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Thetraditional Berber religion is the sum of ancient and native set of beliefs and deities adhered to by theBerbers. Originally, the Berbers seem to have believed inworship of the sun and moon,animism and in theafterlife, but interactions with the Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans influenced religious practice and merged traditional faiths with new ones.
By the seventh century, apart from someBerber tribes, most ofNorth Africa's population was Christian and after theArab conquest of the Maghreb the traditional Berber religion gradually disappeared. Some of the ancient Berber beliefs still exist today subtly within the Berber popular culture and tradition, such as the idea of holy men (marabouts).[citation needed] Syncretic influences from the traditional Berber religion can also be found in many other faiths around the Mediterranean.
According toHerodotus, all ancient Berbers worshipped themoon andsun (Tafukt inTamazight) and sacrificed solely to them.[a] InBerber, theMoon (Ayyur inTamazight) and the god of the Moon carry the same name in the language.Masinissa, the first king ofNumidia, commonly paid tribute to the god of the sunApollo in 179 B.C to his temple inDelos, the assumed birthplace of Apollo and his twin sister Artemis (the goddess of the moon), for which he received a golden crown from the inhabitants of the Greek islandDelos.[b][2]Tullius Cicero (105–43 BCE) also reported the same cult inOn the Republic (Scipio's Dream):
When I (Scipio) was introduced to him, the old man (Massinissa, king ofMassyle) embraced me, shed tears, and then, looking up to heaven, exclaimed I thank thee, O supreme Sun, and you also, you other celestial beings, that before I departed from this life I behold in my kingdom, and in my palace, Publius Cornelius Scipio.[3]
Further authors such asApuleius orAugustine of Hippo mention that sun worship continued into the first millennium and the seventh century Coptic saintSamuel the Confessor appears to have suffered from the sun-worshiping Berbers who tried unsuccessfully to force him to worship the sun.[citation needed]
There were some Latin inscriptions found in Northwest Africa dedicated to the sun-god. An example is the inscription found inSouk Ahras (the birthplace of Augustine;Thagaste inAlgeria) written "Solo Deo Invicto".[4] The megalithic culture may have been part of acult of the dead or ofstar-worship.
Since antiquity, the ancientLibyans (Berbers inhabiting ancient Libya) worshipped the godAmon,[5] who was also worshipped by theAncient Egyptians. According to Herodotus and Pausanias, the cult had Berber origin and later spread to Egypt and then Greece, probably via the Greek colony ofCyrene.[6][dead link] In theSiwa Oasis, located Western Egypt, there remained a solitaryoracle of Amon near theLibyan Desert.[7]
Amon's wifeAment is also believed to have originated from Libya. She is the Egyptian mythology goddess of the underworld.Amentet (meaning the "Land of the Setting Sun" or "The West") is where the dead wait forRa to arrive.[8]
In Berber beliefs, the sheep was a sacred animal to Amon. In the discussion of Athanase of Alexandria against the Gentiles, it is said that for the Libyan populations (Berbers), the god Amon is often namedAmen and was venerated as a divinity.Iarbas, a mythological king of Numidia who soldDido the land on which she foundedCarthage,[9] was also considered a son of Amon.
Diodorus Siculus mentionsAmmon as the king of Libya who marriedRhea (daughter ofUranus and sister of theTitans). According to him he fell in love with a "maiden of unusual beauty":Amaltheia with whom he fatheredDionysus. According to other stories, Dionysus was the son ofZeus.[10] The Egyptian version of Amun was oftenidentified by the Greeks to be Zeus.
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The ancient cult of Neith (Ha-nit) (or Nit, orTinnit) influenced the ancient Egyptians with their goddessNeith, and the Hellenes with their goddessAthena through the Berber cult of war,[11] and was an imported deity fromLibya who was in wide worship in 600 BC[12] inSais (Archaic name: Ha-Nit) by the Libyan population inhabiting Sais, a temple of Neith was established in this city by the earliest local dynasty. Neith is the direct predecessor toAthena as follows:
Above the Kerameikos [in Athens] and the portico called the King's Portico is a temple of Hephaistos. I was not surprised that by it stands a statue of Athena, because I knew the story about Erikhthonios. But when I saw that the statue of Athena had blue eyes I found out that the legend about them is Libyan. For the Libyans have a saying that the Goddess is the daughter of Poseidon and Lake Tritonis, and for this reason has blue eyes like Poseidon.
