Pre-Islamic Burial Monuments in Northern and Saharan Morocco

See e.g. Guilaine Jean , La mer partage: La Méditerranée avant l'écriture (Paris, 1994). For a general introduction to the region see the classic work, Camps G. , Les Berbères: Mémoire et identité, 3rd edn (Paris, 1992), or the most recent, Brett M. Fentress E. , The Berbers (Oxford, 1996).

See, e.g., Castellani V. , ‘Necropoli di tumuli ed archeoastronomia’, in Archeologie e astronomía: Esperienze e prospettive future (Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Rome, 1995), 83–98.

For the ‘idebni’ of the Ahaggar, see Savary J. P. , ‘Monuments en pierres sèches de Fadnoun’, Mémoires C. R. A. H. E. Algérie, vi (1966), 43–48, p. 46. For the Algerian dolmens, see Savary J. P. , ‘L'architecture et l'orientation des dolmens de Beni Messous’, Libyca, xvii (1969), 271–330.

See e.g. Belmonte J. A. Esteban C. Aparicio A. Tejera A. Gónzalez O. , ‘Canarían astronomy before the conquest: The pre-hispanic calendar’, Revista de la Sociedad Canaria de Ciencias, vi (1995), 133–56.

For some preliminary results on different aspects of cultural astronomy in Tunisia, see Jiménez J. J. Esteban C. Belmonte J. A. , ‘Arqueoastronomía en el Africa Proconsular’, Revista de arqueología, no. 203 (1998), 46–53. For the pre-Roman funereal monuments, see Belmonte J. A. Esteban C. Jiménez J. J. , ‘Mediterranean archaeoastronomy and archaeotopography: Pre-Roman tombs of Africa Proconsularis’, Archaeoastronomy, no. 23 (1998), S7–24.

Camps G. , Aux origines de la Berberie: Monuments et rites funéraires protohistoriques (Paris, 1961). This is the classic book in the field. See also Souville G. , ‘Los monumentos funerarios preislámicos de Marruecos: Ensayo de clasificación y distribución’, Ampurias, xxx (1968), 39–61.

Belmonte , op. cit. (ref. 5).

Belmonte J. A. Esteban C. Caballero Schlueter R. Betancort Perera M. A. Génova R. Cruz M. , ‘Astral gods, tombs and sacred mountains: The case of Mediterranean Africa’, Astronomy and culture, ed. by Jaschek C. Barandela Atrio F. (Salamanca, 1998), 247–53.

For the most relevant region to our purposes, Andalucía, see Michael Hoskin Elizabeth Allan Gralewski Renate , ‘Studies in Iberian archaeoastronomy: (3) Customs and motives in Andalucía’, Archaeoastronomy, no. 20 (1995), S41–48.

For Sardinia, see e.g. Mauro Zedda Michael Hoskin Renate Gralewski Manca Giacobbe , “Orientations of 230 Sardinian Tombe di Giganti”, Archaeoastronomy, no. 21 (19%), S33–54. For the Balearic Islands, see Hoskin Michael Núñez José Morales Juan , ‘The orientations of the burial monuments of Menorca’, Archaeoastronomy, no. 16 (1991), S15–42. For the tiny Maltese dolmens, see Pásztor E. Roslund C. , ‘Orientation of Maltese dolmens’, Journal of European archaeology, v (1997), 183–9.

Souville , op. cit. (ref. 6).

There are no radiocarbon dates for this site. The interval of dates proposed, the second century b.c. to the seventh century a.d., is based on archaeological remains. Lihoreau M. , Djorf Torba nécropole saharienne antéislamique (Paris, 1993). See also ref. 18 below.

Margat J. Camus A. , ‘La nécropole de Bouïa au Tafilalt’, Bulletin d'archéologie marocain, iii (1958–59), 345–70.

The date is a terminus ante quern based on archaeological findings. Jacques-Meunié D. , ‘La nécropole de Foum le-Rjam, tumuli du Maroc présaharien’, Hespéris, xxviii (1958), 95–142. To our knowledge, no other archaeological research has been conducted in the area.

Camps G. , ‘Foum le-Rjam’, Encyclopédic Berbère, xix (1998), 2920–2.

Unfortunately, we had to abandon our fieldwork after several hours, because of the extremely high temperatures (more than 40°C) and the shortage of water. However, we do believe that our data are statistically significant since, with just one exception, all these tumuli have an orientation in the octant of the horizon centred in the southeast.

For example in ancient Africa Proconsularis or in the Canary Islands. See e.g. Belmonte , op. cit. (ref 5). For the equinox see Esteban C. Belmonte J. A. Betancort Perera M. A. , ‘The equinox in pre-Hispanic Canary Islands’, to appear in Proceedings of the ‘Oxford V Conference on Cultural Aspects of Astronomy’.

