Sahara was Re: RE: SC - Columbus' chilies

[David Dendy]

Unfortunately for the argument, the period when the *Sahara* was not desert
was much further back, before 2000 B.C. By that date it had already dried to
the point that the desert area was much as today (reference John Wright,
*Libya, Chad and the Central Sahara* [Totowa, N.J.: Barnes and Noble, 1989],
pp. 2-3). The area *north* of the Sahara, in North Africa, particularly what
is now Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, was indeed quite fertile in Roman
times, and a great supplier to grain to Rome, but it is also quite fertile
now (Algeria is major wine producer, for example). But the Sahara desert was
there south of the fertile zone, in Roman times as today.

Francesco Sirene

- -----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Gedney <JGedney at dictaphone.com>
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Date: June 22, 2000 7:23 AM
Subject: Re: RE: SC - Columbus' chilies


>> What evidence do we have that the Sahara was still a grassland in
Classical
>> times? Or by "Antiquity" do you mean further back than say 100 AD?
>this goes back to something I remember from school (we were
>discussing climatology...)
>
>Lybia and the North of Africa were called " the Breadbasket of Rome",
>where where the gigantic "Grain ships" of the Romans loaded up.
>I remember reading that at its peak North Africa supplied some 80%
>of the Empires total cereal grain supply.
>
>