The Libyan Amazons are without doubt part of this cult.[citation needed] Athena, imposed theAmazons of Libya in Troy and in Greece, the Libyan Amazons remained in the village of Tenæ at the south of Sfax and Cartenæ (Tenes).[14]
According to mythology, Athena was believed to have been born inLake Tritonis in North Africa (modern-day Algeria and Tunisia), which is why she was given the epithetTritogeneia.[15][16] In one version of the story she is the daughter of Poseidon and Tritonis, a Libyan lakenymph, and as the same source adds, after a disagreement with her father, she gave herself toZeus, who made her his own daughter, which explains why both are considered gods of horses.[14]
In hisdialogueTimaeus, the Greek philosopherPlato hasCritias claim that Neith is the Egyptian name of Athena.[17] Some identified the Punic Tanit as theMiddle Eastern goddesses likeAnat[18] orAstarte but Steve A. Wiggins argued that "local associations should not be considered definitive" and that "we must not assert more than the evidence will allow".[19]
Gurzil, a new god appearing in later texts and worshipped by tribes such as theAustoriani outside the Roman frontiers of Libya, was considered the son of Amun and a cow.[20] He was considered a war god and was taken by the Berbers to their battles against the Byzantines. Corippus mentioned that the chiefs of the Laguata took their godGurzil into battle against theByzantines andArabs. It is very likely that the sanctuary of Gurzil was located inGhirza, in Libya, where remarkable reliefs show a noble Libyan receiving tribute while seated on acurule chair.[21] The temple was in use well into the sixth century.[22] He is presumed to be a god of the sun[23] or a god associated with battles.[24] He is usually identified with bulls.[25]
Atlas is a GreekTitan commonly associated with theAtlas Mountains in North Africa and the borders ofAncient Libya.[c]Nonnus calls inDionysiaca (13.333) both Athena and her matrilineal grandfather Atlas "Libyan".[15]Maximus of Tyre mentions the mountains as a deity of the Libyans.
To the people there [Libyans in the West] the Atlas is a sanctuary and an idol. […] It is at the same time the sanctuary, the god, the bond of oaths and the idol of the Libyans.
In an interpretation of the ancient sources, he is seen as the first king ofMauretania which was popularized byGerardus Mercator who coined the term "atlas" based onAtlas of Mauretania [de;fr].[29]
Herodotus claims thatPoseidon originated from Libya. According to him the Libyans atLake Tritonis also worshipedTriton. Triton might have been a more local deity[30] or may be related to Poseidon.[23] He was also linked to Tritonis, the mother of Athena, as a potential female counterpart.[31]
Corippus mentions Sinifere, who was described as a god of war worshiped by the Eastern Libyans[23] but might have been a "tribal god".[32] Mastiman (or Autiman) was also mentioned by him and was also identified as god of war[23] and was later associated withMercury.[33]
Thetombs of the early people and their ancestors indicate that the Berbers and their ancestors (theCapsians andIbero-Mauresians) believed in anafterlife. The prehistoric people of northwest Africa buried bodies in little holes. When they realized that bodies buried in unsecured holes were dug up by wild animals, they began to bury them in deeper ones. Later, they buried the dead in caves, tumuli, tombs in rocks, mounds, and other types of tombs.[34]
Unlike the majority of mainland Berbers, theGuanche Berbersmummified their dead. Additionally, in 1958 University of Rome Professor Fabrizio Mori (1925–2010) discovered a Libyanmummy inUan Muhuggiag around 5,500 years old—roughly a thousand years older than any known Ancient Egyptian mummy.[35][36]
Archaeological research on prehistoric tombs in the Maghreb shows that the bodies of the dead were painted withochre. While this practice was known to theIberomaurusians, this culture seems to have been primarily aCapsian industry. The dead were also sometimes buried with shells ofostrich eggs,jewelry, andweapons. Bodies were usually buried in afetal position.[34] In North Africa in 13,000 BC lived theIbero-mauresian man, archaeologists have traced their origins to the Caspian culture, a North African civilization that dates back more than 10,000 years.[citation needed]
It is a culture that dominated in North Africa, between 13,000 BC and the foundation of Numidia, several sub-cultures emerged and evolved and all of which were calledMegalithic cultures, the wordMegalithic describes an era where ancient monuments built before the invention of early writing in 3,200 BC.[citation needed] Megalithic Tombs (also calledDolmens), were monuments built as burial sites for ancient Berbers,megaliths are huge tombs underground to bury the dead and they come in several shapes.[citation needed]
There exists more than 32,000 Dolmens acrossAlgeria, including for instance the slopes of Djebel Mazela inBounouara, the site of the necropolis ofSigus (which includes dolmens, menhirs and cromlechs), as well as the important necropolis ofDjelfa. The region with the highest concentration of Dolmens isRoknia where over 3,000 megalithic monuments in the necropolis stretch over several kilometers (in comparison, there are more than 4,000 on the whole ofFrance).[37] They are present in large numbers in easternAlgeria andTunisia and are characterized by their quadrangular plan.
