Town and Country in Roman Tripolitania: Papers in honour of Olwen Hackett 9780860543503, 9781407343686

Table of contents :
Front Cover
Copyright
Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Contributors
Preface
Olwen Hackett and Tripolitania
Olwen Brogan - A Bibliography
1. The Historical Development of Sabratha
2. An Inscription from the Wadi Antar
3. Inscriptions in the Pre-Desert of Tripolitania
4. Olive Oil Production in Roman Tripolitania
5. Provincial Art in Roman Tripolitania
6. Early Roman Vessel Glass from Burials in Tripolitania: a Study of Finds from Forte della Vite and Other Sites Now in the Collections of the National Museum of Antiquities in Tripoli
7. Settlement Chronology in the Pre-Desert Zone: the Evidence of the Fineware
8. Le 'Limes' de Tripolitaine
9. Regio Tripolitania, a Reappraisal
10. The Praesides Provinciae Tripolitanae Civil Administrators and Military Commanders
11. Frontier Processes in Roman Tripolitania
12. Remote Sensing in Archaeological Survey: Current and Potential Applications in North-West Libya
13. Climate and Social Dynamics: the Tripolitanian Example, 300 BC - AD 300
14. Ghirza
15. Romans and Garamantes - an Enquiry into Contacts
16. The Libyan Valleys Survey: the Development of Settlement Survey
17. The UNESCO Libyan Valleys Survey: Developing Methodologies for Investigating Ancient Floodwater Farming
18. Concluding Remarks

Citation preview

Town and Country in Roman Tripolitania Papers in honour of 0 lwen Hackett

edited by D.J. Buck and D.J. Mattingly

Society for Libyan Studies Occasional Papers II

BAR International Series 274

1985

B.A.R.

5, Centremead, Osney Mead, Oxford OX2 0ES, England.

GENERAL EDITORS A.R Hands, B.Sc., M.A., D.Phil. D.R Walker, M.A.

B.A.R. -S274, 1985: Town and Country in Roman Tripolitania'

© The Individual Authors, 1985.

The authors’ moral rights under the 1988 UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act are hereby expressly asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be copied, reproduced, stored, sold, distributed, scanned, saved in any form of digital format or transmitted in any form digitally, without the written permission of the Publisher. ISBN 9780860543503 paperback ISBN 9781407343686 e-book DOI https://doi.org/10.30861/9780860543503 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library This book is available at www.barpublishing.com

CONTENTS

page L I ST OF I LL UST RAT I ON S . • • • • • • . • • . . . i i i LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS • • • • • • • • ••. viii PREFACE D.J. Buck and D.J. Mattingly •••• ix OLWEN HACKETT AND TRIPOLITANIA J.M. Reynolds • x OLWEN BROGAN, A BIBLIOGRAPHY D.J. Buck and D.J. Mattingly • . • • xii 1.

The Historical

Development

of Sabratha

P.M. Kenrick.

2.

An Inscription

from the Wadi Antar 0. Brogan

3.

Inscriptions

l

and J.M. Reynolds

in the Pre-desert

Olive

Oil

Production D.J.

5.

Provincial

Art

Early

in Roman Tripolitania

l O•

Price

. ....

27

. .....

. 47

.

• • 67

Settlement Chronology in the Pre-desert the Evidence of the Fineware Dore

Un Nouveau Document sur 'Regio

Zone:

. .........

107

.

le 'Limes' . . . . .

127

Tripolitana' - A Reappraisal G. di Vita-Evrard . .

143

The ' Pr a e s i de s Pr o v i nc i a e Tr i po l i t an a e ' - Ci v i l Administrators and Military C9mnancters

G.H. Donaldson. Frontier

Processes D.J.

12.

. .

. . . . . .

R. Rebuff at 9.

23

Roman Vessel Glass from Burials in Tripolitania: a Study of Finds from Forte del la Vi t e and O t he r S i t e s now i n t he Co 1 l e c t i on s of the National Museum of Antiquities in Tripoli

J.N.

8.

. ..

in Roman Tripolitania

J.

T.

. . . . .

Mattingly.

H.M. Walda

6.

13

of Tripolitania

J.M. Reynolds

4.

. .....

Remote Sensing Potential

. . . . . . . . .

165

in Roman Tripolitania Buck . ......

in Archaeological Survey: Applications in North-west J .A. Al I an.

179

.

Current Libya

and

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

19 l

13.

Climate and Social Dynamics: 300 BC - AD 300 J.R.

Burns and B .. Denness . ......

D.J.

Smith

14.

Ghirza

15.

Romans and Garamantes

- an Enquiry

The UNESCDLibyan Valleys Settlement Survey G.D.B.

17.

The UNESCDLibyan Methodologies Farming Concluding

201

into Contacts

. . . .

Survey:

Jones

241

. ....

the Development

of

. ..

Valleys Survey: Developing for Investigating Ancient

G.W.W. Barker . ............

18.

Example,

. 227

M. Milburn 16.

the Tripolitanian

263

Floodwater 291

Remarks G.D.B.

Jones

.............

i i

307

LIST

OF ILLUSTRATIONS page

Fig.

1:1.

Fig.

1:2.

Fig .

1:3.

Fig.

1:4.

Fig. Fig.

1:5. 1:6.

Fig.

1:7.

Fig. Fig.

2: 1. 2:2.

Fig.

2:3.

Fig.

4:1.

Fig.

4:2.

Fig.

4:3.

Fig. Fig. Fig.

4:4. 4:5. 4:6.

Fig.

4:7.

Fig.

5: 1.

Fig. Fig.

5:2. 5:3.

Fig.

5:4.

Fig.

5:5.

Fig. l=ig.

5:6.

5:7.

Sabratha: site plan, showing the num bering of Regiones and Insul ae 1n the principal excavated area •••••••••• The Casa Brogan: schematic plan of Per i od I I ( second c en tu r y BC) , sho w i n g the presumed line of the contemporary city wall •. ••••.•••• • ••• • East Forum Temple, Period I, and traces of contemporary Forum (mid first century AD) • • • • • • • • • . • • • • • • • • East Forum Temple, Period II, and Forum, Per i od I b, as rec on s t r u ct e d fol low i n g t he ea r t h q u a k e i n t h e F l a v i a n p e r i o d. • • . Reg i o I I I , I n s u l a 1 , p l a n • • • • . Forum and East Forum Temple, Period III (late Antonine) •• ••••••.•••. Forum and East Forum Temple , Period IV (late third and early f~urth centuries AD ) , V ( a f t e r AD 3 6 5 ) a n d V I ( B y z a n t i n e ) • . Location map of the Antar cemetery .•. . General view of the collapsed tomb lb and statue, Wadi Antar •.••.. The i n s c r i pt i on f r om tomb I b, Wad i Ant a r. • • . . • • . • • • • . Plan of the olive press excavated in the Wadi el-Amud •...•...•.•• lv1ap showing the boundary between the territor ia of Lepcis and Oea, in relat ion to the 3 0 0rrim r a inf al l i so h yet and the area covered by Fig. 4:3 ..... . Distribution of olive presses around Tarhuna and in the Fergian, after Cowper ·, Good c h i l d and Oa t e s . . Plan of Senam Howod Ne j em ..• Plan of Senam Rubdir. • • • • .•..•. Pressing stones (arae) from Senam Rubdir ••••••.....•••.••. Distribution of olive presses in the pre-desert • • . . • . • . • . • . . A relief of Dionysius and the Graces, Lep cis Magna. • ••.•..•...•• A statue of Ares Borghese, Lepcis Magn a A statue of the Dioscuri. The Theatre, Lepcis Magna • • • • • • • •.. A statue of Apollo Ci tharaedus, Bulla Reg i a . • . • • . . • • . . • . A statue of Saturn crowned with a tower, Bu l la Reg i a . • . • • . • • . • • . . Bust of Jupiter of Sabratha, Sabratha. Head of Oceanus in mosaic, Sabratha .•. iii

3

5 7 7 8

10 10 14 16 16 28

33

33 35 36

36 38 50

5l 51 53 53 54 54

Fig.

5:8.

Fig. Fig.

5:9. 5: 10.

Fig. Fig.

5:11. 5:12.

Fig.

5:13.

Fig.

5:14.

Fig.

6:1.

A Korus recovered from the area of the Harbour, Lepe is Magna. . • • • • . • . • A Herm from the Nymphaeum, Lepcis Magna . • A half figure of Victory 1n frontal posit ion, Lepe is Magna. • . • . • • • • The Arch of M. Aurel i us, Oe a, Tr i pol i . • . Medallion of Gorgon Medusa showing a delicate modelling, Severan Forum, Lepe i s Magna • • • • • • . • . • . • • • • . • • Medallion of Gorgon Medusa showing crude carving, Severan Forum, Lepcis Magna. Sacrificial scene. Severan Arch, Lepcis rv\a..gna •

Fig. Fig.

6:2. 6:3.

Fig.

6:4.

Fig.

6:5.

Fig. Fig. Fig.

6:6. 6:7. 6:8.

Fig. Fig.

6:9. 6:10.

Fig. Fig.

6:11. 6: 12.

fig.

6:13.

Fig. Fig. Fig.

6:14. 7:1. 7:2.

Fig.

7:3.

Fig.

7:4.

Fig.

7:5.

Fig.

7:6.

Fig.

7:7.

Fig.

7:8.

