Modern Rihlas.
Pilgrimages of West Africans across the Sahara.
To be coordinated with Chapter 2

(B): 19th-20th c. travelogues as a literary genre (Mohamedou Ould Meyine)

Nineteenth-century travelogues and writings of European “explorers” (Barth, Caillié…), but
also tales of shipwrecked Europeans and Americans taken captive in the Sahara (Brisson; Riley;
Douls…).
The nineteenth-century trans-Saharan travelogues by Maghribi merchants, such as the Jew Rabbi
Mordechai Aby Serour, or the Muslim Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar al-Tūnsī, or the Saharan Muslim
ʿAbd al-Qādir ibn Abū Bakr al-Tuwātī).
Twentieth century experiences (colonial literature, including the trans-Saharan railway project
from Algiers to Timbuktu; Odette du Puigaudeau, Isabelle Eberhardt…).

23
11 - Saharan Slavery and the Slave Trades to the 20th century (Paul E. Lovejoy)
16000 words
Points to address:
Debate about slave trades in Antiquity (e.g. Troglodytes and the Garamantes): brief overview.
Debate about the comparative size of trans-Saharan versus trans-Atlantic, Mediterranean, Red
Sea and Indian Ocean trades. Historiography, census, databases etc.
Debate about gender distribution of Saharan (oasis and itinerant slave labor) and trans-Saharan
demand.
Saharan literature and legal debates on slavery (Ahmad Baba’s Miʿrāj al-Ṣuʿūd and other
documents)
Saharan (oases agriculture, pastoral labor, building and well digging, domestic labor and
concubinage) and versus North African and Middle Eastern demand.
End of the trans-Saharan slave trades.
African Diasporas in and out of Africa.

12 – Conquests and Colonial Rules, 19th-20th century (Camille Lefebvre)

16000 words
Points to address:
Colonial historiographies and narratives.
The late Ottoman colonial period and Saharan polities in Libya.
European exploration and Algerian precedent.
The Scramble for the Sahara: France, Spain, Italy & Britain.
The question of the trans-Saharan and other slave trades.
Resource management and caravan economies under colonial rule.
Colonial Saharan projects and experiments (Saint-Simoniens and the trans-Saharan railway
project; the Saharan Route in WW2; nuclear testing…).
Saharan theaters of world wars (1910s; 1940s): US involvement and the Casablanca-Dakar air
surveillance (e.g. Antoine de St. Exupéry); European battlegrounds (El Alamain in Qattara
Depression; Battle of Gazala in Libya). France’s Organisation commune des régions
sahariennes (1957-63) and how they relate to the later territorial concept of the Azawad.
(Elements to coordinate with Chapter 14)

13 - Sufi Networks, Wars of Independence and Postcolonial Times (Rahal Boubrik &
Zekeria Ould Ahmed Salem)
16000 words

24
Points to address:
Brief history of Sufi networks in 20th century Sahara.
Saharan Sufis and anti-colonial wars (from the Fadhiliyya in Mauritania, Sanussiya in Libya,
Mahdiyya in the Sudan).
Legacy of the wars of independence (Morocco’s Jaysh al-Taḥrīr; Algeria’s FLN…).
Shifts in nomadic lifestyles, massive sedentism and new cities.
Nomadic contests and struggles (e.g. Kel Adagh) and anti-colonial jihads (e.g. Ma’ Al-ʿAynayn
in Western Sahara; ʿUmar al-Mukhtar in Libya; Mahdiyya in the Sudan).
Post-colonial wars and the fight over resources (Libyan-Chad war…Darfur (Sudan-South
Sudan)).
Sahraouis and the continued quest for independence.
Rise of the Wahabiyya and international organizing.
AQMI in Algeria, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Libya and beyond.
Saharan frontiers, “Islamisms” and national politics.
The Tuareg and the question of Azawad in northern Mali
Musical and rhetorical traditions, including protest songs.
Saharans and the Arab Spring.

14 – Economic Landscapes of the Sahara: Resources, Migrations, and Contraband in the

Era of the Truck, 1970s-2020s (Judith Scheele and Julien Brachet)
16000 words
Points to address:
The end of the great trans-Saharan camel caravan: twentieth-century developments.
Saharan urbanization and new oases and transit nodes (Al-Khalīl).
The camel meat trade to northern markets (e.g. Libya).
Peripheral oil economies.
Smugglers, clandestines and economies of violence. Weapons and drugs.
Transnational transfers and trans-Saharan migrations.
Remote communities and Saharan geopolitics.

15 - Saharan Warming: An Environmental History 1900s-2020s (Aude Nuscia Taïbi)

16000 words
Points to address:
Process of desertification, soil erosion and the impact of the global warming in and around the

25
Sahara: pluviometry, droughts since the 1970s and their social consequences.
Impact on the access to resources (pastures, etc.) and food security.
Shifting livestock and human mobilities.
National and international policies, NGOs: infrastructures, environmental disaster-relief.
Environmental struggles, Land-use conflicts and identity politics among Saharan-Sahelian
pastoralists and farmers (ex. 1989 Senegal-Mauritania border conflict).

