To the Origins of the History of Religions in Ancient North Africa

An “Essay On Lybians’ Religion” of Lucien Bertholon: Approach, Method and Conclusions

Abstract

A trained physician who became fascinated by physical anthropology, Lucien Bertholon was the first author to write about ancient Libyan religions. An active agent in Tunisian colonisation and an adherent of the diffusionist movement, he attributed a non-African origin to a large segment of the ancient Libyans, their culture and their cults, contending that they would all have been imported from the Aegean region. Their arrival in the region of Libya represented a period of stasis and stagnation for these immigrants. It was French colonisation of the Maghreb that led to the discovery of the ‘lingering archaism’ of these populations and to the establishment of an analogy between some of their contemporary cultural practices and their ancestors’ beliefs. Bertholan’s recourse to physical anthropology and ethnology, together with his analogical method and his diffusionist approach, led him to reach conclusions that were certainly original but which have had no echo in any subsequent studies by historians of North African religion.