Journal of Egyptian History 11 (2018) 147–184 brill.com/jeh Elusive “Libyans”: Identities, Lifestyles and Mobile Populations in NE Africa (late 4th–early 2nd millennium BCE) Juan Carlos Moreno García CNRS—France [email protected] Abstract The term “Libyan” encompasses, in fact, a variety of peoples and lifestyles living not only in the regions west of the Nile Valley, but also inside Egypt itself, particularly in Middle Egypt and the Western Delta. This situation is reminiscent of the use of other “ethnic” labels, such as “Nubian,” heavily connoted with notions such as ethnic homogeneity, separation of populations across borders, and opposed lifestyles. In fact, economic complementarity and collaboration explain why Nubians and Libyans crossed the borders of Egypt and settled in the land of the pharaohs, to the point that their presence was especially relevant in some periods and regions during the late 3rd and early 2nd millennium BCE. Pastoralism was just but one of their economic pil- lars, as trading activities, gathering, supply of desert goods (including resins, minerals, and vegetal oils) and hunting also played an important role, at least for some groups or specialized segments of a particular social group. While Egyptian sources empha- size conflict and marked identities, particularly when considering “rights of use” over a given area, collaboration was also crucial and beneficial for both parts. Finally, the increasing evidence about trade routes used by Libyans points to alternative networks of circulation of goods that help explain episodes of warfare between Egypt and Libyan populations for their control. Keywords border – interaction – Libyans – Nubians – oases – pastoralism – trade – Western Desert © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/18741665-12340046Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 02:46:23PM via free access 148 Moreno García 1 Pots, Resins, Minerals and Cattle: “Libyans” and Desert Lifestyles The study of Libyan populations has known a relative but unbalanced renewal since the late 20th century. The seminal studies led by O’Connor and other scholars have contributed to a better comprehension of Libyan populations from diverse perspectives: a critical reassessment of the very concept of “Libyan”; a reconsideration of borders more as modern constructs and ancient political and ideological divisions than practical, real, socio-economic ones; a study of Libyans not as mere pastoralists and marauders, eager to infiltrate Egypt at the slightest occasion according to pharaonic stereotypes, but as eco- nomic and political actors with their own interests and aims (from specific forms of occupation and use of space to the development of socio-economic activities not necessarily depending solely on herding); and, finally, an empha- sis on collaboration and on the complementarity of their activities with those carried out mainly by Egyptian sedentary populations, such as the supply of livestock and desert goods to communities settled in the Nile Valley.1 However, the reconstruction of Libyan society, culture, and values still depends largely on Egyptian sources, as Bronze Age Libyan archaeology still remains in its infancy and archaeological evidence from this period is very scarce.2 This means that information derived from sources and materials produced by Libyan populations is truly scarce, while modern historical research has prob- ably overemphasized terminology and “essentialist” approaches, that is to say, an abusive use of concepts such as “Libyan” or Tehenu/Tjehemu as ethnic markers, ascribed to peoples supposedly living exclusively out of the western margins of the Nile Valley. Or by considering Libyan lifestyles as diametrically opposed to those of Egyptians, an aspect in which “exotic” depictions of the western neighbors of ancient Egyptians, both in pharaonic texts and scenes, have played a major role in forging a “Libyanness” that served as the negative of what “Egyptianness” should be, even if in reality such distinctions were much less marked.3 Thus, representations of Libyans wearing Egyptian-style 1 Cf., for example, the excellent studies by O’Connor, “The nature of Tjemhu (Libyan) society”; Richardson, “Libya domestica”; Snape, “The emergence of Libya”; Hope, “Egypt and ‘Libya’ to the end of the Old Kingdom”; Ritner, “Egypt and the vanishing Libyan”; or Morkot, “Before Greeks and Romans” just to mention a few. Cf. also Moreno García, “Invaders or just herders?” and “Ḥwt jḥ(w)t.” 2 Moussa, “Berber, Phoenicio-Punic, and Greek North Africa”; Morkot, “Before Greeks and Romans.” 