Hoggar Mountains nearly a thousand miles away from Phazania. In the summer of 2000, a multidisciplinary archaeological team from the British universities of Reading, Newcastle and Leicester confirmed a three thousand mile long natural irrigation network connected to underground water supplies had been positively identified, confirming the fact that the Garamantians had controlled an empire of over 70,000 square miles which featured three major cities (modern Germa, Zinchecra and Saniat Gebril) and nearly two dozen lesser settlements. The irrigation network allowed for expanded food production and the maintenance of a sedentary population of some 50,000 souls. The new discoveries have also spurred a revision of the historical tables: the first towns would have appeared around 500 B.C.E, and the Garamantians would have become a significant political entity around100 B.C.E., eventually disappearing around 750 C.E. with the onslaught of Islamic conquerors into the area. British newspaper The Independent quotes the team's leader, University of Leicester archaeologist Prof. David Mattingly, thus: "Our research is revealing that, with human ingenuity and against all the odds, the people of the world's largest desert were able to create a prosperous and successful civilization in one of the dryest and hottest wildernesses on Earth. The Romans liked to think of the Garamantes as simple barbarians. The new archaeological evidence is now putting teh record straight and showing they were brilliant farmers, resourceful engineers and enterprising merchants who produced a remarkable civilization." Mattingly was perhaps referring to the citadel at Aghram Nadarif ("city of salt" in the Berber language), measuring 460 feet