For the Libyc-Berber inscriptions and their dating see e.g. Belmonte J. A. Bunk Springer R. Betancort Perera M. A. , ‘Statistical analysis and comparative study of the Libyc-Berber writings of the Canary Islands, the northwest of Africa and the Sahara’, Tabona, in press. However, other authors have proposed that some archaeological remains, found at the chapel-tumuli of Djorf Torba (Algeria), suggest a Roman or even a Christian influence. This fact would restrict the oldest limit of these type of construction to the first, or even the fourth, century a.d. Camps G. , ‘Djorf Torba’, Encyclopédie Berbère, xvi (1997), 2477–88.

For prints of some of these engravings, see Jacques-Meunié D. Allain O. , ‘Quelques gravures et monuments funéraires de l'extrème sud-est marocain’, Hespéris, xliii (1956), 53–68.

Interestingly, the incubation custom has been claimed also in the case of the Canary Islands. See e.g. Gaspar Tejera A. , Mitología de las culturas prehistóricas de las Islas Canarias (Lección Inaugural del Curso 1991–92, Universidad de La Laguna, 1991).

Only Rigel would fit the dates but without any further historical or anthropological support. This is also the range of sunrise at the end of October or in mid-February.

Castellani . op. cit. (ref. 2).

See De Rachewiltz B. Castellani V. Parish P. , ‘Nuovi monumenti funerari nell'estremo sudest marocchino: Le necropoli della Vallata di Talrhemt’, Africa, xxxi (1976), 519–32.

See Jiménez J. J. , Gran Canaria y los Canarios (Centro de Cultura Popular Canaria, Sta Cruz de Tenerife, 1992), and references therein.

See Belmonte , op. cit. (ref. 8) and Esteban , op. cit. (ref. 17).

Camps G. , ‘Les dolmens marocains’, Libyca, xiii (1965), 235–47.

Ponsich M. , ‘Contribution à l'Atlas archéologique du Maroc: Région de Tanger’, Bulletin d'archéologie marocaine, v (1964), 251–89.

Jodin A. , ‘L'âge du bronze au Maroc: La nécropole mégalithique d'El Mries’, Bulletin d'archéologie marocain, v (1964), 11–45.

See e.g. Michael Hoskin Elizabeth Allan Gralewski Renate , ‘Studies in Iberian archaeoastronomy: (1) Orientations of the megalithic sepulchres of Almería, Málaga and Granada’, Archaeoastronomy, no. 19 (1994), S55–82.

Tarradell M. , ‘El túmulo de Mezora (Marruecos)’, Archivos de prehistoria levantina, iii (1952), 229–339.

We might speculate with an orientation of the chamber to the pole star of that time. A maximum polar separation of 8±1° would give a date of 300±200 b.c., if the star chosen had been Kochab, or 1370±200 b.c. in the case of the fainter star Thuban. In scientific discussion about archaeological remains at Mauretania Tingitana, with the specialist archaeologist Jorge Onrubia during a 1997 course on the history and prehistory of Roman Africa, he informed us that the cromlech should not be older than the fourth century b.c. and perhaps younger. However, he also reported that a team of French researchers had dated the monument ‘astronomically’ to 1800 b.c. (unpublished results). Our own inspection of the place does not suggest any other way of ‘dating’ the place astronomically, especially for such early dates.

Bazina is a standard pan-Berber word for ‘tomb’. However, in the archaeological literature, this is the name given to a special sort of round step tomb of North Africa, with a central burial chamber or cist. They range from small structures 2m in diameter and 1m in height to impressive structures like the one reporte.

Camps G. , ‘Le Gour, mausolée berbère du VII siècle’, Antiquités africaines, viii (1974), 191–208.

Faleschini G. , ‘Le tombe solari’, Sahara, vii (1995), 109–12.

Savary , op. cit. (ref. 3).

See Belmonte J. A. Belmonte J. R. , ‘Astronomía, cultura y religión en la prehistoria de la Península Ibérica: Los dólmenes de Valencia de Alcántara’, Tribuna de astronomía, nos. 116–17 (1995), 18–25, 72–77, see Figure 15.

For the legend and dates of Tin-Hinan Salama I. , ‘El Sahara prehistórico durante la Antigüedad clásica’, in Historia general de Africa, ii: Antiguas civilizaciones de Africa (Salamanca, 1983), 521–42, p. 529.

Like the ancient Western Sanaran tumuli. See e.g. Milburn M. , ‘Observaciones sobre algunos monumentos de paredes rectas del Sáhara Occidental’, Ampurias, xxxvi (1974), 199–214.

For the Punic presence in the north of Africa, see Lancel S. , Cartago (Barcelona, 1994). For the early Roman period, see Coltelloni-Trannoy M. , Le royaume de Maurítanie sous Juba II et Ptolémée (Paris, 1997).

See e.g. Chabot J. B. , Recueil des inscriptions lybiques (3 vols, Paris, 1941).

For a preliminary study, see Belmonte J. A. Betancort Perera M. A. , ‘Astronomy, writing and symbolism: The case of pre-Hispanic Canary Islands’, paper delivered at the SEAC 1998 meeting on ‘Astronomy and Landscape’ (in press).