Laguatan
The Laguatan (
Arabic: لواتة, romanized: Lawātah) was a Berber clan that inhabited the Cyrenaica area during the Roman period.[1] They have been described as primarily raiders and nomadic,[2] but others consider them a settled group who also raided.[3]
The Laguatan emerged in the late 3rd century, when the first groups started a westward migration from their original homes in the
Flavius Cresconius Corippus calls them Ilaguas and Laguantan. According to Corippus, they were still pagan, and worshipped Gurzil, who is identified as the son of Amun and of a cow (Iohannis II.109–110).[5]
During the Islamic Middle Ages, Ibn Khaldun recorded that this tribal group were known as the Lawata or Louata, and was spread from the oases of Egypt's Western Desert through Cyrenaica, Tripolitania to south and central Tunisia and eastern Algeria.[6]
References
Bibliography
- Mattingly, D. J. (1983) "The Laguatan: A Libyan Tribal Confederation in the Late Roman Empire" Libyan Studies: Annual report of the Society for Libyan Studies 14: pp. 96-108
- Yves Modéran (2003), Les Maures et l'Afrique Romaine (IVe-VIIe siècle), Ecole Française de Rome, 2003