• • • • • • •

• • • • • • • • • •

nos. 1-13: Core-made, cast, mould b 1own , b l own po l y ch r om e and b r i g h t l y coloured vessels, nos. 1-6; Blown drinking cu p s , nos. 7-13. . . • • . • • . • . nos. 14-25: Drinking cups, nos. 14-25.. . nos. 26-39: Drinking cups, nos. 26-8; Bowl s, nos. 2 9 - 3 9. • • . • . • • . • nos. 40-51: Bowls and plates, nos. 409; Flasks, nos. 50-1 • . . . • . • . • . . . nos. 52-4: Flasks, nos. 52-3; Jug, no. 54 . . . . . . . . . . . nos. 55-9: Jugs. • • • • • nos. 60-5: Jugs. . . . . • nos. 66-9, 71-2: Jugs, nos. 66-7; Square bottles, nos. 68-9, 71-2... • . . . no. 70 : Square bottle • . . • • • . . nos. 73-6: Square bottle, no. 73; Cy1 ind r i cal bot t le s , nos. 7 4 - 6. • • • nos. 77-8: Cinerary urns. . • . • • nos. 7 9-80, 8 4 : Cinerary urns, nos . 798 0; L i d , no. 8 4· • • • • • • • • • • nos. 81-3, 85-7: Cinerary urns, nos. 81-2; Lids, nos. 83, 85-7 . . . . . nos. 88 - 100: Unguent bottles • • • • . The survey area. • • . • • • • • • • . Numbers of sites on which occur single classes and pairs of classes of fi n eware • . . . • • • • • . . Typological distribution of f ineware fr om al l farms and gs u r. . • • . • • Typological distribution of f ine w are from opus Africanum olive farms..... Typological distribution of fineware f r om farms i n n i n e wad i s y s t ems . • • • • . . Typological dis tr ibut ion of f ineware from Lm 3 and Lm 4. . • . • • • • • . Typo logical d i s tr i but i on o f f i new are f r om t h r e e t y p e s o f g s u r • • • • • • • • Typo logical d i s tr i but i on o f f i new are fr om gs u r 1 n n i n e wad i sys t ems . . . .

iv

56 57 57 58 6O

60 64

68 71

74 76 79 81 82

83 85

87 89 90

91 94 108 l l2 l l3 114

1l 5 117 1 17

1 19

Fig.

7:9.

Fig.

7: 10.

Fig.

7:11.

Fig.

9:1.

Fig.

~2:1.

Fig.

12:2 .

Fi g . 12:3. Fig. 12:4. Fig . 12:5. Fig.

12:6 .

Fig.

12:7 .

Fig. 13:1. Fi g . 13:2.

F ig.

13:3.

Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.

13:4 .

Typological distribution of fineware f r om a l l s t r u c t u r e s a s s o c i a t e d w i t h olive presses .••••••••••••• Typological distribution of fineware f r om de f e n de d h i l l t op s i t e s • . . • , • . • . Average sherd per unit measures for s amp l e s o f v a r y i n g s i z e s • • • • . Exp l an a t or y s k e t c h t o d o c um e n t 6 • ( Ob viously Regio Tripolitana was not actually divided as would appear from the dotted lines which are nothing more than an ideal projection of the Limes partition) . .......•......... Showing the relationship of archaeological applications and the applications of remote sens i n g. Al so the two d i f fer en t types of archaeological study and their needs with respect to spatial resolution and frequenc y of cover ••••••••• The Al Qubbah area of the Jabal al Akhdar, showing the field boundaries of Libyan farms in the cla ssical period. Landsat photograph of the Mizda area • . Mizda region - La nd Facet map •..•.• Block diagram s howing association of land facets ••••.••• ••.• Gr a rat D' n a r Salem, ob l i q u e a i r v 1 e w, cf. Fig. 16:3 below •. . •••• ••• A~ and satellite se ttlement in the Wadi Umm el-Agerem, ob l ique air vi e w, cf. Fig. 16:12 below •.•. •. •.•. The c l imate-e nergy-i ndu stry-eco nomy link Geographical var iation to temp er ature change • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • World map showin g sites discussed 1n the t eX t

13:5. · 13:6 .

13:7 .

Fi g . 13:8.

.

Fig. Fig.

13:9. 13:10. 13:11 .

.

14:1 .

Fi g . 14:2. Fi g . 14:3 .

123

153

19 2 195

196 197 197 199 199 204 2 05

212 212

........•.

Ra j as than, I n d i a, and · Aus t r a l i a 9 0 0 0 BCPresent ••.••• • .•••.•••... Roman Tr i po l i tan i a - t he s u r v e y are a. . The Denness model and Tripolitania 2400-

1400 BP. . . . . . . . Fig.

12 l

206 206 209 210

. . . . . . .

No r t h A f r i c a AD 1 5 8 0 - 1 9 4 0 • • • • • Ce n t r a -1 Ch i l e AD 1 5 4 0 - 1 9 4 0 • • • • • • • China and Japan AD 140 0 - l 9 5 0. . . . . . Wheat pri ce a nd climat i c change. North we s t Eu r op e AD l 2 7 0 - l 9 l O • • • • • • • • • North Ameri ca and the North Atlantic AD

900-1940 Fig.

.

12 l

. ......

216 220

.

Gh i r z a f r om t h e a 1 r , l o o k i n g we s t ( c . 1960). • . • . . • . • . . • . • • • • • Gh i r za: bu i l dings on the nor th s id e of the Shabet e l-Gsur ••. •..•.•.. Gh i r z a : v i e w i n t he s e t t l e men t , I o o k i n g south a c ros s th e Sh abet el-Gsur ..•.

V

2 15

.

228

2 30 23 1

Fig.

14:4.

Fig.

14:5.

Fig.

14:6.

Fig.

14:7.

Fig.

15:1.

Fig.

15:2.

Fig.

15:3.

Fig.

15:4.

Fig.

15:5.

Fig.

16: 1.

Fig.

16:2.

F.ig.

16:3 . .

Fig.

16:4.

Fig.

16:5.

Fig.

16:6.

Fig.

16:7.

Fig.

16:8.

Ghirza: small altar i'nscribed in Libyan characters, from the temple •••••• Ghirza: the north group of monumental

233

tombs

235

• . . . . . • . . • . . . .

Gh i r z a : r e l i e f d e p i c t i n g a c h i e f t a i n , from monumental tomb North B (4th century) ................ . · Gh i ·r z a : s tone head f r om Ce me t e r y 2 , n ea 'r the · settlement, now in the Archaeological Museum, Tripoli •.••..•••• Plan of the monument of Tin Hinan, Abalessa ••.•••••.••••• Plan of the southwest corner, Monument of · Tin Hi nan .••..• . •.•••• ·•• A pentagonal pi l lar-1 ike stone lying below the knoll on which the monument is constructed, almost in front of the main entrance • . • ••••.••••• A hexago na l pi l lar - 1 ike stone outside the southwest portion of the outer wall and some way down the side of the knoll. Four views of Tuareg ·social organisation, all published in 1978 ••••• Comp a r a t i v e p l a n s o f a s e l e c t i o n o f opp i da, or ma j or spur s i t es , f r om the pre-deser. The Magrusa group are located in the middle Zem Zem area, while Banat is in · the N'f'd. El Krozbet, a larger site from Algeria, is included for comparison •.••.•••••••. Magrusa North (ZZ 3): a small example of a defended spur site. Note the position of the gate and approach track .•..• Gr a r a t D' n a r Sa 1em ( BUN 7) : · t he de t a i I e d plan of an ~ Africanum courtyard villa . . . . ..... ...... . . Grarat D'nar Salem: (upper) recons t r u c t ·i on o f t h e s o u t h s i de a n d ( l o we r ) an overall v iew from the east. •.••. Grarat D'na Salem (BUN 7 etc): a second plan -showing the olive farm 1n its wider context in relation to an extended village containing a religious centre. An ~ A f r i c a n um f a r m i n t h e Wad iMer d um (Md 11): the primary core of the site is the L-shaped building, defined by lines of orthostats within the stippled area. The rooms to the sbuth are probably secondary, while there are also ancillary buildings to the north •••. Another exam p 1e o f t he open fa rm, t h i s time from the Wadi Mansur, a northern tributary of the Merdum .•.•.•. A small village/hamlet from the Wadi Mi mo u n ( Mm 2 2 ) • • • • • • • • • • • •

V 1

236 236 249 249

251 251

255

265 268 269 270

271

272

273 276

Fig.

16:9 •·.

A small 15)

Fig.

16: 10.

Fig.

16:11.

Fig.

16:12.

Fig.

16:13.

Fig.

16:14.

Fig.

16: 15.

Fig.

16:16.

Fig.

16: 17.

Fig.

16:18.

Fig.

17: 1.

Fig.

17:2. 17:3.

Fig.

17:4.

Fig. Fig.

17:5. 17: .6.

farm .

.

site

in the

.

. .

.

Wadi Merdum .

.

.

.

.

.

(Md .

.

.

.

An e x amp l e o f a n i n t e r n a l e l e v a t i o n drawing of a we l l - preserved ~ i n the Bir Scedua region (BS 4) •• • • • • • • The principal~ in the Wadi Mimoun (Mn 10). • • • • • • . • . • • • • . . • The principal~ (Ag 1) and associated s e t t l eme n t i n t he Wad i Umm e l -Age r em • • • . A reconstruction drawing of~ Ag l and its associated settlement, cf. Figs. 12:7 and 16: 12. . . • • . . . . . . This example from the Wadi Khanafes (Kn l) illustrates the development of structures immediately adjacent to a ~

Fig.

.

