Libyco-berber Inscriptions

L'histoire pré-romaine de l'Algérie a été longtemps marquée par ce que l'on pourrait appeler le «modèle Cintas», fondé sur la prise en main directe par Carthage d'une multitude d'escales nécessaires à un commerce réalisé essentiellement par cabotage. Le progrès des connaissances a infirmé une partie de ces conceptions et de leurs conséquences, et apporté des éléments nouveaux. Il conviendrait d'élaborer de nouvelles synthèses, beaucoup plus différenciées en fonction des régions et des époques, et faisant la part plus belle aux autochtones.

A few hypotheses about the origin of the so-called “Libyan” alphabets are presented. Attested in more than a thousand inscriptions from Libya to the Canary Islands in northern Africa, these alphabets are probably the forebears of the current ones used by the Tuareg. The only inscription that has been dated (139 BCE) with a reasonable degree of certainty is bilingual, Libyco-Punic, from Dougga in Tunisia. The “Libyan” alphabets apparently already existed, several centuries earlier. Their creators borrowed a few — at least four — letters from the Phoenician/Punic alphabets; and apparently used simple geometric procedures, which are reconstituted herein, for the other letters.
The matter of this paper has been incorporated into a book published in 2015 (https://www.academia.edu/8492723)

During the last thirty years, the rock art heritage
has greatly encreased by hundreds of sites that provide
a more comprehensive and detailed view of Saharan
populations of the Holocene period. Herein, we focus
more especially on the chariots, the number of which
(over 1200) has doubled since the census of Lhote in
1982, and on Libyan-Berber inscriptions. For both themes,
location maps reveal an almost total absence east
of the Ténéré and an occupation of all the mountains
and significant relief to the west. The most striking result
of this study is the almost perfect coincidence of the
distribution areas of these chariots and libyco-berber
inscriptions, coincidence that can be interpreted in the
light of the regional alphabets and of the distribution of
funeral monuments.

Originaires de la Méditerranée orientale, du Liban actuel, les Phéniciens auraient franchi les Colonnes d’Hercule, le détroit de Gibraltar, dès la fin du deuxième millénaire avant l’ère commune. Avec des comptoirs marchands comme Tamuda (Tétouan) sur le littoral méditerranéen de l’Afrique, Tingi (Tanger) sur le détroit et Lixos (Larache) sur le littoral atlantique marocain, les Phéniciens ont eu longtemps le monopole du commerce des richesses fabuleuses des rivages atlantique.

The Tuareg use alphabets with characters called tafineq (plural: tifinagh). Some writers have, rightly or wrongly, related this word’s root (FNQ) to the word used by the Greeks to refer to the Phoenicians. These alphabets derived from much older ones, which are usually said to be “Libyan” or “Libyco-Berber”. Libyco-Berber inscriptions are found throughout a region stretching from Libya to Morocco and even the Canary Islands — sometimes along with Punic or Latin engravings. Owing to the discovery in Dougga (Tunisia) of two bilingual Libyco-Punic inscriptions dating from the 2nd century BC, one of the variants of the Libyco-Berber alphabet has been partly deciphered. Moroccan inscriptions are probably older, but the dates proposed for them are to be used with caution. Two recent studies, the one devoted to contemporary rock inscriptions and the other to the evolution of Libyco-Berber scripts from Ancient Times up till the present, are reviewed; and a few hypotheses related to the dating of engravings are discussed as well as the circumstances of the initial discovery made in Dougga.
The matter of this paper has been incorporated into a book published in 2015 (https://www.academia.edu/8492723)

This book, which was awarded with the prize Georges Dumezil 2016 by the French Academy and the prize Robert Cornevin 2015 by the Académie des Sciences d'Outre-mer, provides an overview of the origin and history of the old alphabets used until nowadays by the Tuaregs and describes the way there are used.
These alphabets derived from much older ones, which are usually said to be “Libyan” or “Libyco-Berber”. Libyco-Berber inscriptions are found throughout a region stretching from Libya to Morocco and even the Canary Islands — sometimes along with Punic or Latin engravings. Owing to the discovery in Dougga (Tunisia) of two bilingual Libyco-Punic inscriptions dating from the 2nd century BC (one of them dedicated to the Numidic king Massinissa), one of the variants of the Libyco-Berber alphabet has been partly deciphered. But the “Libyan” alphabets apparently already existed, several centuries earlier.
The book argues that their creators borrowed a few — at least four — letters from the Phoenician/Punic alphabets; and apparently used simple geometric procedures, which are reconstituted herein, for the other letters. It then proposes some hypotheses on the subsequent history of these alphabets, et concludes in evoking the current innovations.

