    zenata (berber: iznaten) are a major old berber ethnic group of north africa. they were an umbrella-group encompassing probably hundreds of large linguistically or genealogically related berber tribes in the north, center and east of berber north africa (excluding the nile valley of egypt). zenata berbers were the founders of several berber empires, kingdoms and princedoms in north africa. according to ibn khaldun, a north african historian of the 14th century, there were zenata tribes dispatched in all north africa (current morocco, libya, tunisia, algeria) according to ibn khaldoun, the zenata are one of the main divisions of the medieval berbers, along with senhaja and masmuda. he added that these tribes, were both nomadic and sedentary as well as builders of cities and were concentrated in middle maghreb (roughly the current northern algeria and its surroundings). it is why he called "middle maghreb" home of zenata. there have been some medieval hypotheses about the foreign origine of this berber group but were already rejected by ibn khaldun in the 14th-century. furthermore they are not accepted by the modern historians such as emile felix gautier or gabriel camps. zenatas could come from numidians and gaetulia (berber people of north africa during classical antiquity) according to some hypotheses, the berber tribes of the garamantes could be also probably zenati.http://www.mondeberbere.com/azayku/txt/genealogie.htm according to the very discussed hypothesis of ibn khaldun, madghacen was the patriarch of zenata.ibn khaldun, history of berbers the oldest mausoleum (between 12 b.c. and 3 b.c) in current algeria is madghacen mausoleum (madghis town near batna). madghacen was probably a zenata king of numidia. the zenata were known for their horseriding skill. the spanish word for "horserider", jinete,jinete in the diccionario de la real academia espaÃ±ola. is derived from their name. ==language== their varieties of berber, collectively termed zenati, are spread over
African_nomads Berber_groups Ethnic_groups_in_Algeria Ethnic_groups_in_Morocco Ethnic_groups_in_Tunisia History_of_North_Africa Zenata