•

•

•

•

•

•

• • • • • • • • • •

One of the southernmost ~ (Gh 75): the virtual absence of destruction has made it possible to plan a~ set am i d s t i t s a n c i 1 1 a r y b u i l d i n g s a n d traces of its associated acti vities... A late Roman olive press at Gasr Legwais ( Lg 2 ) : p 1 a n a n d e l e v a t i o n s • Fo r a reconstruction, see Fig. 16:17. • . • . Reconstruction drawing of the olive press at Gasr Legwais (Lg 2). • • • • • The Wadi Antar cemetery: tomb Ia is of the obelisk type; whilst the inscription is from tomb lb. . • • • . . • • • • . • Map of Tripol itania to show the areas covered by the UNESCO Libyan Valleys Survey • . • • • • • . . • • . • . . Plan of the lower section of the Wadi Age r em, p r e p a r e d i n t h e f i r s t s e a s o n o f f i e 1dwo r k. . • • • • • • . . • . . Plan of the Wadi N'f'd and its tributaries, prepared i. n the second season of f i e l dwo r k • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Wa l l s y s t ems a r o u n d the open fa rm Mn 6 , Wadi Mansur • • • • • • . • • . . • . . Different wall systems and geomorphic units mapped at the confluence of the Wadis N'f'd and N'fed. . . . . . . • . . Plan of the field system relating to the open farm Lm 4 in the Wadi Umm el-Bagel, a t r i b u t a r y c h a n n e l o f Wad i e l -Am u d • .

Vi i

277

278 280 28O 282

283

284

2~5 286

287 292

295

296 298 299

30 l

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS: TOWN and COUNTRY IN ROMAN TRIPOLITANIA A colloquium

held

at

Sidney Sussex College, September 1984

Cambridge,

19th-22nd

Dr J.A. Allan, School of Orie11tal and African Studies, Malet Street, London, WClE ?HP Dr G.W.W. Barker, Director, British School at Rome, via Gramsci 61, 00197 Roma, Italy D.J. Buck, Board of Extra-mural Studies, University of Cambridge, Madingley Hall, Madingley, Cambridge, CB3 8AQ J.R. Burns, Department of Archaeology, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne, NEl ?RU* Mrs. G. Di Vita-Evrard, Chargee de Recherche au Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, France Major G.H. Donaldson, 27 Ocean View, Whitley Bay, Tyne and Wear, NE2.6 !AL J.N. Dore, Department of Archaeology, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE! ?RU Mrs. 0. Hackett (Brogan), 1 Heqgerley Close, Cambridge Professor G.D.B. Jones, Department of Archaeology, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, Ml3 9PL Dr P .M. Kenrick, Depa r t men t of Arch a e o 1 o g y , Un i v er s i t y of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading, RG6 2M Dr D. J. Mattingly, Ed i to r , L i by an St u d i e s , 6 7 Moo r S t r e e t , Earlsdon, Coventry, CV5 6EU Dr M. Milburn, Gernsheimerstrasse 12, D-6080 Gross-Gerau, West Germany Dr J. Price, Department of Adult and Continuing Education, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT Professor R.. Rebuffat, Directeur de Re cherche, Centre Nat ional ·e de la Recherche Scientifique, Ecole Normale Superieure, 45 rue d'Ulm, 75320 Paris, France Dr J.M. Reynolds, Newnham College, Cambridge, CB3 9DF Dr D.J. Smith, Department of Archaeology, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne, NEl ?RU H.M. Walda, Institut~ of Archaeology, University of London, 31-4 Gordon Square, London, WClH 0PY Dr S. Walker, Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, British Museum, London, WCIB 3DG** *Mr. **Dr

Bur n s p r e s e n t e d a pa p e r w r i t t e n j o i n t 1y w i t h Pr o f e s so r B. Denness of the University of Newcastle Walker reported on work carrie d out jointly with Mr. Walda. A paper describing their research was published in Libyan Studies 15: 81-92

Vl 1l

PREFACE

In September 1984 a col loqui m, on the subject of 'Town and Country in Roman Trip o litania', was held in Sidney Sussex Co l l e g e , Cam b r i d g e u n d e r t h e a u s p i c e s o f t h e So c i e t y f o r L i b y a n Studies and the Univer ity of Cambridge Board of Extra-mural Studies, with the assist a nce of a grant from the British Academy. The main organisational work was undertak n by Joyce Reynolds and David Buck. The colloqu i um, whose papers are published here, was intended to complement the similar conference held at Newnham Co l l e g e , Cam b r i d g e o n R ma n Cy r e n a i ca i n Ma r c h l 9 8 3 ( t h e p a p e r s from the 1983 conferenc e were published early in 1985: Cyrenaica J...!!.Antiquity, edited b y Graeme Barker, John Lloyd and Joyce Reynolds, Society for Libyan Studies Occasional Papers I, BAR International Series 236). The Sidney Sussex colloquium had an add i tional purpose - to honour a doyenne amongs t those interested in Roman Tripolitania and , particularly, in its interio r regions: Olwen Hackett (formerly Olwen Brogan). The papers presented here are offered as a tribute to Olwen's inte r est and work in Tri pol itania over many years and to her inspira t ional eff ec t on at least two generations of successors. The editors would like to thank British Archaeological Reports for agreeing to publish this volume and wish to gratefully acknowledge the he lp and assistance given to them by the Society for Libyan Studies, who, in addition to accepting it as the second in a series of occasional papers, generously made a g r an t t owa r d s t he co s t s o f p r e pa r i ng i t fo r pub l i ca t i on. Thank s are also due to the contr i butors for submitting their papers so prompt l y. Fi n al l y, a par t · cu la r debt i s owed to Rob i n Z v e l e bi l for all her work in the typing and final preparation. D.J. D,J.

iX

Buck Maqingly

OLWEN HACKETT AND TRI

OLITANIA

0 l wen Ha c k e t t ( o r B r o g a n a s s h e wa s t h e n ) wa s f i r s t i n t r o duced - to Tripoli tania as Secretary to the Faculty of Letters of the British School at Rome, when she took part in the School's ex ca va t i on s a n d s u r v e y s i n t h e l a t e l·9 4 0 s • F o r ma n y y e a r s thereafter she continu d to give much time to work on the resulting pottery finds f r om Dame Kathleen Kenyon's dig at Sabratha (an important element in the material which Philip Kenrick is now bringing to publication ) ; but in the meantime she discovered her own particular metier when she followed the example of R.G. Goodchild and J.B. Ward - Per kins in exploration of the interior of the country. Where the y had outlined certain broad general issues, she set out to fi l l in some of the detail. She visited Tripolitania almost annually and, after her marriage to Charles Hackett, lived there for some time, exploring, with friends or alone, observing sharpl y , recording precisely and bringing learning and understanding to bear on her records. Despite other . and heavy commitments to her family and to archaeological undertakings on Roman Gaul a nd the more western areas of Roman North Africa, despite limited resources and the lack of an institutional base to supplement them, she has made, and continues to make, a remarkable contribu t ion to Libyan Studies. It is one that co nsists above all in field work and its publication - but her part in the foundation and running of the Society for Libyan Studies, i ·n which she was the first secretary and the first editor, must not be forgotten , nor the inspiration and help that she has given to others . Her bibliography shows, by the titles of her articles, the importance that she has wisely pla ced on geography and climate in he r s t u d i e s . Wha t de s e r v e s s t r e s s i s he r o v e r r i d i n g i n t e r e s t i n people and their doings. She has always been very good at envisaging those doings and in consequenc~ at asking new and rewarding qu e s t i on s o f he r e v i de nc e ; wh i 1e he r happy r e l a t i on s h i p w i t h t he modern inhabitants of the pre-desert have yielded many sympathetic insights into the lives of their ancient predecessors. She was led in con sequ ence to see beyond . the grander monuments of the chie"fs to the humbler ones of their dependants, well before it became fashionable to do so. Much of her understanding of the interior of ancient Tripolitania has been disti lied into the book which she has written with David Smith on Ghirza. Tripolitanian studies have lost a great deal because the Ghirza report seemed too expensive for the publishers in its first form. Even in unpublished typescript, however, i t has been a s t i mu l us to o th -er s, and was a s i g n f i cant factor in cre ating the cl imate of thought which brought the UNESCOLibyan Vall eys Survey into being. The revised version, now in press, is something to which we all look forward eagerly. Olwen co mbines devotion to scholarship with intrepid enter~ prise, an appearance of insouciance which is liable to obscure the thoughtful planning behind her expeditions (there is no "muddling through", but a brilliant facility for "making do" in X

her undertakings), an infectious curiosity and a generosity in s ha r i ng res u 1 t s wh i ch a r e d i s arm i n g and w i n ext ens i v e cooper a tion. Many friends, Libyan especially, b t of many other nationalities, too, have help d her on her ways or provided her with clues to new discoveries by telling her of monuments passed on journeys made for other purposes (often having learnt from her in the first place to look with perceiving eyes at what they passed). She has been able therefore to secure much information that might easily have been lost for ever as the interior of Libya was , n e c e s s a r i l y , de v e l o p e d , a n d s h e h a s e v e n s a v e d s om e a c t u a l monuments which have be e n taken at her suggestion to the Tripoli Museum. In the pre-desert s h e has sometimes been desribed by the inhabitants of the wadis as a princess; more widely she now has the soubriquet of "umm Gh i rza - the mother of Gh i rza". These are terms which express the affectionate admiration which we all feel for her; the acta of a Tripolitanian colloquium presented here are another tribute to t he same feeling. Joyce Reynolds

XI

OLWEN BROGAN · -

A BIBLIOGRAPHY

1933 The new battle

of Georgovia.

Antiquity

7: 216 - 19.

1934 An introduction to the and Rome 3 - 4 : 2 3 - 3 0.

Roman

land

frontier

Greece

in Germany.

1935 The Roman 'limes' (with

of Germany.

C. Hawkes

and

Archaeological

E. Desforge

Journal

a

s ) Foui l les

92:

1-41.

Revue

Georgovie.

5: 220-30.

Archeologique 1936 Trade

between

the Roman Empire 26: 195-222.

Roman Studies (with

N. Lucas-Shadwell)

and

the Free

Antiquity

Georgovia.

Journal

Germans. 10:

of

210-17.

