After the overthrow of the enigmatic Muammar al-Gaddafi nearly ten whole years ago, Libya has fallen off the cusp of self-determination that many countries, African and otherwise envied. Although this part of North Africa had no access to such an essential resource as the Nile, it had no less been populated for at least two millennia before the Phoenicians invaded. The tribes he classified as Maurusioi are those now described as ancient Berber. Soon enough, by the Punic Wars of the 3rd century before the common era, the whole of the northwest of Africa was referred to as Libya owing to how the Carthaginians spelled Libu. When Italy colonized modern Libya in 1911, the Europeans stuck with the name.

Source: The North Africa Journal January 17, 2021 21:11 UTC