The Garamantes, a Saharan kingdom
Underground canals turn Fezzan's oases into a farming kingdom
The Garamantes built a state with its capital at Garama in the Fezzan desert. Underground foggara canals brought ancient groundwater to their fields, and caravans linked the kingdom to the Mediterranean and the Sahel. Herodotus already described them; their kingdom declined as the water reserves ran out.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 5th century BC
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- c. 509 BC Founding of the Roman Republic — 9 years earlier
- 508 BC Cleisthenes' reforms and the birth of democracy — 8 years earlier
- 490 BC Battle of Marathon — 10 years later
- 480 BC Battle of Thermopylae — 20 years later
- 480 BC Battle of Salamis — 20 years later
Middle East
- c. 520 BC The Behistun inscription — 20 years earlier
Asia
- c. 500 BC Sun Tzu's The Art of War — same year
- c. 483 BC Death of the Buddha — 17 years later
- 479 BC Death of Confucius — 21 years later
Alive at the time
- Pythagoras (aged 70)
- Gautama Buddha (aged 63)
- Confucius (aged 51)
- Darius the Great (aged 50)
- Sun Tzu (aged 44)
- Leonidas I (aged 40)
- Xerxes I (aged 18)
- Heraclitus (aged 35)
- Themistocles (aged 24)