1940 ( w i t h E. De s fo r g e s )

Geo r gov i a.

Ar ch a e o l o g i ca I Jou r na l 9 7 : l - 3 6.

1952 Review of: Romische siedlungen und strassen i.!:!_ Limesgebeit zw i s hen En n s u n d Le i t h a , De r r om i s ch e L i me s i n Os t e r r e i c h , He f t XIX, Vienna 1949. Journal of Roman Studies 42: 126-7. Notices of: L'Epogee de Vercingetorix, 1. Georgovie; . ~ victoire Gau l o i s e ; 2 . La b a t a i l l e d 'A l e s i a : l a s a c r i f i c e b y A. Noc h e , Moul ins, 1949, and La batai l le by G. Coulomb, Lens-le-Saunier, 1950~ Journal of Roman Studies 42: 140 - 1.

1953

Roman Gaul.

London.

( w i th D. ·Oates) Tripolitania.

Gas r el - Ge z i r a,

a sh r i n e i n the

Papers of the British

School

Gebel Ne f us a of at Rome 21: 74-80.

1954 The camel

in Roman Tripolitania.

Papers of the British

School

at

Rome 2 2 : l 2 6 - 3 l. Review of: (l e r-Illeme

Antiquaries

La vie siecles

quotidienne en Gaul pendant~ apres J.C.Jby P.-M. Duval, Journal 34: 99. X 1 1

paix romaine Paris, 1952.

1955

When the Home Guard of Libya created security the desert frontier: Ghirza in the third century London News , 2 2 Jan ua r y l 9 5 5 : l 3 8 - 4 2. Obelisk

and

temple

Illustrated

Review 1953.

tombs

London

of:

News,

Lyon, Metropole

Journal

of

Imperial

29 January

Roman date

on

near

Ghirza.

by P. Wuilleumier,

Paris,

182-5.

1955:

des Gaules,

of Roman Studies

and fertility AD. Illustrated

45: 210-11.

1957

(with D.J. Smith) The Roman frontier at Ghirza, report. Journal of Roman Studies 47: 173-84. Review of: Hill-forts of Northern France K.M. Richardson, Society of Antiquaries, Journal

104:

an

interim

by Sir

M. Wheeler

1957.

Archaeological

and

189-90.

1958

(with J.M. Reynolds alphabet from Ghirza (with Journal

S.S.

Frere)

and D.J. Smith) in Tripolitania.

Inscriptions

in the 32:

Antiquity

The camp du Char lat,

Correze.

Libyan

112-15. Antiquaries

3 8: 2 18 - 2 2.

Reviews of: Forma Orbis Romani. Carte archeologique de~ Romaine. Fasicule XI. Carte et texte du Department de~ by J. Sautel, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1957.

Antiquaries

Journal

Gaule Drome, Paris

38: 259.

. Cities~ the Sand: Leptis Magna and Sabratha in Roman Africa by K.D. Matthews Jr. and A.W. Cook, PennsylvaniaUnivers i t y Pr e s s , l 9 5 7 • An t i q u i t y 3 2 : 2 9 0. 1959 '

Reviews of: The Golden Trade of the Moors by E.W. Bovi 11, Oxford Uni v e r s i t y Pre s s , 19 5 8. An t i q u i t y 3 3 : 14 8 - 9 · Manue l d ' a r c h e o 1o g i e Ga 1 l o - Rom a i n e I I I b y A. Gr e n i e r , P i ca r d , Pa r i s , 19 5 8. An t i q u i t y 3 3 : 2 9 7 - 9. 1960

(with J.M. Reynolds) Yefren in Tripolitania.

Seven new inscriptions Papers

of

the British

from el-Auenia, School

at

near

Rome 28:

51-4.

Review of: U l be rt,

G.

Die Romischen Donau-Kastell Aislingen und Burghofe by Limes-forshungen: studien zur organisation der

Xiii

Romischen

Journal

Reichgrenze

am Rhein und Donau, 50: 271.

of Roman Studies

Notice of: M. Renard,

Technique~ Collection

Roman St u d i es

Agriculture Latomus 35, 5 0: 2 8 7 - 8.

band

en~ Brussels,

I,

Berl

Trev ire~ 1959.

in

1959.

Remois

by

Journal

of

1961 Reviews Gallery

of: The Art Press-;-7"96°r:-

1945

Das Romische Rheinland: archaologische H. von Petrokovits, Cologne, 1960. 51: 262.

by

Studies

of

Roman

Gaul

by M. 333.

Ant iqui ty35:

Pobe

and

J.

Roubier,

forschungen

Journal

of

seit

Roman

1962 A Tripol

i tanian

Collection

Latomus

centenarian. 58: 368-73.

a

Hommages

In

Albert

Grenier

I,

1963 Review

of:

Antiquaries

Art

in Roman Britain 43: 145.

by J.M.C.

Toynbee,

London,

1962.

Journal

1964 The Roman remains (with ! and.

in

the Wadi

el-Amud.

J.M. Reynolds) Inscriptions L i by a An t i qua l : 4 3 - 6 •

from

Libya the

Antiqua

1: 47-56.

Tripolitanian

hinter-

Reviews of: Ptolemais, ~~the Libyan Pentapolis by C.H. Kr a e l i n g, Un i v er s i t y o f . Ch i ca go Or i en t a l I n s t i t u t e Pub l i ca t i on s XC, Ch i ca go Un i v e r s i t y Pr e s s , l 9 6 2 • An t i q u i t y 3 8 : 3 l 3 - l 4 • . Un t e r sch u n gen ~!!! Ka s t e l l .Bu t z b a c h b y G. Neuere Grabungen am Obergermanischen und Raetischen Schonberger, Berl in, 1962. Journal of Roman Studies

Mu l l e r a n d Limes by H. 54: 234-5.

1965 Henschir _ el-Ausaf . by Tigi (Tripolitania) in the Tunisian Gefara. Libya Antiqua Notes on the Wadis Neina tracks. Libya Anti qua 2: (with

Antiqua

C.

2:

Vita-Finzi) 65-71.

Reviews of: Roman Art Haml y n , London , l 9 6~

and

el-Kebir

and some 47-56. and

related

some

tombs

pre-desert

5 7 - 6 4.

Roman

in

Bei

2:

dams

Africa

on

oy M.

the

Vil

An t i q u i t y 3 9 : 7 9 .

xiv

Wadi

imkova

Megenin.

and

Libya

H. Wimmer,

Par i s,

Al e s i a. Ar ch eo l o g i e e t H i s t o i r e by J • le Ga 1 l , Fay a r d , l 9 6 3. Ant i qui t y 3 5: 2 3 2--:-j.

Vercingetorix Roman Studies 5 5: 2 6 9. Roman Roads 1964. Journal

London,

by C. in of

Julian,

Paris,

the south-east Roman Studies

Journal

1963.

of

Midlands by The Viatores, 55: 298-9.

1966 Review Thames

of: and

Roman Hudson,

Africa in Colour by R. Wood and M. Wheeler, London,1966. Antiquity 40: 242-3.

1967 (with D.J. Smith) Notes from Li by a An t i qua 3 - 4 : l 3 9 - 4 4.

the

Tri pol itanian

pre-desert

1967.

1970 British

archaeology

1n Libya,

Libyan

1943-1970.

Studies

1: 6-11.

1971 First and second century settlement in the Tripol itanian predesert. In F.F. Gadal lah (ed.) Libya in History (Proceedings of a conference held at the Faculty of Arts, University of Benghazi, 1968). Benghazi. Expedition

to Tripolitania.

Review of: J.J. Hatt,

The ancient Barrie and

Libyan

Studies

civilizations Jenkins, 1970.

2:

10-11.

of Celts and Gallo-Romans Antiquiiy45: 72-3.

by

1972 Revi~w of: Das Romis •che Donaukastell by L. Eckhart, Vienna, 1969. Journal

of

schlogen J.E.Oberosterreich Roman Studies 62: 210.

1973 (with

P. Kenrick)

Work

Review of: Roman France qu i t y 4 7 : 1 6 2 - 3 •

in Tripolitania. by P. Mackendrick,

Libyan

Studies

4:

G. Bell,

1972.

of Roman France

Gaul. Before

8-9.

Anti-

1974 The coming of Rome and the establishment Piggot, G. Daniel and C. McBurney (eds.), Romans, Thames and Hudson, London: 192-219.

xv

In S. the

197.5 Inscriptions notes on

the

in the tribes

Ha,ni ti co-Semi ti ca. Round Review London,

and about of:

Libyan alphabet of the region. Mouton.

Animals

1973.

Libyan

Misurata. in

Roman

Journalof

from Tri pol itania and some In J. and T. Bynon (eds.)

Studies

Life

and

Roman Studies

6: 49-58. Art by J.M.C. 65: 212-3.

Toynbee,

The Princeton

Encyclo-

1976 Ghi rza and Zl i ten. In R. Stillwell (ed.) paed i a of CI ass i ca I S i t es, Pr i n c e ton ,

University

Press:

352,

1000-10001. Review of: Reynolds.

Selected

Libyan

Papers~

Studies

the

late

R.G. Goodchild

ed.

by J.M.

Antiqua

13-14:

7: 67.

1977 Some ancient

sites

1n Eastern

Tripolitania.

Libya

93-129. Review Djerid National

of: · Recherches frontiere de la Recherche

a~

Roman Studies

sur ~ 'limes Tuniso-Libyenne Scientifique,

Tri pol itanus' ~Chott~ by P. Trousset, Centre Paris, 1974. Journal of

67: 238-9.

1978 Es - Se rn ama B i r e l - Ua a r : a Rom an Tomb i n L i by a • I n R. Moo r e y and P. Parr (eds.) Archaeology in the Levant, Essays for Kathleen Kenyon. Warminster, Aris and Phillips: 233-7.