The monument ofMsoura is one of the best-known megalithic monuments in north-west Africa. It is composed of a circle of megaliths surrounding atumulus, the highest of which is over 5 meters (16 ft). According to legend, it is the tomb of the Libyan king Anti (known by the Greeks as the giantAntaeus, an opponent ofHeracles).[38] The tomb was venerated by Berbers who went for pilgrimage to the ancient prehistoric monument.[citation needed]Another megalithic monument was discovered in 1926 to the south ofCasablanca. The monument was engraved with funerary inscriptions in the Berber script known asTifinagh.[39]
After the development of architecture in North Africa in early history improvement from the dolmens began to be heavily considered by ancient Berbers, more regular and improved designs of tombs were invented known as Bazinas. The termbazina comes from theBerber word meaningmound.[40] The bazinas are built of dry stone. Their upper part is often domed or a truncated cone.
Access to the burial chamber is invisible. The deceased is buried on the ground and covered by a projecting funerary structure.[41] Bazinas are found in the vicinity ofChellala and Tamda, inAlgeria and in the north-west ofTunisia, for example inBalta Bou Aouène, nearBou Salem, as well as in theMeknes region ofMorocco with the Gour bazina.[42]
These tombs evolved from primitive structures to much more elaborate ones, such as thepyramidal tombs spread throughout Northern Africa. The honor of being buried in such a tomb appears to have been reserved for those who were most important to their communities.
These pyramid tombs have attracted the attention of some scholars, such asMohamed Chafik who wrote a book discussing the history of several of the tombs that have survived into modern times. He tried to relate the pyramidal Berber tombs with the greatEgyptian pyramids on the basis of the etymological and historical data.[43] The best known Berber pyramids are the 19-meter (62 ft) pre-Roman Numidian pyramid of the Medracen and the 30-meter (98 ft)ancient Mauretanian pyramid.[43] The Mauretanian in Tipaza is also known asKbour-er-Roumia orTomb of Juba and Sypax, mistranslated by the French colonists asTomb of the Christian Woman.[43] The Tomb holds the graves of KingJuba II and QueenCleopatra Selene II, the rulers of Mauretania.
One of the distinguishing characteristics of the Berber religion in antiquity was the veneration of the dead, who seem to have been believed to exercise control over soil fertility and possibly over the future.[44]Pomponius Mela also reported that the Augilae (ModernAwjila inLibya) considered the spirits of their ancestors to be deities. They swore by them and consulted them. After making requests, they slept in their tombs to await responses in dreams.[44]
Herodotus (484 BCE–425 BCE) noted the same practice among theNasamones, who inhabited the deserts aroundSiwa and Augila. He wrote:
"They swear by the people among themselves who are reported to have been the most lawful and brave, by these, I say, laying hands upon their tombs; and they divine by visiting the sepulchral mounds of their ancestors and lying down to sleep upon them after having prayed; and whatsoever thing the person sees in their dream, this they accept."[45]
The Berbers worshiped their rulers, too.[46] The tombs of the Numidian rulers are among the most notable monuments left by the Classical Berbers. But Gabriel Camps debates whether this is done for worship or for mere love and appreciation of the contributions of the rulers.[47]
The veneration (not worship) ofsaints which exists among the modern Berbers in the form ofMaraboutism—which is widespread in northwest Africa—may or may not contain traces of prior beliefs or customs concerning the dead.[citation needed]
TheAncient Egyptians were the neighbors of the Berbers, as such traces of the worship ofancient Egyptian deities by the Berbers was found, and it has been theorized that both cultures shared at least some of these gods:
The cultIsis andSet by the Berbers was reported by Herodotus when saying:
Thus from Egypt to the Tritonian lake, the Libyans are nomads that eat meat and drink milk; for the same reason as the Egyptians too profess,f they will not touch the flesh of cows; and they rear no swine. The women of Cyrene too deem it wrong to eat cows' flesh, because of the Isis of Egypt; nay, they even honour her with fasts and p391 festivals; and the Barcaean women refuse to eat swine too as well as cows.
