11. Garamantian green stone beads from Fewet

We present and discuss the results of the first archaeometric study carried out on green stone beads found in Garamantian archaeological sites from the central Sahara. In the region, several archaeological and geological investigations have generally attributed green stone beads and pendants found in archaeological contexts to amazonite extracted from the pegmatite dike at Eghei Zuma (northern Tibesti, Libya), accepting the hypothesis of the so-called émeraude garamantique proposed by Monod. On the basis of microprobe analyses of samples from Fewet we demonstrate that (i) green stone beads consist of different lithotypes (serpentine and amazonite) and (ii) that the source of amazonite could not be the pegmatite outcropping at Eghei Zuma. Furthermore, we discuss the archaeological implication of our results, which concerns with the trade route of amazonite beads in ancient Sahara, and try to identify possible sources of amazonite located in the Sahara and surrounding regions.