1980 Had d · Ha j a r , a ' c l au s u r a' i n t he Tr i po l i t an i an Ge be l Ga r i an of Asabaa. Libyan Studies 11: 45-52.

sou t h

Forthcoming (with

tania.

D.J.

Smith)

Supplements

Ghirza, a Romano-Libyan Settlement in Tripolito Libya Antiqua. Department of Antiquities,

Tripoli.

xvi

l.

THE HISTORICAL By

P.M.

DEVELOPMENT OF SABRATHA Kenrick

The subject-matter of this paper has been in recent years the preserve, one might say, of two scholars of standing: the late Dr. John Ward-Perkins, former Director of the British School at Ro me and Professor Anton i no D i Vi ta, the pres en t Di rector of the Italian Scuola Archeologica di Atene. Both have conducted excavations at Sabratha, the former in several parts of the town in 1948-51 and the latter in the area to the south of the Byzantine Wall in the 1960s. Their opinions as to the chronology of the town's development have differed significantly, and the controversy found its most recent expression in a paper delivered by Dr. Ward-Perkins in Rome in 1979, the published version of which (Ward-Perkins 1982) is followed by a rejoinder submitted by Professor Di Vita. Di Vita concludes his comments with the r ema r k t ha t t h e d i f f e r e n c e s b e t we e n t h em ma y be l a r g e l y d u e t o t~e fact that neither one of them had published his discoveries in ful 1, and that each was therefore in possession of only part of the evidence. Since that time, Dr. Ward-Perkins has died and the Society for Libyan Studies has entrusted to me the responsibility for bringing to publication the discoveries made by him and the late Dame Ka t h l e e n Ke n y o n i n l 9 4 8 - 5 l • Th e r e p o r t i s s c h e d u l e d t o b e ready for the pr inter by the end of 1984, and in view of the extended body of evidence which will then be available, it is possible · now to make some further comment about the history of Sabratha. I feel that it is appropriate to do so in the present context, for not only was Olwen Brogan actively involved in the excavation itself and in subsequent work on the finds, but as Secretary at the time of the British School at Rome, she was intimately involved in the planning and administration of the Sabratha expedition and had the delicate task of steering a d i p l oma t i c co u r s e be t ween t he fo r c e f u l , and so me t i me s con f l i c t 1ng, personalities of its joint di rectors.

The picture which I shall present does not correspond wholly with the opinions expressed by Ward-Perkins, despite the fact that it is based on the evidence from his excavations. The principal reason for this is that the study of pottery, a crucial source of dating-evidence, was long delayed: much of it was in any case far less readily datable thirty years ago than it is now. Th e d a t e s w h i c h I s h a l 1 q u o t e a r e b a s e d o n t h e co i n s f r om the excavations and on a new review of the fine wares by myself and of the lamps by Donald Bailey. The coarse wares and other finds are still awaiting study. Evidence of the earliest settlement at Sabratha is provided by sherds of Attic black-glazed ware, a few sherds of red figure and a few Attic lamps, al 1 of the second half of the fifth century BC. (Here I would 1 ike to acknowledge the help of David Gill, whose knowledge of the early Attic black-glazed ware is mo re a u t h o r i t a t i v e t h a n my own • ) Th e s e we r e f o u n d i n p a r t s o f t he f o r um a r ea , i n t h e Ca s a B r o g a n t o t h e ea s t o f t h e f o r um , a n d in excavations between the forum and the harbour (Regio II, Insulae 5-7: see Fig. 1:1). There were, with one exception, no stone structures of this date, but only occupation-levels, postholes and pits. The excavators concluded that the earliest settlement had been seasonal in character and associated only with temporary structures (Kenyon 1952; Ward-Perkins 1951). The exception is a massive rubble foundation, some 2.50m wide, whfch was found beneath the north side of the precinct of the East Forum Temple and running parallel to its north wall. Because of its proximity to later structures, there was no direct datingevidence for it, but it is clear that it is a very early feature, and a foundation 2.50m wide wi 11 hardly have been built to support the wall of a house! The necessary inference is that this is the line of an early city wall, and the extent of fourthcentury occupation to the south of it implies that it should antedate that expansion and should therefore belong to the fifth century. The second half of the fourth century saw the first appearance of buil idings of - stone. The excavations were nowhere extensive ·enough to reveal much of a plan, but the presence of bui !dings and occupation-levels of this period was detected in the area north of the forum, beneath the East Forum Temple and in the 'Casa Brogan' in Regio II, Insula 10. The alignment of these buildings is of some interest. North of the forum, excavations showed that as was already suspected, the oblique alignment of t he Rom a ·n b u i l d i n g s i n t h a t a r e a r e f l e c t e d t h a t o f t h e i r p r e cursors. Within the forum area and that of the Antonine Temple to the south, the evidence, such as it is, suggests an approximate, but hardly regular, adherence to the same oblique axis. (None of this, curiously, pays any regard to the 1 ine of the supposed early city wall.) In the western part of the forum there was an apparent absence of stone buildings, but in contrast a succession of surfaces, much pitted by post-holes. It is possible, therefore, that this area had served as an open marketplace from the early history of the town.

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The next phase of significant change appears (from the British excavations) to have occurred during the first half of the second century BC. In most of the areas where earlier structures were recorded, there was evidence of extensive rebuilding at this time. In the Casa Brogan area there was considerable expansion of the existing building, associated with the first establishment of the street to the west end of the insulae which front it on the opposite side (see Fig. 1:2). There was also evidence of occupation at this date, associated with a stone building, in a trench across the street on the south side of the Anton i ne Temp l e , wh i ch s u g g e s t s t ha t t he nu c l e u s o f t he t own certainly now extended this far at least. Di Vita has placed the construction of the two Punico-Hellenistic mausolea to the southwe s t i n t h i s p e r i o d ( s e e F i g . l : l ) , a n d h a s s u g g e s t e d t h a t t h e de f ea t o f Ca r t ha g e b y Rome i n 2 0 2 BC ( fo l l o we d b y i t s u l t i ma t e destruction in 146) gave to the cities of Tripolitania an independence which enabled them for the first time to enjoy the fruits of their own prosperity (see Di Vita 1976, 273-4). The p l ausibility of this suggestion is increased by the evidence from t he Br i tish ex c avations. The full extent of the town in the second century BC cannot be precisely defined, though its limits to the south must clearly lie to seaward of the two mausolea. To the east, there was e v i de n c e i n t h e Ca s a B r o g a n e x ca v a t i o n o f a ma s s i v e wa l l o f t h e second century BC, running parallel to the later east frontage of the insula and slightly inside it (Fig. 1:2). The dimensions of i ts foundations, comparable to those of the supposed fifthcentury wall, suggest once again that it may have formed part of the town's defences and perhaps of a newly extended circuit. This is something that could readily be verified by further excavation. Beyond the nucleus of the early town, occupationlevels yielding black-glazed wares (but not structures) were recorded in excavations beside the Severan Monument and south of the theatre: their significance is unclear. Dur i n g t he f i r s t c en t u r y BC, t he sou t hwa r d exp an s ·i on o f t he town c l e a r l y c o n t i n u e d.. 0 f s i g n i f i c an c e h e r e i s e v i d e n c e f r om the section across the street on the south side of the Antonine Temple that the west end (and hence the whole?) of Regio II, Insula 3 was built at this time. The date is not precisely defined, but was certainly earlier than the filling of a rubbish pit in front of the insula which is well dated by its contents to c. l O BC. Di Vi ta has rep or t e d that bu i l d i n gs a g a i n s t the base of Mausoleum B in Regi/ VI were established on the alignment of the l ate r i n s u la i n 6 0 5 0 BC, and that the ma i n l a you t of th i s insula was established around the turn of the era at the latest (in Ward-Perkins 1982, 48). Ward-Perkins' contention that this de v e l o pmen t , i n wh i c h t h e i n s u l a e a r e o f t h e l o n g He l l e n i s t i c type, took place largely in the first century AD, can no longer be sustained as a valid generalisation, though a section across the Byzantine wall on the south side of Regio II, Insula I (site G.BW in Fig. 1:1) showed that this particular insula was laid out only in the Flavian period, succeeding prior occupation of uncertain character which is not earlier than the first century AD. 4

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vaults respectively (IRT 95). quarry for building-materials many architectural elements behind the stage (Guidi 1930,

Similarly, the theatre became a and the Italian excavators found stacked in the two lateral rooms 3, 5, 52).