3 A useful comparison is provided by Weschenfelder, “The integration of the Eastern Desert” about the term “Beja” and the diverse populations and lifestyles it encompassed. Cf. also Moreno García, “Ḥwt jḥ(w)t,” n. 70 n. 3, with bibliography. Journal of Egyptian HistoryDownloaded from11 (2018) Brill.com09/30/2021 147–184 02:46:23PM via free access Elusive “Libyans” 149 kilts reveal that they exhibited a more flexible visual identity than that usu- ally expressed in Egyptian monuments.4 Just to mention a famous parallel, the Nubian prince Heqanefer, who lived during the reigns of Amenhotep III, Akhenaten, and Tutankhamun, was represented as a “typical” Nubian in the tomb of the viceroy Amenhotep Huy, but depicted as an Egyptian in his own tomb at Toshka.5 This very example also reveals the complexity in the construc- tion of identities by using or manipulating elements from different cultures according to the needs, contexts and expectations of their protagonists at a given place and time. At the same time, these approaches have usually ignored crucial aspects of Libyan populations, for instance the fact that they may have occupied vast spaces that included different ecosystems, such as the oases, the deserts, even areas of Middle Egypt, the Western Delta, and the desert areas of northern Nubia, each one of them promoting specialized lifestyles and mate- rial cultures that, at first glance, may be interpreted superficially as belonging to different ethnic groups.6 A consequence of this is that we know virtually nothing about the alleged cultural, linguistic or economic homogeneity of the peoples crossing these vast areas between the late 4th and the early 2nd mil- lennium BCE that could justify their being labelled as “Libyans.” In the case, of course, that such homogeneity actually existed and it is not just a modern reductive fiction imposed indiscriminately to a complex variety of ethnic and socio-economic conditions prevailing west of the Nile Valley and in the Valley itself. Finally, even in the event of the persistence of old dichotomies opposing nomadic and sedentary peoples, agriculturalists and pastoralists, “civilized” and “barbarians,” so frequent in older discussions about pastoralism in the ancient Near East, it cannot be concealed that “Libyans” developed many diverse activ- ities, complementarity (and not opposed) to those of the peoples settled in the floodplain of the Nile, ranging from trade to pastoralism and small metal- lurgy, the best documented for the moment. Another aspect to consider is that a single social group may well have practiced specialized activities, some of them engaged in seasonal pastoralism, others in farming, and others, finally, in 4 Hulin, “Marsa Matruh revisited,” 4; Hubschmann, “Searching for the ‘archaeologically invis- ible’ Libyans in Dakhleh Oasis.” 5 Compare Davies and Gardiner, The Tomb of Huy, pl. xxvii, and Simpson, Heka-nefer. For a more subtle analysis of the depictions of elite Nubians in the tomb of Huy, who “dwelled in the interstices of two cultural traditions, being neither fully Egyptian nor Nubian,” cf. Van Pelt, “Revising Egypto-Nubian relations,” 534–39. Cf. also Vittmann, “A question of names,” 140–42. 6 As in the case of the Nubio-Libyan A-Group culture: Gatto, “The Nubian A-Group.” Darnell estimates that the A-Group was in fact a Libyo-Nubian culture that dominated during the Predynastic Period the circulation between Kurkur and the desert extending at the west of Thebes: Darnell and Darnell, “The archaeology of Kurkur oasis.” Journal of Egyptian History 11 (2018) 147–184 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 02:46:23PM via free access 150 Moreno García seasonal mining, gathering, or small-scale trade.7 Nevertheless, for the sake of brevity and in the absence of a better suited term, I will use the term “Libyans” to refer to the peoples living west of the Egyptian Nile Valley. When considering the very precedents of Libyan society and economy in late Prehistory, it is quite possible that more benign climatic conditions pro- duced a steppe-like landscape in most areas west of the Nile Valley that turned into desert in later periods. The oases of the Western Desert, together with small palaeo-lakes8, could certainly induce mobile lifestyles based in pasto- ralism, the exploitation of natural resources (fishing, hunting, gathering, etc.), and small-scale trading. So, the range of movement of the populations liv- ing according to these lifestyles could have been rather large across the area encompassing the western borders of the Nile Valley, the oases (and beyond), areas of NW Nubia, and the Mediterranean coast. In some cases, archaeology reveals seasonal movements of people across the desert and the Nile in order to exploit the resources available at different places.9 In other instances, the geographical distribution of particular sets of pottery may point to cultural differences corresponding, perhaps, to different populations and lifestyles.