Select Bibliography in Western Languages

Agut-Labordère Damien 2018. “L’introduction du dromadaire dans le désert occidental

égyptien au Ier millénaire av. J.-C.” In: Gaëlle Tallet, & Thierry Sauzeau, Mer and désert de
l’Antiquité à nos jours Approches croisées, Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, p. 175-
195.
Austen Ralph A. 2010. Trans-Saharan Africa in World History. Oxford: Oxford University
Press (The new Oxford world history), xii-157 p.
Badi Dida 1994. “Ta-n-Ihinan/Tin-Hinan: Un modèle structural de la société touarègue.”
Études and Documents Berbères 12: 199-205.
Badi Dida 2001. “Le mythe de fondation des Touareg Ifoughas.” Awal. Cahiers d’études
berbères 24: 43-59.
Badi Dida 2002. “L’archéologie du peuplement de Tadamaket au travers les traditions orales
des Kel Essuk de l’Adagh des Ifughas.” In: Jean-Loïc Le Quellec, Ithyphalliques, Traditions
orales, Monuments Lithiques and Art rupestre au Sahara. En hommage à Henri Lhote (Cahiers
de l’AARS n°7), Paris: AARS, p. 53-64.
Badi Dida 2003. “Les mythes de fondations chez les Touaregs: les Ifughas de l’Adagh.” In:
Abderrahmane Bouzida, L’Algérien and son mythe (Travaux du centre national des recherches
préhistoriques anthropologiques and historiques. Nouvelle série, N°1), Alger: CNRPAH, p.
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 Contributors of the two volumes (alphabetical order)

Dida Badi
Centre National De Recherches Préhistoriques, Anthropologiques et Historiques, Algeria
[email protected]

Aziz Ballouche
Université d’Angers, France
[email protected]

Barbara Barich
La Sapienza (Roma) Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Antichità, Italy
[email protected]

Thouraya Belkahia-Karoui
Université de Tunis, Tunisia
[email protected]

Hamady Bocoum
Director, Musée des civilisations noires, Dakar, Senegal
[email protected]

Rahal Boubrik
Centre d’Etudes Sahariennes, Mohammed V University, Rabat, Morocco
[email protected]

Julien Brachet
Institut de recherche pour le développement, Paris
[email protected]

Dominique Casajus
CNRS (IMAf), Paris, France
[email protected]

Hadrien Collet
Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, Caire, Egypte.
[email protected]

Frédérique Duquesnoy
Laboratoire Méditerranéen de Préhistoire Europe Afrique (LAMPEA), Aix-en Provence, France
[email protected]

Ahmed Maouloud Eida El-Hilal

Director of the Centre Universitaire des Etudes Sahariennes, University of Nouakchott, Mauritania
[email protected]

33
François-Xavier Fauvelle
Professor, Collège de France, Paris, France
[email protected]

Yves Gauthier
AARS, France
[email protected]

Bruce Hall
Professor, Berkeley University, USA
[email protected]

Friederike Jesse
University of Cologne, Germany
[email protected]

Baz Lecocq
Humboldt University, Berlin
[email protected]

Jean-Loïc Le Quellec
Emeritus Research Director, CNRS, France
[email protected]

Camille Lefebvre
CNRS – Institut des Mondes Africains France, Paris, France
[email protected]

Joséphine Lesur
Museum national d’histoire naturelle, Paris, France
[email protected]

Anne-Marie Lézine
CNRS (director of Laboratoire d’Océanographie and du Climat - LOCEAN), Paris, France
[email protected]

Paul Lovejoy
York University, Canada
[email protected]

Ghislaine Lydon
Associate Professor, University of California Los Angeles, USA
[email protected]

Kevin MacDonald
University College London, Great Britain
[email protected]

34
Scott MacEachern
Duke Kunshan University, Kunshan, China
[email protected]

David Mattingly
Professor of Roman Archaeology, Univ. of Leicester, Great Britain
[email protected]

Ann McDougall
University of Alberta, Canada
[email protected]

Zekeria Ould Ahmed Salem

Northwestern University, Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa, USA
[email protected]

Abdel Wedoud Ould Cheikh

Emeritus Professor, Université de Lorraine, France
[email protected]

Mohamedou Ould Meyine

University of Nouakchott, Mauritania
[email protected]

Claude Rilly
Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris, France
[email protected]

Latifa Sari
Centre National de Recherches Préhistoriques, Anthropologiques and Historiques d'Alger, Algiers,
Algeria
[email protected]

Judith Scheele
EHESS, Paris, France
[email protected]

Lameen Souag
CNRS, Paris, France
[email protected]

Mohamed Tahar
Université de Tunis, Tunisia
[email protected]

Aude Nuscia Taïbi,

35
Université d’Angers
[email protected]

Pierre Tallet
Université Paris-Sorbonne, France
[email protected]

Ismael Warscheid
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Paris, France
[email protected]

36