406 LIBYA LIBYAN SEA Adriatic, and had settlements on the Italian coast. They were a piratical race, and used fast-sailing vessels with one large lateen sail, which, adopted by the Romans in the struggle with Carthage, gradually supplanted the high- bulwarked galleys and became known as naves Liburnce or simply Liburnce. The Liburnians were the first of the Illyrians to submit to Eome. LIBYA, the name given by the ancient geog- raphers to Africa, or that portion lying be- tween Egypt and the Atlantic. It was also the name of a district between Egypt and Mar- marica, which, in contradistinction to the for- mer, was often designated as Libya Exterior. (See LIBYANS.) LIBYAN DESERT, that part of the Sahara or Great Desert which lies E. of Fezzan and the country of the Tibboos. It is about 1,000 m. in length from Tripoli to Darfoor and Waday, and from 500 to 600 m. in width, its E. border being Egypt and Nubia. Unlike the W. divi- sion of the Sahara, the Libyan desert contains a number of oases or fertile tracts which support a moderate population, and nearly all of them are overspread with extensive groves of date trees and fields in which durra is grown. Gen- erally, however, the surface consists of vast lev- el sandy plains or gravelly deserts extending E. and W., separated by low rocky ridges, or shelving down in a series of terraces toward the Mediterranean. Portions of the Libyan desert have recently been explored by the Ger- man traveller Gerhard Rohlfs. (See ROHLFS.) See also Bayle St. John's " Adventures in the Libyan Desert" (1849). LIBYANS, a group of peoples of N. Africa, linguistically related to the Egyptians and Ethiopians, and like them forming a family of the Hamitic division of the Semitic race in the wider sense. To them belong the Imo- sharh or Amazirgh, who are commonly known as Tuariks and Berbers. They are a mixed people, who divide themselves into Jhaggars, or the free, and Imrhads, the subjected, or vassals, the latter being evidently conquered tribes who adopted the language and customs of the Berbers, The Imosharh are an exten- sive nomad people, who inhabit the whole of northern Africa, and especially the oases be- tween the Arab states of the north and the negro territories of the interior. They form numerous independent tribes bearing distinct names. Those occupying the mountainous dis- trict between Algiers and Tunis are known as Kabyles, and the inhabitants of the mountains of southern Morocco as Shelloohs or Shulluhs. The Imosharh speak the Ta-Mashek (Ta-Maseq) language, of which the characteristic peculiar- ities will be given under SEMITIC RACE AND LANGUAGES. Several eminent students of the African languages consider it akin to the Hous- sa language, and accordingly include the Hous- sa race in the Libyan group. Others, how- ever, deny that this language possesses any of the elements characteristic of the Hamitic or Dysseinitic tongues. The Houssa language is widely spoken in N. W. Africa, principally in the Houssa states Katsena, Saria, Kano, and others, as far N. as Damerghu and Air, and as a commercial language as far S. and W. as Yoruba and Borgoo on the right shore of the Niger. Recent researches have identified the names of places, rivers, and mountains spoken of by the ancients and inscribed on Egyptian monuments as those of the Libyans, with the names applied to them in the Ta-Mashek lan- guage, which renders it to a high degree prob- able that the modern Berbers are the direct descendants of the ancient Libyans. They were a highly civilized people, and powerful both by sea and by land, occupying in remote times the entire coast of N. Africa, with the exception of the delta of the Nile. Lepsius and other Egyptologists suppose that the Liby- ans were the original inhabitants of the terri- tory of the Egyptians, and that these drove them out of N. E. Africa on their immigration from Asia. The Libyans were probably one of the earliest maritime nations of the Medi- terranean, and were formidable enemies of Egypt. It seems that the fleet of Thothmes III., about 1600 B. 0., succeeded in breaking their power on the sea; but they continued their incursions into Egypt by land, and the monuments of Seti I., about 1450 B. 0., and of Rameses II., about 1400, tell of the terrible devastations which they caused. About this time the Pelasgic nations on the northern coasts of the Mediterranean had developed also into great seafaring peoples. The Libyans entered into a confederation with them and regained their naval power, and in the reign of Mer- neptah, during the 14th century B. 0., being joined by the Tyrrhenians and Achasans, they invaded and nearly conquered Lower Egypt, under their king Maurmuiu, son of Batta. Their progress was stopped near Paari in cen- tral Egypt, where they were completely de- feated, and they retreated after having covered a great part of Egypt with ruins. The tradi- tion recorded by Sallust, that at some early period Medes, Persians, and Armenians, com- manded by Hercules, arrived on the N. coast of Africa, has led to the supposition that there was originally a distinction between Japhetic and Hamitic Libyans. Oanaanitish colonies were established in Africa proper (the regions S. of Cape Bon), and in time was formed the Libyo-Phcenician nation. After the founda- tion of Carthage by the Phoenicians, and of Gyrene and other states by the Greeks, the Libyans, unable to resist their gradual expan- sion, were compelled to move inland. They had grown feeble, and when they called on Egypt to assist them against the Cyrenaeans, about 570 B. 0., they were defeated, and their subjection was only confirmed. The rapid rise of the Carthaginian, Greek, and Roman em- pires soon deprived the Libyans of all histori- cal importance. LIBYAN SEA, the name given by ancient geographers to that part of the Mediterranean
