Numidia was the ancient kingdom of the Numidians in northwest Africa, initially comprising the territory that now makes up Algeria, but later expanding across what is today known as Tunisia and Libya. The polity was originally divided between the Massylii state in the east and the Masaesyli state in the west. During the Second Punic War, Masinissa, king of the Massylii, defeated Syphax of the Masaesyli to unify Numidia into the first unified Berber state for Numidians in present-day Algeria. The kingdom began as a sovereign state and an ally of Rome and later alternated between being a Roman province and a Roman client state.
Siga was a Berber and Roman port located near what is now Aïn Témouchent, Algeria. Under the Roman Empire, it was part of western Mauretania Caesariensis, bordering Mauretania Tingitana.
The Zenati languages are a branch of the Northern Berber language family of North Africa. They were named after the medieval Zenata Berber tribal confederation. They were first proposed in the works of French linguist Edmond Destaing (1915) (1920–23). Zenata dialects are distributed across the central Berber world (Maghreb), from northeastern Morocco to just west of Algiers, and the northern Sahara, from southwestern Algeria around Bechar to Zuwara in Libya. The most widely spoken Zenati languages are Tmazight of the Rif in northern Morocco and Tashawit Berber in northeastern Algeria, each of which have over 3 million speakers.
Bocchus II was a king of Mauretania in the 1st century BC. He was the son of Mastanesosus, who died in 49 BC, upon which Bocchus inherited the throne.
Cirta, also known by various other names in antiquity, was the ancient Berber, Punic and Roman settlement which later became Constantine, Algeria.
The Kutama were a Berber tribe in northern Algeria classified among the Berber confederation of the Bavares. The Kutama are attested much earlier, in the form Koidamousii by the Greek geographer Ptolemy.
Bocchus, often referred to as Bocchus I for clarity, was king of Mauretania from c. 111 – 80 BCE. He was father-in-law to the Numidian king Jugurtha, with whom he initially allied against the Romans in the Jugurthine War, a lengthy and indecisive conflict.
During the Iron Age and Classical antiquity, Libya referred to modern-day Africa west of the Nile river. Greek and Roman geographers placed the dividing line between Libya/Africa and Asia at the Nile. In contrast, the areas of Sub-Saharan Africa were known as Aethiopia. Africa in the broad sense that the Greeks called Libya, i.e. the part of Africa bounded by the Nile, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic was one of the three parts of the world of the ancients.
The traditional Berber religion is the sum of ancient and native set of beliefs and deities adhered to by the Berbers. Originally, the Berbers seem to have believed in worship of the sun and moon, animism and in the afterlife, but interactions with the Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans influenced religious practice and melted traditional faiths with new ones.
The Banu Ifran or Ifranids, were a Zenata Berber tribe prominent in the history of pre-Islamic and early Islamic North Africa. In the 8th century, they established a kingdom in the central Maghreb, with Tlemcen as its capital.
The Quinquegentiani were a Classical Age Berber tribal confederation inhabiting the lands between the cities of Saldae and Rusuccuru, a region which is now known as Kabylia. Their territory laid at the eastern border of the Roman province of Mauretania Caesariensis, and although they were officially under Roman rule, they acted very autonomously.
Numidian was a language spoken in ancient Numidia. The script in which it was written, the Libyco-Berber alphabet, has been almost fully deciphered and most characters have known values. Despite this, the language has barely been transcribed and only a few words are known. Libyco-Berber inscriptions are attested from the 3rd century BC to the 3rd century AD. The language is scarcely attested and can be confidently identified only as belonging to the Afroasiatic family, although it was most likely part of the Berber languages, spoken at the start of the breakup of the Proto-Berber language.
The Hawwara is an Arab-Berber tribal confederation in the Maghreb, primarily in Tripolitania, with descendants in Upper Egypt and Sudan. Hawwara are amongst the most prominent tribes in Upper Egypt, with branches found mainly in Qena. In Sudan, they are labelled as Hawwaweer, and have a significant political presence.
The Libyco-Punic Mausoleum of Dougga is an ancient mausoleum located in Dougga, Tunisia. It is one of three examples of the royal architecture of Numidia, which is in a good state of preservation and dates to the second century BC. It was restored by the government of French Tunisia between 1908 and 1910.
The Roman Africans or African Romans were the ancient populations of Roman North Africa that had a Romanized culture, some of whom spoke their own variety of Latin as a result. They existed from the Roman conquest until their language gradually faded out after the Arab conquest of North Africa in the Early Middle Ages.
The Mauro-Roman Kingdom, also described as the Kingdom of Masuna, was a Christian Berber kingdom which dominated much of the ancient Roman province of Mauretania Caesariensis from the capital city of Altava. Scholars are in disagreement about whether the polity aimed for independence as a kingdom or was part of a loose confederation, an alternative hypothesis drawn from contextual knowledge about Berber tribal alliances. In the fifth century, Roman control over the province weakened and Imperial resources had to be concentrated elsewhere, notably in defending Roman Italy itself from invading Germanic tribes. Moors and Romans in Mauretania came to operate independently from the Empire. However, regional leaders may not have necessarily felt abandoned by the Romans.
The Mazices were Berbers of North Africa who appear in classical and late antique Greek and Latin sources. Many variants of the name are known: Maxyes in Herodotus; Mazyes in Hecataeus; Mazaces; Mazikes; Mazazaces; etc. They are all derived from the Berber autoethnonym Imazighen. These terms were used both for Berbers in general and for certain Berber tribes. It is not clear if the original Berber term was used to refer to all Berbers or only a tribe or other subset. The Egyptian term Meshwesh for a tribe of ancient Libyans is probably a cognate.
The Baquates were a people living in Mauretania Tingitana under the Roman empire. They are known from Greek and Latin literary sources and inscriptions of the second through fourth centuries AD.
The Libyco-Berber alphabet is an abjad writing system that was used during the first millennium BC by various Berber peoples of North Africa and the Canary Islands, to write ancient varieties of the Berber language like the Numidian language in ancient North Africa.
The Mulucha also known as Moulouya is a river in Ancient Mauretania : /ˈmu.lu.kʰa/, [ˈmʊɫ̪ʊkʰä]) which was used as a boundary between the Mauri and Massaesyli. Believed to be an ancient term of its modern name, the Moulouya River set in modern-day Morocco. Also alternatively known by its other historical name used later on, the Malva.
