The two Roman cities of Leptis Magna and Sabratha stand today amid almost total desolation…erected upon “carcasses des chameaux”.
-The Myth of Trans-Saharan Trade during the Roman Era, 1975, John Swanson
When I knew John Swanson in Cairo in 1978, the same year I met camel merchant Hajj Bashir, I wish I’d asked him how the great cities north of the Sahara were built upon their carcasses. I’d only seen them at the livestock market, some thrown onto burn piles after succumbing to the Darb, others sold by Hajj Bashir live on the hoof to Egyptian butchers in a trans-Saharan trade that made him a rich man.