Debate Over Ancient Names of Morocco and Its People Explores Color and Geography

A sharp debate is unfolding in academic and intellectual circles over the ancient names of Morocco and its people, driven by differing intellectual currents. This intellectual clash often obscures historical facts under the weight of ideology, reminiscent of identity struggles.

One common interpretation of the name "Amazigh" suggests it means "free human" or "noble man." However, this interpretation lacks linguistic support from ancient inscriptions or classical sources. The article's author, a visual artist, focused on the history of colors and their connection to peoples. This led to an examination of the name "Phoenicians," a maritime people from the Levant whose presence extended to North Africa. Greek sources linked their name to "Phoinix," meaning purple, due to their fame in extracting dye from murex shells. This visual color designation evolved into a collective identity marker.

The author posits that the naming of the Phoenicians was not isolated but revealed a deeper pattern in ancient thought: the connection of people's names to colors and natural geography. The Greeks inherited this from earlier cultures and applied it from east to west. For instance, the Gauls (Celts) derived their name from whiteness, with the Greeks calling them Γαλάται (Galatai), linking it to the Greek word “gala” (γάλα) for milk, referencing their fair skin. Conversely, the southern region was named "Ethiopia" (Αἰθιοπία), meaning "burnt face," a description used by Strabo, Pliny, and Ptolemy for dark-skinned peoples from the Red Sea to the Atlantic. The Arabic term "Al-Bidhan" (the white ones) was contrasted with "Al-Sudan" (the black ones) based on the same logic.

Between these extremes, a pattern of redness and brownness emerged. The name "Canaan" (Knaggi in Hittite texts) literally means "red-purple dyer," from which the Greeks derived their name for its people, Phoinix. The Hebrew name "Edom" (אֱדוֹם) stems from the root (a-d-m), signifying redness and blood, confirmed by the Book of Genesis describing Esau as "red." The name "Himyar" in South Arabian inscriptions (h-m-r) denotes red, referring to the royal red garments or reddish complexion. This color spectrum ranges from the white north to the black south, with red and brown in between. These names, in their natural context, carried no value judgment but were visual descriptions based on direct climatic observation.

The Roman name "Mauretania" for their North African province combines "Mauri" (the people's name) and "tania" (a Latin suffix meaning land or region), literally translating to "land of the Moors." Strabo noted that the Greeks called this people "Maurusii," while Romans and locals used "Mauri." The suffix "-tania" appears in other Roman provinces that had contact with Phoenicians and Carthaginians, like "Lusitania" and "Aquitania." It seems to derive from a Semitic-Canaanite root similar to Arabic (w-t-n), carrying the meaning of "homeland," which the Romans adopted from local usage. Some have attempted to link the root "Mauri" to the Amazigh word "tamurt" meaning land, but this faces a morphological issue: if the name originated from a word meaning land, the construction would be "land of the land," which is illogical for place names.