— Herodotus, The Histories[48]
ThoseLibu did not eat the flesh of swine, because it was associated with Set, while they did not eat the cattle's flesh, because it was associated with Isis.[49]
The most remarkable common god of the Berbers and the Egyptians wasAmun andAmunet.[50] These deities are hard to attribute to only onepantheon, they were two of the greatest ancient Berber deities.[51] They were honored by the Ancient Greeks in Cyrenaica, and was united with the Phoenician godBaal and goddessAnat due to Libyan influence.[43] Early depictions oframs andewes (related possibly to an early form of the cult of these deities) across North Africa have been dated to between9600 BCE and 7500 BCE.
The most famous temple of Amun and Amunet in Ancient Libya was the augural temple atSiwa Oasis in Egypt, an oasis still inhabited by Berbers.
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The Egyptians considered some Egyptian deities to have had aLibyan origin, such asNeith who has been considered by Egyptians to have emigrated from Libya to establish her temple atSais in the Nile Delta.Some people[who?] also believe links between the way Egyptians depicted certain deities and the way they depicted Libyan people exist, such is the case forAment.[citation needed]
Osiris was also among the Egyptian deities who were venerated in Libya and Dr.E. A. Wallis Budge believed that Osiris was originally a Libyan god, saying of him that "Everything which the texts of all periods recorded concerning him goes to show that he was an indigenous god of Northern Africa (modern day Libya), and that his home and origin were possibly Libyan."[52]
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ThePhoenicians were originally aSemitic people who inhabited the coast of modernLebanon, and later came as refugees toTunisia. The Phoenicians of Lebanon wereseafarers and they foundedCarthage in 814 BCE. They later gave birth to the so-calledPunic culture, which had its roots in the Berber and Phoenician cultures. Some[who?] scholars distinguish the relationships between the Phoenicians and the Berbers in two phases:
When Phoenicians settled in Northwest Africa, they stayed in the coastal regions to avoid wars with the Berbers. They maintained their deities which they brought from their homeland. Therefore, early Carthaginians had two important Phoenician deities,Baal andAnat.
Carthage began to ally with the Berber tribes after theBattle of Himera (480 BCE), in which the Carthaginians were defeated by the Greeks. In addition to political changes, the Carthaginians imported some of the Berber deities.
Baal and Anat were the primary deities worshipped in Carthage. Depictions of these deities are found in several sites across Northern Africa. Also, the goddessTanit and godBaal Hammon were worshipped, as Ammon was a local Berber deity,[53] so is Tannit, she represented thematriarchal aspect ofNumidian society,[54] whom the Egyptians identify asNeith and theGreeks identify asAthena.[53] The names themselves, Baal Hammon and Tanit, have Berber linguistic structure. Some scholars[who?] believe that the Egyptian goddessNeith and Egyptian godKhnum were similar to the Libyan goddess Tanit and the Libyan god Baal Hammon. It was proposed that the Punic godBaal Hammon is asyncretic association with Amon the god ofancient Libya[55] and the Phoenician deityBaal.
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The ancient Greeks established colonies inCyrenaica. The Greeks influenced the eastern Libyan pantheon, but they were also influenced by Libyan culture and beliefs. Generally, theLibyan-Greek relationships can be divided into two different periods. In the first period, the Greeks had peaceful relationships with the Libyans. Later, there were wars between them. These social relationships were mirrored in their beliefs.
