How to Cross the Sahara as a Tenth-Century Cameleer

History Unplugged Podcast

History Unplugged

Society & Culture, History

4.2 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 27 May 2025

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What comes to mind when we think about the Sahara? Rippling sand dunes, sun-blasted expanses, camel drivers and their caravans perhaps. Or famine, climate change, civil war, desperate migrants stuck in a hostile environment. The Sahara stretches across 3.2 million square miles, hosting several million inhabitants and a corresponding variety of languages, cultures, and livelihoods. But beyond ready-made images of exoticism and squalor, we know surprisingly little about its history and the people who call it home.
That’s not for a lack of trying. The Romans tried to cross the Sahara, going back as least as far as Cornelius Balbus (19 BC): Starting from Sabratha in Libya, Balbus led a force of 10,000 legionaries to conquer the Garamantes in the Fezzan region (modern Libya). He then sent a smaller group south across the Ahaggar Mountains, likely reaching the Niger River near modern Timbuktu in Mali, traveling over 1,000 miles inland. Ibn Battuta, the medieval explorer, experienced the wealth of West Africa’s vast gold mines long before the Portuguese made their way down the African coast.

Today’s guest is Judith Scheele, author of “Shifting Sands: A Human History of the Sahara.” We see how the desert is not the empty wasteland of the romantic imagination but the vast and highly differentiated space in which Saharan peoples and, increasingly, new arrivals from other parts of Africa live, work, and move. It takes us from the ancient Roman Empire through the colonial era, whose future holds implications for us all.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Scott here with another episode of the History and Plug podcast.
0:08.0	The Sahara has the distinction of being one of the poorest regions on Earth, but at different times it was also the wealthiest.
0:14.1	Most famously, Mansa Musa, who was the 14th century ruler of the Mali Empire, controlled West Africa's gold mines,
0:20.3	and during his pilgrimage to
0:21.7	Mecca in 1324, distributed so much gold that he crashed the market in Cairo for years.
0:27.3	How is the Sahara a part of the world that's full of sand dunes, sunblasted expanses, camel drivers,
0:32.1	and caravans, anything more than an impoverished health scheme? Well, parts of it are like that,
0:36.9	but it stretches across 3 million square miles,
0:39.5	hosts millions of inhabitants, and is a much more exotic location than to give it credit.
0:43.6	Nearby civilizations have tried to cross and consolidate the Sahara for thousands of years,
0:47.3	going back his least as far as Rome, when Cornelius Balbus led a force of 10,000 legionaires
0:52.0	in 19 DC to conquer modern Libya.
0:53.9	He then sent a smaller contingent, a thousand miles inland,000 legionnaires in 19 BC to conquer modern Libya.
0:58.3	He then sent a smaller contingent, a thousand miles inland, likely reaching the Niger River.
1:03.0	Even Batuta, the medieval explorer, experienced the wealth at West Africa's vast gold mines long before Portuguese made their way down the African coast.
1:06.2	In today's episode, I'm speaking to Judas Sheila, author of Shifting Sands, A Human History of the Sahara.
1:11.9	We see how the desert is a vast and highly differentiated space. We say how people survive there
1:16.2	in antiquity. And if you were, say, a merchant traveling across the Sahara in the 10th century,
1:20.6	how would you equip yourself in your caravan and how the feature of the Sahara holds implications
1:24.5	for us all. Hope you enjoy this episode.
1:33.6	And one more thing before we get started with this episode, a quick break for word from our sponsors.
1:44.6	You opened the book describing travel through the Sahara with the departure point being the capital of the African nation of Chad. Before we get into its history, how it was economically productive and all these other
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