The traditional Berber religion (also called Libyco-Berber religion or Amazigh religion,Sadiqi, Fatima. "Women in Morocco." Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History. 2024. or Numidian religion) were various sets of beliefs and deities adhered to by Berbers (or Amazighs), and possibly other groups within Northwest Africa. They have themselves influenced and are somewhat influenced by the beliefs of the other peoples of the mediterranean including but not limited to: ancient Egyptians, Punics, Greeks, and Romans.
In areas of the Maghreb in which agriculture could be practiced, rain and water sources played important parts within local belief systems. Worship of spirits living in caverns and grottos was common. For example worship of the fertility goddess related to caverns, Ifru (Africa), was widespread in coastal Algeria. In other, more pastoral areas such as Libya, worship of the sun and moon were common, though these were also present in areas such as Morocco and Algeria. Berber groups across the region also practiced ancestor worship.
The Christianization of Rome pushed animistic and polytheistic Berber beliefs out of urban areas, though total evangelization failed, and after the Arab conquest of the Maghreb, the traditional Berber religion and local Christianity gradually disappeared. Elements of the ancient Berber beliefs still exist today subtly within the Berber popular culture and tradition.
Pantheon
List of the most venerated deities DivinityDivinity ofCult CentersBaal HammonUnderworld SkyJebel Boukornine Cirta TimgadTanitWar Civilization
FertilityThinissut (Bir Bouregba,Tunisia) Cirta (Constantine) Lambaesis (Batna) Theveste (Tebessa).GurzilWarNumidia, MauretaniaAnzarSky Water RainNumidia, MauretaniaAfricaFertility CavesTimgad El Djem (Thysdrus)Gifty Ako-Adounvo (1999), Studies in the Iconography of Blacks in Roman Art, Ph.D. Thesis awarded by McMaster University, Thesis Advisor: Katherine Dunbabin, page 82AtlasMaximus of Tyre, ibid: "It is at the same time the sanctuary, the god, the bond of oaths and the idol of the Libyans."Mountains EnduranceAncient LibyaNanna TalaFertilityJado (Fess’at’u), LibyaTafuktSunNumidia, MauretaniaAyyurMoonNumidia, MauretaniaSinifere (Canapphari)WarBu Njem, Tripolitania.Fudina (Vihinam)ChildbirthNumidia, CarthageLilleo (from the berber word Lilu meaning "Shining", "clean")HygieneNumidia, CarthageMacvrgvm (From the berber word MKR "Mokran = Big")War SerpentsNumidia, CarthageDracoSerpentsNumidia, CarthageTisianes/TitanesHealingNumidia, CarthageSettutMagicKabylia
Tafukt & Ayyur According to Herodotus, all ancient Berbers worshipped the moon and sun (Tafukt in Tamazight) and sacrificed solely to them. In Berber, the Moon (Ayyur in Tamazight) and the god of the moon carry the same name. Masinissa, the first king of Numidia, commonly paid tribute to the sun god Apollo in 179 B.C to his temple in Delos, the assumed birthplace of Apollo and his twin sister Artemis (the goddess of the moon), for which he received a golden crown from the inhabitants of the Greek island Delos.Itineraria Phoenicia - Edward Lipiński Tullius Cicero (105–43 BCE) also reported the same cult in On the Republic (Scipio's Dream):
Further authors such as Apuleius or Augustine of Hippo mention that sun worship continued into the first millennium and the seventh century. Coptic saint Samuel the Confessor appears to have been harassed by the sun-worshiping Berbers who tried unsuccessfully to force him to worship the sun.
Some Latin inscriptions were found in Northwest Africa dedicated to the sun-god. An example is the inscription found in Souk Ahras (the birthplace of Augustine; Thagaste in Algeria) written "Solo Deo Invicto".James Hastings, The Encyclopedia of Religion & Ethics, 1926, 4e partie, . The megalithic culture may have been part of a cult of the dead or of star-worship.
The cult of Amon and rams Also called African Saturn and Baal Hammon. Since antiquity, the ancient Libyans (Berbers inhabiting ancient Libya) worshipped the god Amon,. who was also worshipped by the Ancient Egyptians. According to Herodotus and Pausanias, the cult had Berber origin and later spread to Egypt and then Greece, probably via the Greek colony of Cyrene. In the Siwa Oasis, located in Western Egypt, there remained a solitary oracle of Amon near the Libyan Desert.Pausanias, Description of Greece x.13 § 3
Amon's wife Amunet is also believed to have originated from Libya. She is the Egyptian mythological goddess of the underworld. Amentet (meaning the "Land of the Setting Sun" or "The West") is where the dead wait for Ra to arrive.