The first notable appearance of Libyan influence on the Cyrenaican-Greek beliefs is the name Cyrenaica itself. This name was originally the name of a legendary Thessalian warrior and queen who was known asCyrene, ruled Thessaly in Greece and later Cyrene in Libya. Cyrene was, according to the legend, a courageous huntress and queen who hunted and ate lions and all other animals. She gave her name to the cityCyrene in Libya. The emigrating Greeks made her their protector besides their Greek godApollo.[56]
The Greeks of Cyrenaica also adopted some Berber customs. Herodotus (Book IV 120) reported that theLibyans taught the Greeks how to yoke four horses to a chariot (the Romans used these Libyan chariots later, after they were taught to do so by the Greeks). The Cyrenaican Greeks built temples for the Libyan deitiesAmun andAmunet who theyidentified withZeus andHera[failed verification], respectively.[57] Some of them continued worshipping Amun and Amunet themselves. Amun and Amunet's cult was so widespread among the Greeks that evenAlexander III of Macedonia decided to be declared as the son of Amun and Amunet in theSiwan temple of Amun and Amunet by its Libyan priests.[43]
Some ancient Greek historians such as Herodotus mentioned that some Greek deities were ofLibyan origin. As such,Athena was supposed to have been born inLake Tritonis where she was originally honored by the Libyans. Herodotus wrote that theAegis and the clothes of Athena were typical for Libyan women.
Herodotus also stated thatPoseidon (an important Greekwater god) was adopted from the Libyans by the Greeks. He emphasized that no other people worshipped Poseidon from early times apart from the Libyans who spread his cult:
about this god the Hellenes learnt from the Libyans, for no people except the Libyans have had the name of Poseidon from the first and have paid honour to this god always.
— Herodotus[58]
Some other Greek deities were related to Libya. The goddessLamia was believed to have originated in Libya, likeMedusa and theGorgons. The Greeks seem also to have met the godTriton in Libya. The modern day Berbers may have believed that theHesperides were situated in modern Morocco.[citation needed] The Hesperides were believed to be the daughters ofAtlas, a god who is associated with theAtlas Mountains by Herodotus. The Atlas Mountains were worshipped by the Berbers and the Canary Islands represented the daughters of Atlas.
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The Greeks and the Libyans began to break their harmony in the period ofBattus II of Cyrene (583-560 BC). Battus II began secretly to invite other Greek groups to Libya, Tunisia and East Algeria. The Libyans and Massyle considered that as a danger that had to be stopped. The Berbers began to fight against the Greeks, sometimes in alliance with the Egyptians and other times with the Carthaginians. Nevertheless, the Greeks were the victors. Some historians[which?] believe that the myth ofAntaeus andHeracles was a reflection of those wars between the Libyans and Greeks.
The Romans allied firstly with theMassyli against Carthage during theSecond Punic War. The campaigns of their kingMasinissa against Carthage led to the eventualdestruction Carthage in 146 BCE and the annexation of the remaining Punic realm as theProvince of Africa by the Romans. But later, they also annexedNumidia to theRoman Empire in 25 BC and the neighboring kingdom ofMauretania in 44 AD.
The Berber pantheon also contained multiple deities, known by the Romans as theDii Mauri (lit. the Moorish gods), represented on reliefs and also the subject of dedications.[59] During the Roman period,Saturn andOps were the focus of an important cult, subsuming that ofBaal Hammon andTanit, two deities of Punic origin.[citation needed]
According toPliny the Elder,[full citation needed] the Libyans honored the war goddess Ifri, who was considered to be the protector of her worshipers (and seemed to have been an influential goddess in North Africa) and depicted her on the Berber coins. This goddess was represented in diverse ways on Numidian coins from the first century BCE. When the Romans conquered Northern Africa, she appeared in sculpture and on thecoins of the Roman states in North Africa.
The Roman pantheon seems to have been adopted generally, although the cult of Saturn and Ops, as mentioned above, was perhaps the most important.
The Romans displayed great tolerance to the Berber religious cults, which explains the Berber's receptiveness of the Roman civilisation. As such, after Christianity had become the official religion of the Roman Empire, North Africa was one of the most heavily Christianised areas.[60] By the seventh century, most of North Africa's population in the urban centres and coastal plains had beenChristian for a long time and paganism had vanished from prominence, except among the Berber tribes.[61]
They celebrate a yearly festival of Athena, where their maidens are separated into two bands and fight each other with stones and sticks, thus (they say) honoring in the way of their ancestors that native goddess whom we call Athena","As for Athena, they say that she was daughter of Poseidon and the Tritonian lake!
Den Menschen dort [Libyer im Westen] ist der Atlas Heiligtum und Götterbild.
C'est à la fois le sanctuaire, le dieu, le lien des serments et l'idole des Libyens