In the forum area, in addition to the re-paving of the north for um po r t i co, the cur i a on the nor th s i de was re bu i 1 t ( see Ba r t o cc i n i l 9 5 0 ) , a n d s o w a s t h e b a s i 1 i c a o n t h e s o u t h • Th e extent of destruction may be gauged from the fact that only the north wal 1 of the previous building was re-used. Otherwise, an entirely new plan was adopted, a two-apse basilica on a longitudinal axis in imitation of the great Severan basilica at Lepcis Magna. The new building made extensive use of columns from the Antonine and South Forum Temples. At the east end of the forum, the precinct of the East Forum Temple was closed off behind a new portico paved with mosaic (see Fig. 1:7, structures of Period V). Access to the temple podium was retained through the rear wall, but the building and its precinct presumably no longer fulfilled any public purpose. The s u r v i v or s o f the cat as t r op he who car r i e d o u t these restorations have left evidence of occupation in much of the original nucleus of the town, though the relevant levels were largely removed without record in the first excavations on the site. The Casa Brogan was one of the areas where the evidence was largely intact, and here it seems that the owner was able to expand his property at the expense of his neighbours, even diverting the spinal alley which had hitherto run the length of the insula, and to embellish his house with mosaics. Towards the end of the fourth century or early in the fifth, two churches were built in the eastern quarter of the town (Fig. 1:1, churches 3 and 4), and the rebui 1 t bas i 1 ica on the south side of the forum was also converted into a church. (See Ward-Perkins and Goodc hild 1953, 7-19). After this, the picture is less clear owing t ·o the prior removal of the relevant strata, but the Vandal period was one of decline, followed by only a very tentative revival when the reg i on w a s r e cove r e d t o By z an t i n e r u 1e i n AD 5 3 3 by Be l i s a r i u s • A new defensive wall was built, including only the core of the earlier city and closing permanently the former coastal road (at site G.BW in Fig. 1:1) which had presumably ceased to serve any purpose. The church occupying the former basilica next to the forum wa .s restored, and another was bui 1 t to the north of the cur i a ( F i g. l : l , church 2 : Ward - Pe r k i n s and Good ch i l d l 9 5 3 , l 2 15). The handsomeness of the remarkable mosaic in this new church contrasts strongly with the re-used materials of which its superstructure was bui 1 t. However, by the time of the Arab conquest in AD 643, the forum had become a burial-ground littered with graves, an eloquent testimony to the final decline of this never great, but certainly once prosperous, town.

l l

BIBLIOGRAPHY R. 1950. La Curia di Sabratha. Quaderni di Archeo1og i a de l la Li bi a 1 : 2 9 - 5 8. Bar to cc i n i , R. 1 9 6 4 • I 1 t em p i o An t on i n i an o d i Sa b r a t ha • L i by a Antiqua 1: 21-42. Brecciarol i Taborel 1 i, L. 1978. Le terme del la 'Regio VI I' a Sa b r a t ha. L i by a An t i qua 1 1 - l 2 (1 9 7 4 - 7 5 [ 19 7 8 ]) : 1 l 3 - 4 6. Bartoccini,

Di Vita, A. 1973. La villa di Piazza Armerina in Sici 1 ia. Kokalos 18-19: 251-63. Di Vita, A. 1976. 11 mausoleo punico-ellenistico

Mitteilungen des romische Abteilung

deutschen

e l'arte

musiva

B di

Sabratha.

archaologischen

Instituts,

83: 273-85. Di Vita, A. 1978. Lo scavo a Nord del mausoleo punicoe 1 1en i s t i co A d i Sa b r a t h a • L i by a An t i qua l l - l 2 ( l 9 7 4 - 7 5 [1978]): 7-111. Gu i d i , G. 1 9 3 0 • I 1 t e a t r o r om a n o d i Sa b r a t h a . A f r i ca I t a l i an a 3: 1-52. IRT. See Reynolds and Ward-Perkins (1952). Kenyon, K.M. 1952. Phoenician, Roman, Byzantine: the three cities of Tripolitanian Sabratha •.. Illustrated London News 29 March 1952: 538-9. Reynolds, J.M. and Ward-Perkins, J.B. 1952. The Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania. Rome and London, The British School at Rome. · Ward-Perkins, J.B. 1951. Report in Fasti Archaeologici 1951: 379, i tern 4877. Ward - Per k i n s , J • B. l 9 8 2 • Town p 1 an n i n g i n No r t h A f r i ca d u r i n g the first two centuries of the Empire, with special reference to Lepcis and Sabratha: character and sources.

Mitteilungen des deutschen archaologischen romische Abteilung, 25. Erganzungsheft: 29-49. Ward-Perkins, quities

J.B. and Goodchild, R.G. 1953. of Tripolitania. Archaeologia

lnstituts,

The Christian

anti-

95: 1-82.

Postscript: The report on which this paper is based has been a cc e p t e d f o r p u b 1 i ca t i o n b y t h e S o ·c i e t y f o r t h e P r om o t i o n o f Roman Studies, under the title JRS Monograph no. 2: Excavations at Sabratha, 1948-1951, by Philip M. Kenrick.

12

2.

AN INSCRIPTION By

0.

Brogan

FROM THE WADI ANTAR and

J.M.

Reynolds

The inscription published here was first recorded by Olwen Brogan and Paul Arthur in 1978, and subsequently examined by members of the UNESCO Libyan Valleys Survey Team in 1980 and 1981. A projected visit by the present authors in 1982 failed because of the difficulty of obtaining transport during Ramadan, but it is possible to advance some hypotheses on the text on the basis of a f in e photograph taken by Dav id Mat t in g l y (to whom we are very grateful); further study of the stone, of photographs taken from different angles and in several lights, and, if possible, of squeezes, is of course highly desirable. The find-spot (A on map, Fig 2:1), sometimes called Senam or Ga s r An t a r , a f t e r t h e s ma 1 1 wa d i t o t h e e a s t , i s s i t u a t e d o n a low plateau on which there are traces of an ancient cemetery, the chief tombs being two ru i nous mausolea of dressed limestone. The smaller of the two (marked lb on the plan made by . the Valleys Survey, which is published in this volume as Fig. 16:18, p. 287) bears the inscription and is also of interest for the discovery in its rubble of a seated limestone statue (the head unfortunately missing). This is so far, with the exception of a battered pair from Ghirza Tomb South A, and one or two other fragments, the only substantial part of any statue in the round found in the Libyan pre-desert (Fig. 2:2). The larger neighbour of this tomb, an obeli .sk tomb of no great size, has yielded no inscription but wa s deco r a t e d w i t h ca r v e d r e l i e f s ( nea r 1y a l l now fa l 1en ) , r e p r e senting ploughing and reaping, together with a very worn scene which appears to depict a chariot race. An inscription from this context would, of course, be interesting in any case; but what has been found is of particular importance since it offers a reasonable pointer for a date of one of the widespread monumental tombs and for the agricultural and social developments associated with them, as well as suggesting a close link with another unusual find, the Tininai temple dis·c u s s e d be l ow. l3

S i te Distributi on \lt llli l.l'~ll'lliS /.

l •I'"'

.\

Lllicl 111, C ( ' I

~~I

. .

~~

..

-

fl

wl , Mirnurrn

1/

\l'tuli Humt

~~l .n ~ '-\"'./l Lr

·

~.

-+::-

MIZDA

-

UPPER

SOFEGGIN ()

~

)~ .

50

Ghe,,-,ar\

1sok

1:u,.,. C.D6 J

Figure

2:1. Location map of the Antar cemetery. A= Anta r cemetery, T = Tininai Temple. (Adapted and reprinted from Libyan Studies 13 (1982), p. 9, fig. 4, with kind permission of Professor G.D.B. Jones).

HitC

The Wadi Antar may be reached by taking the long-established road to Mizda via Tininai. Wadi Tininai is one of the major tributaries of the Wadi Sofeggin, flowing from the north side. Continuing southwestwards the road crosses the wide bed of the Wadi Tininai and after six kilometres mounts the steep scarp of the right bank of the wadi. At the top of the rise there are r u i n s wh i ch R i ch a r d Good ch i 1d , fo l 1ow i n g Pe t r i g nan i , i den t i f i e d as a smal 1 temple (see Goodchild 1976, 33, n. 38; Petr ignani 1928, ill. opposite 17); fragments of its building inscription were taken to the Mudiria in Beni Ulid, where they could be seen in 1948 and subsequently, until they were finally taken by the Depa r t men t o f An t i q u i t i e s t o T r i p o 1 i Mu s e um. Th e i n s c r i p t i o n contained the words: Titus Fl(avius) Q(uirina tribu) Capi t o (see p. 1 9). The road continues t owa r d s t h e S o f e g g i n • wards, leading towards THE

12km or so turning gradually southwards At t h i s p o i n t a m i n o r t r a c k t u r n s n o r t h Wadi Antar and our site.

INSCRIPTION

IN WADI ANTAR

(Fig.

2:3)

The text was cut within a simply-moulded tabella ansata, whose 1e f t ans a appeared on a separate s tone w h i ch has not been found. The s u r v i v i n g s t on e , w h i c h i n c 1 u de d t ab e 1 l a a n d r i g_h t ansa, measures 0.73 x 0.37 x 0.26m, but is badly damaged on the edges and worn in the centre of the inscribed area. The letters (ave. ht. 0.025-0.03m), cut between lightly-incised guide lines, are related to the Rustic capital, a letter form which was certainly in use in Lepcis Magna already in the early second century AD (for the type see IRT, plate VIII; IRT 352 is a probably Trajanic instance) and whose origi n s can bet raced much ear l ier e l s ewh er e ( c f • t he Ne r on i a n t ex t a t Rome i l l u s t r a t e d by A. a n d J • Go r don 1 9 5 8 , p l a t e 4 8 , b ) ; s t o p s be t we e n w o r d s a r e c 1e a r 1 y v i s ible at some points, in the shape of neat, although not very el _egant, ivy leaves and of small triangles or, occa ~ ionally c omna s • A 1 1 t h e s e f e a t u r e s ha v e a 1o n g 1 · f e s pa n · i n 3. n c i e n t epigraphic usage and are the more difficult to date here because . a r u r a l ~ t y l e a n d t h e· r o u g h s u r f a c ~ o f t h e s t o n e , w h i c h w a s n o t adapted to fine cutting, confuse the picture; they are, wr think, consonant with the late fi rst or early second centuries P.D, and, although at first sight a later period suggested itself, that is probably due to initial fai lure to distinguish rough frorr late workmanship. or

We transcribe badly worn): DIS s top NINVS

as

fol l ows

MAN I B VS s top

[?~?]~ r a r i s s i mo • Be s i de h i s be 1on g i n g to the Tarraconese Alfi i, no certainty can be reached about the precise period of activity (within the years c. AD 200240). The dating suggested by F. Jacques (1982,-80; 1983, 188) is founded on identification with the homonymous senator honoured in CIL 6.1474, himself supposed to be a second son of the Tarraconese praetor Parthicarius (CIL 2.4110 = Inschr.v.Tarr. 127), who, in his turn, is most likely ascribed to Severus' reign. But our curator may wel 1 be differently related to the latter and possibly earlier than believed.

