<P> To the east, three ancient routes connected the south to the Mediterranean . The herdsmen of the Fezzan of Libya, known as the Garamantes, controlled these routes as early as 1500 BC . From their capital of Germa in the Wadi Ajal, the Garamantean Empire raided north to the sea and south into the Sahel . By the 4th century BC, the independent city - states of Phoenecia had expanded their control to the territory and routes once held by the Garamantes . Shillington states that existing contact with the Mediterranean received added incentive with the growth of the port city of Carthage . Founded c. 800 BCE, Carthage became one terminus for West African gold, ivory, and slaves . West Africa received salt, cloth, beads, and metal goods . Shillington proceeds to identify this trade route as the source for West African iron smelting . Trade continued into Roman times . Although there are Classical references to direct travel from the Mediterranean to West Africa (Daniels, p. 22f), most of this trade was conducted through middlemen, inhabiting the area and aware of passages through the drying lands . The Legio III Augusta subsequently secured these routes on behalf of Rome by the 1st century AD, safeguarding the southern border of the empire for two and half centuries . </P> <P> Herodotus had spoken of the Garamantes hunting the Ethiopian Troglodytes with their chariots; this account was associated with depictions of horses drawing chariots in contemporary cave art in southern Morocco and the Fezzan, giving origin to a theory that the Garamantes, or some other Saran people, had created chariot routes to provide Rome and Carthage with gold and ivory . However, it has been argued that no horse skeletons have been found dating from this early period in the region, and chariots would have been unlikely vehicles for trading purposes due to their small capacity . </P> <P> The earliest evidence for domesticated camels in the region dates from the 3rd century . Used by the Berber people, they enabled more regular contact across the entire width of the Sahara, but regular trade routes did not develop until the beginnings of the Islamic conversion of West Africa in the 7th and 8th centuries . Two main trade routes developed . The first ran through the western desert from modern Morocco to the Niger Bend, the second from modern Tunisia to the Lake Chad area . These stretches were relatively short and had the essential network of occasional oases that established the routing as inexorably as pins in a map . Further east of the Fezzan with its trade route through the valley of Kaouar to Lake Chad, Libya was impassable due to its lack of oases and fierce sandstorms . A route from the Niger Bend to Egypt was abandoned in the 10th century due to its dangers . </P> <P> The rise of the Ghana Empire, now called Mali, Senegal, and southern Mauritania, paralleled the increase in trans - Saharan trade . Mediterranean economies were short of gold but could supply salt, taken by places like the African salt mine of Taghaza, whereas West African countries like Wangara had plenty of gold but needed salt . The trans - Saharan slave trade was also important because large numbers of Africans were sent north, generally to serve as domestic servants or slave concubines . The West African states imported highly trained slave soldiers . It has been estimated that from the 10th to the 19th century some 6,000 to 7,000 slaves were transported north each year . Perhaps as many as nine million slaves were exported along the trans - Saharan caravan route . Several trade routes became established, perhaps the most important terminating in Sijilmasa (Morocco) and Ifriqiya to the north . There, and in other North African cities, Berber traders had increased contact with Islam, encouraging conversions, and by the 8th century, Muslims were traveling to Ghana . Many in Ghana converted to Islam, and it is likely that the Empire's trade was privileged as a result . Around 1050, Ghana lost Aoudaghost to the Almoravids, but new goldmines around Bure reduced trade through the city, instead benefiting the Malinke of the south, who later founded the Mali Empire . </P>

Timbuktu was a major commercial and trade route through the sahara