behind the story

If we often associate in the European collective imagination the olive tree with Greek myths, it should be known that the olive tree also had its myths in other regions around the Mediterranean and a fortiori in North Africa.

Aulisua participates in this fact. There is a trace of this past, a syncretism [3] resulting from this Mediterranean civilisation. Indeed, Aulisua is mentioned several times on votive stelae from Tunisia to Morocco via Algeria (especially in the Tlemcen region) [4].

Why this choice ? Because Aulisua is a part of our past and beyond its representation, we still have a meaning: “awh” [5] , “protect”, “watch over” in Tamashaq (Tuareg language).

Aulisua by its qualities seemed very close to the attributes of Saturn, but also of Consus and Hercules (Fertility with the agrarian symbol of the ears of wheat, but also strength and courage symbolized by an olive wood club and a lion at its feet, and often a horse in the background, the symbol par excellence of Numidian horsemen).

[3] Indigenous divinity which has been the subject of an interpretatio romana, with the conservation of the indigenous onomastics. Aulisua merged with the Roman gods Hercules and Consus, while keeping its native name.

[4] BRAHMI N.: VOLUBILIS, religious approach to Mauretania Tingitane. Thesis defence, 2008. p. 296

[5] G. CAMPS: Berber Encyclopedia according to Ch. de Foucault 1952, TIII, p. 1,493