10

Actually the only case that might give rise to difficulties i s A 1 f i us Maxim us' , i f ass i g n e d to Severus A 1ex and er' s reign: but see n. 9. L.Volusius Bass us Cereal is' appointment, taken as curatela of Lepcis alone in the simplest interpretation, is likely to date from the very first years of the Tetrarchic province (Di Vita-Evrard, forthcoming c) and may not be unrelated to the organisation of the new capital.

11

Already by the editor, despite his claim not to pronounce: Vitucci (1957, 275, n. 20); then Di Vita (1982, 583, n. 213), although the alleged reason is not decisive: up to Constantine, the change in the curatores' status and functions, an administrative corollary of the multiplication of p r o v i n c e s , i s i n p r o c e s s , bu t no t f u 1 1 y a c.h i eve d i n African provinces (Burton 1979, 473-4): L.Volusius Bassus Ce r ea l i s , who s e s en a t o r i a l ca r e e r· ha s now been e s t ab 1 i s he d ( Ch r i s t o 1 l 9 8 3 , 3 3 3 - 8 ) s t i 1 1 a pp ea r s a s a s t and a r d i mp e r i a 1 agent (W. Eck, RE, Suppl. XIV, 1974, Servi l ius 68 b, col. 6 6 6 ; J a c q u e s l 9TI, 8 7 ; l 9 8 3 , l 9 6 ; P LRE , l 9 7 l , 5 6 2 J. -

12

For instance, local warfare in Mauretania Caesariensis about AD 227 (D'Escurac-Doisy 1966). Of greater relevance here, a f r a gme n t a r y i n s c r i p t i o n f r om Gh e r i a t e 1 -G h a r b i a ( I RT 8 9 6 ) , which recently has been convincingly assigned to the year AD 239 (Loriot 1971, 342) gives evidence about a not better defined bellum which caused destruction there. It would be attractive to connect the appointment of the Sabratha dux (perhaps a native of the town) with the latter event, also with emergency situations created by the disbandment of~ III Aug. or by Sabinianus' rebellion, and in these cases, the command of the dux would appear as a preliminary a t t emp t , s u b s e q u e n t 1 y----;-or ma 1 i s e d a s t h e c om ma n d o f t h e praepositus. But of course our dux may have faced an 158

earlier crisis and another possible conjecture finds support from combined onomastical and prosopographical suggestions •• The unknown dux's name includes either Victor+ a second cognomen o r V i c t o r i a n u s v • e • ( 1 i n e l ) • S e v e r a 1 e q u e s t r i a n of f i c e r s i n h i g h A f r i ca n()o s t s be a r t he comm o n A f r i can cognomen Victor, but none a second one; on the contrary, a praeses of Mauretania Tingitana - a top ducenarian charge, usually held by military experts - would fit: Maturius Victorinus, attested there in AD 245. A reasonable fifteenyear interval between the two posts would bring us back to c. AD 230 for the appointment as a dux. However too little Ts presently known of the local mTTTtary history at that time and it is wiser to leave the matter at this point: any occasion within the above mentioned brackets is suitable when t h e N um i d i a n c om ma n d m i g h t h a v e b e e n f e 1 t t o o distant/too busy to be entrusted to an officer of little experience. 13

A similar case, however, is CIL 8.10117: the emperor (Tra i anus) "pontem ~ opera mTTTtum suorum ~ pecunia sua ••• fecit, without any mention of the commander or unit. The ph e nomenon is otherwise well attested in some collective aspe ct s of mi 1 i tary religious 1 i fe: see Rebuffat 1982, 91517.

14

St ri c tly, the participial turn is equivalent to the corresponding abstract verbal-substantive, not to the noun naming t he concrete res u 1 t ; but the Gas r Du i b text i s not a spec i men of classical prose and the spreading use of that turn in the imperial period must be taken into account.

15

Other para! leis: Salama 1953, 260, n. 180; 1955, 363, n. 143. Unfortunately, the texts of the Doucen inscriptions (AE 1923, 95-8), too extensively supplemented, cannot bring reliable evidence. Irony of history: when commenting upon the ambitious term Provincia, P. Salama (1955), in line with the traditional interpretation, precisely praised ~he exactn e s s and u n p r e t en t .i o u s n e s s o f t he Ga s r Du i b p h r a s e , r e g i one m Limitis Tentheitani (omitting partitam).

16

Most probably after 241, i.e. after a period of disturbance in Africa (abov e , n. 12) and under Timesitheus' rule. Note the absence of a praepositus (Limit is Tripolitanae) in the Gheriat el-Gharbia text of AD 239 (above, n. 12) where he would ·have been expected to appear, fol lowing the names of the emperor and of the~~ pr.pr. and preceding that of the local military unit. There is no need to stress that the huge distance between those scattered troops and the centre of military command (Lambaesis) was the main reason accounting for the institution of the praepo situs.

17

The d i s t r i c t had s t o o d t he created (Di Vita 1982, 583).

test

159

when

t he

p r o v i n c e wa s

18

For references to ancient sources, cf. Romanelli's paper ( l 9 3 3 , 2 6 - 7) , u n quo t e d i n a ra the r con f u s i n g r e c en t a c co u n t of the origin of "Tripoli tania" (Abi t ino 1979, 58).

19

Usually, in the attested practice of a curator's jurisdiction covering a whole province or Italian regio (instances in Vitucci 1957, 274-5), the official's title curator ••• lacks r(erum) p(ublicarum) which is often replaced by civitatium.

20

A. D i V i t a t o o ( l 9 8 2 , 5 3 6 ) s e em s r e 1 u c t a n t idea of a unified treasury.

21

I am well aware that in these critical remarks more subtle positions are overdrawn in order to make possible misinterpretations conspicuous. In my view, from beginning to end, Regio Tripoli tana remained a mere territorial district and never evolved into any sort of transcending political entity whatsoever (practical structures or mentality). APPENDIX:

l

Inscriptions

referred

t o ac c e p t t he

to

CI L 8 • l 6 5 4 2 a n d l 6 5 4 3 = I LA 1 g • , I , 3 0 6 2 a n d 3 0 6 3 : M. Aem i 1 i o C 1 o d i a n o , e • v • , p r o c • Au g [ [ g ] ] [[n]]n patrimoni reg. Leptiminensis, item privatae ~ Tripolitanae CIL 8.11105: [ • • ? • • ] pa t r i mo n i p e r proc. rat ion. pr ivatae ••• liberti et familia

2

r e g i o n e m Le p t i t a n am , ~ reg.Tripoli tanam, Caesar.nn •••

A.Ferrua, Le iscrizioni pagane della catacomba di Pretestat o, Rend i con t i de 1 1 'Ac cad em i a Naz i on a 1 e de i Li n c e i , s er i e o t ta v a, XXVI I I , l 9 7 3 , p. 6 8 , p l • I I I , l ab = Man a co r d a l 9 7 6 7 7 , 5 4 3 - 5 5 = AE l 9 7 3 , 7 6 : [ •• ? •• ]. •• proc.

re]gionem

ad olea Tripolit(anam),

conparnd(a) .••

..e.l~

3

CIL 14.3593 = ILS 1185 = lnscr. T.Clodio M.f. Pupieno Pulchro r.p. Leptim. ~ Tripolitan(orum),

3a

F. Gschnitzer, Ein senatorischer cursus honorum des 3. J ah r h u n de r t s a u s E p h e s o s , J a h r e s he f t e d e s Oe s t e r r e i c h ischen Archaeologischen Institutes~ Wien~2, 1955, 59-72, f i g. 2 l = AE l 9 5 7 , l 6 l : [ •• ? •• ] ••• curator

Ital., IV, 1, 106, Tibur: M[aximo], c.v., cos .•• cur. •••

i re i pub. Le p t i ta [ nor (um)] •.•

160

4

Vitucci

1957,

271-5,

pl.

XXXIII

= AE 1959,

[ ••• ] •• , C. Ser v i l i us Mar s us , cos, Tripolitanae,

271: cur.

re i p.

~

5

Rebuffat

1984: I mp p d d Cassiano, Marcel lo, Tripolitanae

6

Goodchild

n n [ P h i l i p p i s ] Au g g , M•Au r e l •Co m i n i o leg. Augg pr.pr., c.v., et Lucretio v.e., proc. Augg nn, praepos i to Limit is •••

and Ward-Perkins

1949,

91-2,

pl.

