page_title: Trans-Saharan trade
section_title: Early trans-Saharan trade
hierarchical_section_title: Trans-Saharan trade / Early trans-Saharan trade
caption_attribution_description: English: Typical architecture of Oualata, Mauritania العربية: بيت تقليدي في مدينة ولاتة، موريتانيا
context_page_description: Trans-Saharan trade requires travel across the Sahara between sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa. While existing from prehistoric times, the peak of trade extended from the 8th century until the early 17th century.
  The Sahara once had a very different environment. In Libya and Algeria, from at least 7000 BC, there was pastoralism, the herding of sheep, goats, large settlements, and pottery. Cattle were introduced to the Central Sahara from 4000 to 3500 BC. Remarkable rock paintings, in places which are currently very dry, portray vegetation, and animal presence rather different from modern expectations.
  As a desert, Sahara is now a hostile expanse that separates the Mediterranean economy from the economy of the Niger basin. As Fernand Braudel points out that crossing such a zone is worthwhile only when exceptional circumstances cause the expected gain to outweigh the cost and danger.
  Trade, beginning around 300 CE, was conducted by caravans of camels. According to Ibn Battuta, the explorer who accompanied one of the caravans, the average size per caravan was 1,000 camels; some caravans were as large as 12,000.
context_section_description: Ancient trade spanned the northeastern corner of the Sahara in the Naqadan era.  Predynastic Egyptians in the Naqada I period traded with Nubia to the south, the oases of the Western Desert to the west, and the cultures of the eastern Mediterranean to the east. Many trading routes went from oasis to oasis to resupply on both food and water. These oases were very important.  They also imported obsidian from Ethiopia to shape blades and other objects.
  The overland route through the Wadi Hammamat from the Nile to the Red Sea was known as early as predynastic times; drawings depicting Egyptian reed boats have been found along the path dating to 4000 BC.  Ancient cities dating to the First Dynasty of Egypt arose along both its Nile and Red Sea junctions, testifying to the route's ancient popularity.  It became a major route from Thebes to the Red Sea port of Elim, where travelers then moved on to either Asia, Arabia or the Horn of Africa.  Records exist documenting knowledge of the route among Senusret I, Seti, Ramesses IV and also, later, the Roman Empire, especially for mining.
  The Darb el-Arbain trade route, passing through Kharga in the south and Asyut in the north, was used from as early as the Old Kingdom for the transport and trade of gold, ivory, spices, wheat, animals and plants.  Later, Ancient Romans would protect the route by lining it with varied forts and small outposts, some guarding large settlements complete with cultivation.  Described by Herodotus as a road "traversed ... in forty days", it became by his time an important land route facilitating trade between Nubia and Egypt, and subsequently became known as the Forty Days Road.  From Kobbei, 40 kilometres (25 mi) north of al-Fashir, the route passed through the desert to Bir Natrum, another oasis and salt mine, to Wadi Howar before proceeding to Egypt.  The Darb el-Arbain trade route was the easternmost of the central routes.
  The westernmost of the three central routes was the Ghadames Road, which ran from the Niger River at Gao north to Ghat and Ghadames before terminating at Tripoli.  Next was the easiest of the three routes: the Garamantean Road, named after the former rulers of the land it passed through and also called the Bilma Trail.  The Garamantean Road passed south of the desert near Murzuk before turning north to pass between the Alhaggar and Tibesti Mountains before reaching the oasis at Kawar.  From Kawar, caravans would pass over the great sand dunes of Bilma, where rock salt was mined in great quantities for trade, before reaching the savanna north of Lake Chad.  This was the shortest of the routes, and the primary exchanges were slaves and ivory from the south for salt.
  The western routes were the Walata Road, from the Sénégal River, and the Taghaza Trail, from the Niger River, which had their northern termini at the great trading center of Sijilmasa, situated in Morocco just north of the desert.  The growth of the city of Aoudaghost, founded in the 5th century BCE, was stimulated by its position at the southern end of a trans Saharan trade route.
  To the east, three ancient routes connected the south to the Mediterranean.  The herdsmen of the Fezzan of Libya, known as the Garamantes, controlled these routes as early as 1500 BC. From their capital of Germa in the Wadi Ajal, the Garamantean Empire raided north to the sea and south into the Sahel.  By the 4th century BC, the independent city-states of Phoenecia had expanded their control to the territory and routes once held by the Garamantes.  Shillington states that existing contact with the Mediterranean received added incentive with the growth of the port city of Carthage. Founded c. 800 BCE, Carthage became one terminus for West African gold, ivory, and slaves. West Africa received salt, cloth, beads, and metal goods. Shillington proceeds to identify this trade route as the source for West African iron smelting.  Trade continued into Roman times. Although there are Classical references to direct travel from the Mediterranean to West Africa (Daniels, p. 22f), most of this trade was conduct
caption: A building in Oualata, southeast Mauritania
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