TIL about the Garamantes, an advanced civilization in the Sahara desert, based on irrigation from aquifers. Its disappearance was possibly caused by the depletion of the fossil water it relied on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GaramantesOpen linkView original on sh.itjust.works
The Garamantes are cool and notable for not being based around a river at all. I got introduced to them when they were added as a civ in the strategy game Humankind.
Another fascinating rabbit hole about the world's largest irrigation project in the same region: Libya's Great Man-Made River
I was reading it as germanatees like German manatees…