In Berber beliefs, the sheep was a sacred animal to Amun. In the discussion of Athanase of Alexandria against the Gentiles, it is said that for the Libyan populations (Berbers), the god Amun is often named Amen and was venerated as a divinity. Iarbas, a mythological king of Numidia who sold Dido the land on which she founded Carthage, was also considered a son of Amun. Another famous son of Ammon is the Berber god of war Gurzil.
In Algeria, When a sheep gave birth to a female, this fruit of her womb belonged to the master of the flock; when she gave birth to a male, he was reserved for the gods; but, if she gave two twins at the same time, one female and the other male, it was said: "The latter has redeemed her brother," and the lamb was not slain, and the mother was called ousila.
Diodorus Siculus mentions Ammon as the king of Libya who married Rhea (daughter of Uranus and sister of the Titans). According to him he fell in love with a "maiden of unusual beauty": Amaltheia with whom he fathered Dionysus. According to other stories, Dionysus was the son of Zeus.Diodorus Siculus 3.68 and 3.74. The Egyptian version of Amun was often identified by the Greeks to be Zeus.
War Goddess Tanit
The ancient cult of Neith (Ha-nit) (or Nit, or Tinnit) influenced the ancient Egyptians with their goddess Neith, and the Hellenes with their goddess Athena through the Berber cult of war, and was an imported deity from Libya who was in wide worship in 600 BC in Sais (Archaic name: Ha-Nit) by the Libyan population inhabiting Sais, a temple of Neith was established in this city by the earliest local dynasty. Neith is the direct predecessor to Athena as follows:
The Libyan Amazons are without doubt part of this cult. Athena, imposed the Amazons of Libya in Troy and in Greece, the Libyan Amazons remained in the village of Tenæ at the south of Sfax and Cartenæ (Tenes).
According to mythology, Athena was believed to have been born in Lake Tritonis in North Africa (modern-day Algeria and Tunisia), which is why she was given the epithet Tritogeneia. In one version of the story she is the daughter of Poseidon and Tritonis, a Libyan lake nymph, and as the same source adds, after a disagreement with her father, she gave herself to Zeus, who made her his own daughter, which explains why both are considered gods of horses.
In his dialogue Timaeus, the Greek philosopher Plato has Critias claim that Neith is the Egyptian name of Athena. Some identified the Punic Tanit as the Middle Eastern goddesses like Anat or Astarte but Steve A. Wiggins argued that "local associations should not be considered definitive" and that "we must not assert more than the evidence will allow".
Africa
Africa (Tamazight: Ifri/Ifru) was a goddess of fertility and abundance worshipped by the Berbers and the tribe of Ifri. Her iconography typically included an elephant-mask headdress, a cornucopia, a military standard, and a lion. the Latin designation (Africa) originally meant the land of the Afri was also known from the Berber word ifri (plural ifran) meaning "cave". To the Berbers, Africa was a deity associated with caves which were her main places of worship, coins and other materials depicting this deity were discovered mainly in Algeria in Albulae (Aïn Temouchent) and in Guechguech, 16 km east of Constantine. She was later included in the roman pantheon and became the personification of the region of Africa Proconsularis and later the name used for the entire continent of Africa.
Gurzil Gurzil, the son of the god Ammon and a heipher, he appears in later texts and is worshipped by tribes such as the Austoriani outside the Roman frontiers of Libya. He was considered a war god and was taken by the Berbers to their battles against the Byzantines. Corippus mentioned that the chiefs of the Laguata took their god Gurzil into battle against the Byzantines and Arabs. It is very likely that the sanctuary of Gurzil was located in Ghirza, in Libya, where remarkable reliefs show a noble Libyan receiving tribute while seated on a curule chair.O. Brogan and D. Smith, 1984, Ghirza: a Libyan Settlement in the Roman Period. Tripoli. The temple was in use well into the sixth century. He is presumed to be a god of the sun or a god associated with battles. He is usually identified with bulls.
Atlas Atlas is a Greek Titan commonly associated with the Atlas Mountains in North Africa and the borders of Ancient Libya. Nonnus calls in Dionysiaca (13.333) both Athena and her matrilineal grandfather Atlas "Libyan". Maximus of Tyre mentions the mountains as a deity of the Libyans.
In an interpretation of the ancient sources, he is seen as the first king of Mauretania which was popularized by Gerardus Mercator who coined the term "atlas" based on .
Triton Herodotus claims that Poseidon originated from Libya. According to him the Libyans at Lake Tritonis also worshiped Triton. Triton might have been a more local deity or may be related to Poseidon. He was also linked to Tritonis, the mother of Athena, as a potential female counterpart.
Other deities Corippus mentions Sinifere, who was described as a god of war worshiped by the Eastern Libyans but might have been a "tribal god". Mastiman (or Autiman) was also mentioned by him and was also identified as god of war and was later associated with Mercury. Other divinities are: