By Sahifa Sharif, archeologist
All colonial societies aimed for one thing and only one thing, erase the identities of colonized countries and diminish their civilization to the animal rank, France was not against this ideology, it was one of the countries that celebrate this unhuman ideology and even practiced it in the field.
The colonization of Algeria in 1830 by French government was based on some fake reasons such as saving the Algerian people from the ottoman authority who was according to their belief a dictatorship one, when she established her government and army in Algeria, the French authorities started a new historical approach to the Algerian land.
France was claiming herself as the legitimate daughter of the Roman Empire, therefore, entering and colonizing Algeria was just a recovery of her ancestors’ legacy, France started to explore Algeria and documenting all the archaeological remains of the country and in order to confirm the validity of their beliefs they started to document only Roman ruins, and make all natives such as Numidian or Punic remains as roman as well.
One of the examples was the introduction of the book «les ruines romaines de l’Algérie» published in 1867 by the Comte Christian De Vigneral who was assigned by the Marechal Rondon to study all the roman remains in Algeria, and to make geographic maps to show the predominance of the Roman ruins in order to convince all the international communities of France’s right to occupy Algeria, and to not show any local archeological remains.
When any searcher opens the book of A.A.A. or «ATLAS ARCHEOLOGIQUE D’ALGERIE» of Stephane Gsell, and browse any page of it, the only phrase that he can see, and which is repetitive in any page is R.R. or Roman Ruin, and for R.N. or Numid Ruin we almost can’t found it in any page, and when a searcher or any archaeological lover see those mentions, there’s only one question that came in their mind, was Algeria empty when Roman civilization was there ? Did the Romans come to a desertic country and established themselves? Where were the locals?
The history of Algeria is a part of the broader history of the ancient Maghreb and the Mediterranean Sea and go further in the time to over two million years old, when Algerian archaeologist discover the presence of humanoids in the archaeological field of «ain el hanech» in Setif, the city of Cirta is a millennium city with her Numidian remains, Jijel is a Phoenician commercial harbor, when you visit Algeria you’ll not only see Roman ruins but local’s one such as Numidian mausoleum of Imadghassen which was built in the 5th B.C., many other examples can be quoted in this article, such as the megalithic tombs and Numidian cemeteries.
Even the rural vestiges were classified as Roman ruins without any scientific conscience, and for the medieval ruins they were just put apart without further studies, they were just noticed as «Arab ruins».
The French colonialists, from the first moment of their invasion of Algeria, employed archaeological research in order to market some false ideas that the local population always needed to live under the shadow of the foreigner, highlighting that archaeological research focused within this strategy on what the Romans had accomplished in Algeria, with total neglect of the period. Numidian, Even the choice of terminology was not innocent, including the terms menhir and dolmen to express the stone stele and stone tables placed on graves in ancient times. The French researcher J Déchelette said it explicitly in his book «Archéologie préhistorique», completed in 1908, that relying on the terms menhir and dolmen “It gives me more belonging to France.”
In the book of «Histoire et Historiens de l’Algérie 1830-1930» which was released at the centenary of French occupation of Algeria, they produce and create a new theory called NATURAL DISABILITY which stipulates that the south occupant of the Mediterranean Sea cannot guide themselves and cannot create government of their own because they don’t have the ability to rule, they are unable to create a civilization or a kingdom, therefore, the French occupation came to colonize Algeria since they are not capable to be on their own.
The French government did his best to erase the Algerian identity and culture, and tried for more than 132 years to wipe out everything about Algerian local civilizations, and still trying too by denying the genocides that she perpetrated against Algerian people during the colonization and the forced exiles that were committed against Algeria.
The Algerian archaeologists are working hard to give to local ruins their true identity and value.
Cover graph: The Numidian Mausoleum of Imadghassen, built in the 5th B.C.