Green stone beads from the excavation in 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. Archaeological and geological investigations in this region have generally attributed the green stone beads and pendants found in archaeological contexts to amazonite extracted from the pegmatite dikes 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 green stone beads consist of different lithotypes (serpentine and amazonite) and that the source of this amazonite could not be the pegmatite outcrop at Eghei Zuma. Furthermore, we discuss the archaeological implication of our results, which concerns trade routes and the movement of amazonite beads in the ancient Sahara, and try to identify potential sources of amazonite in the Sahara and surrounding regions.