THE OLD TOWN OF GARAMA

The old town of toub (dried bricks) is well damaged. It's at the end of the first century. that the inhabitants left the mountain of Zinkekra to settle there. We follow the tracks of a small train that was used to evacuate the land during the archaeological excavations conducted by the Italians. In the first part of the site, the stone foundations were Roman buildings. The highest building was certainly a garamantique castle, which became the old kasbah (house of the city's governors), which now looks at the dried oasis.

Here is a description of the places made by a French ethnographer in the 1940 s, shortly after his abandonment: " The former Jerma, abandoned in recent years [1932] because of malaria, is a fortified town. Built in amphitheatre on a mound, surrounded by palm trees, it has two narrow main streets. It is surrounded completely by a ditch filled with water by outpouring of the water table […] and continuous ramparts encompassing a less ancient unit of appearance in the East […]. The Kasbah which forms the centre of the locality, all at the top, has 5 or 6 high and massive towers combined with a high wall of 4 to 5 m. that a circular lane separates from houses. The whole household in its middle is a vast place in which one accesses one door. This Kasbah is built in sun-dried terracotta bricks, while stones and clays were used to build homes. '»»»»

J. Lethielleux, Le Fezzan: its Gardens and Palms, 1948, Publications of the Institute of Fine Arabic Letters, Tunis.