El hallazgo de nuevas inscripciones líbico-bereberes durante los últimos veinte años ha aportado un amplio corpus que permite comparar los signos empleados en las islas (El Hierro y Lanzarote, las de mayor número de textos), para comprobar si se constatan diferencias entre ellas. Estas dos islas, las más distantes del archipiélago, acusan además una diferencia en relación a la técnica empleada (incisión e picado) y del contexto iconográfico en el que aparece.

The Tuareg have an old alphabet with characters called tafineq, a word that might refer back to the term used by the Greeks to refer to Phoenicians. This autochtonous alphabet derived from older « Libyco-Berber » scripts, which are attested as far back as the middle of the second century BCE. It coexists with two alphabets of foreign origin : Arabic and Latin. It is only used to write short texts : letters to people who are close, graffiti on trees or rocks, or inscriptions on utensils. This article focuses on how this alphabet is used for letterwriting even though this activity allows for using the Latin alphabet too. Recent attempts to reform the Tuareg’s alphabet are discussed.
The matter of this paper has been incorporated into a book published in 2015 (https://www.academia.edu/8492723)

Ficha, alojada en la base de datos TESEO, de la tesis doctoral "La contextualización arqueológica y epigráficas de las inscripciones líbico-bereberes de El Hierro", depositada el 18 de diciembre de 2020 y defendida el 30 de abril de 2021 en la Universidad de La Laguna.

This paper is about a unique bilingual Libyco-Latin inscription discovered near the Roman military camp at Lamdanna (Larache region, Northern Morocco). This new document dating back to the Roman era makes it possible to establish with some probability the phonetic values of at least four Libyc characters.
Résumé Dans cet article il est question d'une inscription bilingue libyco-latine inédite découverte à proximité du camp militaire romain de Lamdanna (région de Larache). Ce nouveau document datant de l'époque romaine permet d'établir avec une certaine vraisemblance les valeurs phonétiques d'au moins quatre caractères libyques.

Entre los distintos períodos del arte rupestre se considera el periodo del camello como uno de los más recientes. Este animal, al que hace referencia el término, aparece con gran frecuencia entre los grabados o pinturas y ha per­ mitido establecer una cronología relativa para dicho periodo a causa de su tardía aparición en el Norte de Africa y Sáhara. Entre estos grabados o pintu­ ras se encuentran a menudo líneas escriturarias líbico-bereberes, como otros constituyentes de este grupo y que se adscriben a los mismos autores y época, aunque sus inicios se remontan a algunos siglos anteriores. El uso de esta escritura fue abandonado posteriormente en fechas que varían segun las dife­ rentes regiones. Sólo en el Sáhara Central sigue aún vigente entre los tuareg, únicos grupos sociales entre los que ha permanecida viva hasta hoy. Siendo el camello el motivo más representativo para este grupo del arte rupestre, este animal aparece, por lo general, acompañado de otros temas igualmente importantes. En efecto, en este mismo contexto se hallan con gran frecuencia caballos, figuras humanas montadas a camello, a caballo o aisla­ das, además de otros animales, de la que la cabra es otro ejemplo; también son habituales múltiples formas geométricas, más o menos complejas, hasta lle­ gar a simples incisiones rectilíneas. Existen pocas escenas que remitan o retraten hechos de la vida social cotidiana u ocurridos en un momento dado, pero entre las que se conocen aparece de manera reiterativa y en grabados localizados a gran distancia la de jinetes montados a camellos o caballos, armados con lanzas y escudos redondos, que a menudo están enfrentados unos a otros como si representaran una batalla. Muchas veces se encuentran en estas estaciones rupestres paneles con un gran número de animales que parecen transitar de un lado a otro. No obstante, la interpretación que así en ocasiones sugiere ser evidente en el plano de una primera lectura, no lo es, si se desea conocer algo más allá de la mera observación de las imágenes.