foggara
- noun
- Specialized
- The success of the Garamantes was based on their subterranean water-extraction system, a network of tunnels known as foggaras in Berber (see "Mining Waler," page 27).
- foggara irrigation technology
Examples
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Wilson and his colleagues have surveyed the system by using old aerial photographs taken in the 1950s and 1960s when the foggaras were much clearer and better preserved than they are now.
Academic text (2004) -
After the Persians introduced foggara technology into Egypt in the late sixth and fifth centuries B.C., the Garamantes began to adopt it in the Fazzan.
Academic text (2004) -
The tradition of using slaves as foggara workers continued in parts of the Saharan region.
Academic text (2004) -
For the slaves who built the foggaras, it must have been cramped, back-breaking, dangerous work.
Academic text (2004) -
Gradually, the groundwater level fell until finally the foggaras became as dry as the desert under which the slaves had dug them. - DK
Academic text (2004) -
Between the first and fourth centuries A.D., the Garamantes probably needed a workforce of between one thousand and two thousand slaves to expand and service the foggaras.
Academic text (2004) -
The use of this foggara technology enabled the Garamantes to produce an agricultural surplus and provided the basis for the formation of a powerful Saharan state," says Andrew Wilson of the University of Oxford.
Academic text (2004) -
The combination of their slave-acquisition activities and their mastery of foggara irrigation technology enabled the Garamantes to enjoy a standard of living far superior to that of any other ancient Saharan society," says archaeologist Andrew Wilson of the University of Oxford, who has been surveying the foggara system.
Academic text (2004) -
The combination of their slave-acquisition activities and their mastery of foggara irrigation technology enabled the Garamantes to enjoy a standard of living far superior to that of any other ancient Saharan society," says archaeologist Andrew Wilson of the University of Oxford, who has been surveying the foggara system.
Academic text (2004) -
The foggara is a crucial underground channel that brings water to crops in the arid Sahara.
Synonyms
1
9.9
An underground tunnel that brings water from mountains to dry land
Surface Forms
Etymology
Foggara comes from North Africa and probably from Arabic or Berber words meaning 'dug' or 'tunnel', and it is like the Persian word qanat for underground water channels. So a foggara is an underground channel that 'brings' water under the hot desert to villages and farms.