XII

= IRT 880:

I mp. Ca es • [ [ M. I u l i us Ph i l i pp us ]] I n v i ct u [ s Aug. ] [ e t [ [ M• I u l ( i u s ) Ph i l i p p u s ] ] [ Ca ] e s • n • r e g i o n e m Limi[tis Ten]theitani partitam et eius viam incursib(us) barba[ro]rum constituto novo centenario [[ ••• ]] praecluserunt, Cominio Cassiano, leg. Augg p r • p r • , Ga I l i can [ o . . • ] , v . e • , p r a e p • L i m i t i.s • • •

BIBLIOGRAPHY Ab i t i no , G. 19 7 9 • c o n f i n i d e l 1a L i b i a a n t i c a e l e a r e de i Fi leni. Rivista Geografica ltaliana 86: 54-72 . B irley, E. 1950. The Governors of Numidi a A. O. 193 - 268 . Journal of Roman Studies 40: 60-8. Bur ton, G.P. 1979. The Curator Rei Publ icae. Tow a r ds a Re ap p r a i s a 1. Ch i r on 9 : 4 6 5 - 8 7 • Camo de ca , G. l 9 8 0 • R i c e r c h e s u i c u r a t o r e s r e i p u b 1 i c a e • I n H. Temporini and W. Haase (eds.), Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischer Welt II, 13: 453-534. Berlin , New Yo rk, W. de _ Gruyter. Chastagnol, A. 1967. Les gouverneurs de Byzacene et de Tri pol it a i n e. An t i q u i t e s A f r i ca i n e s 1 : 1 19 - 3 4. Ch r i st O 1 ' M. 198 3. Homma g e s pub l i Cs . a Le p C i s Magn a a l I e p O q u e de D i o c letien: choix du vocabulaire et qualit e d u de s ti n at aire . Revue Histori que de Droit Fran~ais et Etranger 61: 331 - 43. Di Vita, A. 1982. Gli Emporia di Tripolitania dall'eta di Massini'ssa a Diocleziano: un profilo storico-istitu z ionale. In H. Temporini and W. Haase (eds.), Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischer Welt II, 10, 2: 515-95. Berlin, New York, W. de Gruyter. Di Vita-Evrard, G. 1982. Note sur "trois" senateurs de Lepcis Magna. Le clarissimat des Plauti i. In Epigrafia e Ordine Senator io, Roma 1981, Ti tul i 4: 453-65. Di Vita-Evrard, G. forthcoming a. Note sur quelques timbres d'amphores de Tripoli taine. In Actes du Deuxieme Col loque International sur l'Histoire et l'Archeologie de l'Afrique du Nord, Grenoble 1983, Bulletin Archeologique du Comite des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques.

16 l

Di Vita-Evrard, G. forthcoming b. Apropos de Q.Hedius _Rufus Loll ianus Gent i anus. Les cens d'H i span ia Ci ter ior dans la de u x i eme mo i t i e du I I e s. Revue de s Et u des An c i en n e s. Di V i ta-Ev r a rd, G. f o r t h com i n g c. L. Vo 1u s i u s Ba s s u s Ce r ea 1 i s , legat du proconsul d'Afrique T.Claudius Aurelius Aristobulus, et la creation de la province de Tripol itaine. In Atti del Secondo Convegno di Studio sul l'Africa Romana, Sassar i 1984. D'Escurac-Doi sy, H. 1966. Un sou 1 e vemen t en Maure tan i e Cesari enne sous Severe Alexandre. In Me I anges d'Archeo I og i e et d'Histoire offerts a Andre Piganiol 2: 1191-1204. Paris, SEVPEN. Forni, G. 1972. Denominazioni proprie e improprie dei "limites" del le province. In Actes du Neuvieme Congres International d'Etudes sur les Frontieres Romaines, Mamaia 1972: 285-9. Gascou, J. 1979. L'emploi du terme Respubl ica dans l'epigraphie latine d'Afrique. Melanges de l'Ecole Francaise de Rome. Antiquite 91: 383-98. Goodchi Id, R.G. and Ward-Perkins, J.B. 1949. The Limes Tripolitanus in the light of recent discoveries. Journal of Roman Studies 39: 81-95. Goodchild, R.G. 1965. The unfinished "Imperial" baths of Leptis Magna. Libya Antiqua 2: 15-27. Jacques, F. 1977. Les cens en Gaule au Ile siecle et dans le lere moitie du Ille siecle. Ktema 2: 285-328. Jacques, F~ 1982. Les curateurs des cites africaines au Ille s i e c l e. I n H. Tempo r i n i and W. Ha a s e ( e d s • ) , Au f s t i e g u n d Niedergang der romischer Welt II, 10, 2: 62-135. Berlin, New York, W. de Gruyter. Jacques, F. 1983. Les Curateurs des Cites dans !'Occident Romain de Tr a j an a Ga I I i en. Par i s , No u v e l l es Ed i t i on s La tines. Le Glay, M. 1981. Les censitores provinciae Thraciae. Zeitschrift fur Papyrologie und Epigraphik 43: 175-84. Lor i o t, X. l 9 7 l. Un e de di ca c e a Gord i en I I I proven ant de Gher ia-el-Gharbia. Bui let in de la Societe Nat ionale des Antiquaires de France: 342-6. Manacorda, D. 1976- ·77. Test imonianze sul la produzione e il . con s umo d e l 1 ' o l i o t r i p o l i t a n o n e l I I I s e c o l o • D i a I o g h i d i Archeologia 9-10: 542-601. P f l a um, H. G. 1 9 5 3 • I n s c r i p t i o n s de l a T r i p o l i t a i n e r om a i n e • A propos d'un l i vre recent. Syria 30:296-309. Pflaum, H.G. 1959. Nomenclature des villes africaines de "Lepe is . Magna" et "Lep t i minus". Bu 11 et in de I a Soc i et e Nat i ona le des Antiquaires de France: 85-92. Pflaum, H.G. 1960. Les carrieres procuratoriennes equestres sous le Haut-Empire romain 2. Paris, Librairie Oriental iste Pa u l Ge u t h n e r • Rebuffat, R. 1982. Ara cerei. Melanges de l'Ecole Fran~aise de Rome. Ant i qui t e 94: 911-19. Rebuff at, R. l 9 8 4. Le ' l i mes' de Tr i pol i ta i n e. (Thi s v o 1ume). Reed, N. 1978. Pattern and purpose in the Antonine Itinerary ·. .American Journal of Philology 99:228-54.

162

Romane 1 1 i , P. 1 9 3 3. L' o r i g i n e de 1 no me II Tr i po 1 i t an i a 11 • Rend i conti della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia, ser i e I II 9: 2 5 - 3 I. Romanel 1 i, P. 1959. Stor ia del le Province Romane dell 'Africa. Roma, 11L'Erma 11 di Bret schne i der. Salama, P. 1953. Nouveaux temoignages de !'oeuvre des Severes dans la Mauretanie Cesarienne. Libyca 1: 231-61. Sa l ama , P. 1 9 5 5 • No u v e a u x t em o i g nag e s de l ' o e u v r e d e s Se v e r e s dans la Mauretanie Cesarienne 2. Libyca 3: 329-67. Seston, W. 1946. Diocletien et la Tetrarchie. Paris, E. De Boccard. Vitucci, G. 1957. Nuova iscrizione da Leptis Magna. In Atti del Terzo Congresso Internazionale di Epigrafia Greca e Latina, Roma 1957 [1959]: 271-5.

163

10.

CIVIL

THE PRAESIDES PROVINCIAE TRIPOLITANAE ADMINISTRATORS AND M.LITARY COMMANDERS By

G.H.

Donaldson

BACKGROUND The provincia Tripolitana was established as a consequence of the imperial reorganisations initiated by Diocletian. It was certainly in existence during the reign of Maxentius AD 307-12 (IRT 465), but the effective date of the creation of the province could have been as early as AD 303 (ILS 9352). Few would take issue with Ensslin's assertion that the7"ntention of the Diocletianic reforms of provincial administration was 'to secure the position of the emperor from being assailed by officials who lusted after power, by a fundamental separation of civil and military authority and by a substantial reduct ion in size of the provinces' (Cambridge Ancient History, XII, 390). It is certainly manifest that the device of reducing the s i ze o f p r o v i n c e s ho 1 d s go o d f o r A f r i c a , b u t t h e q u e s t i o n o f a separation of civil and military authority in the new and reduced provinces is far from clear cut.

AIM The new province of Tripolitania was governed by a praeses, an equestrian vir perfectissimus. The contemporary wisdom is that the early governors combined both civil and military powers, but by the sixties of the fourth century the defence of the province was entrusted to the comes Africae, and only exceptionally was military authority vested in the praeses. It is my belief that the evidence does not support that conclusion, and the aim of this paper is to demonstrate that for almost a century after the founding of the province both civil and military authority were in all probability continuously vested in one official, the praeses.

165

THE DEFENCE ENVIRONMENT When the provincia Tripolitana was established the decisions on military command must have been strongly influenced by three closely related factors. First, in the context of Roman imperial Africa as a whole the defence problems of the region between the Chott el Djerid and Sirte were minor. Second, the limes Tripolitanus had been in existence as a separate sector of the limes Africae at least forty years before the foundation of the province. Third, there were established precedents in the relationships between military and civil authority in Africa. Let us briefly consider each of these factors in turn. The last significant campaign which had been conducted in the region wa s t ha t o f S e p t i m i u s Se v e r u s a b o u t a c e n t u r y p r e v i o u s 1y ( SHA, Severus, 18, 3; Aurelius Victor, 20, 19). This campaign most probably took far longer than is commonly recognised. From discoveries at Bu Ngem we can deduce that it lasted for over five years. It must have been well under way on 24 January 201 and finished around 26 December 205 (Rebuffat 1975, 504). The length of the campaign and the strategy adopted are good indicators of the general military situation at the time. Strategy is determined by threat perception. For our purposes thr _eat perception, which is the foundation for the detailed military appreciations upon which all contingency planning is based, is defined as the identification of possible adversaries and the assessment of their relative military capabilities with a forecast of their likely intentions and courses of action. At the time of Septimius Severus the perceived threat to frontier security was not from the Garamantes or any other readi l y i dent i f i ab 1e pol i ti cal entity of cons eque nee. The perceived threat came from the nomadic barbari. The nomads' fragmentation in small clans and lack of political organisation, th ·eir disregard for external authority, their lack of permanent homes, their mob i l i t y , t h e i r ad a p t a ·t i o n t o t h e ha r s h d e s e r t c l i ma t e a n d e n vironment and the unpredictability of their subsistence economy, which could turn them to brigandage without warning, made them an a l mos t i n t r a c t ab 1e m i l i t a r y p r ob l em. The r e co u 1d be no que s t i on of bringing them to decisive battle, Roman strategy could not usefully aim for a final victory, because the threat was amorphous and potentially endless. To a great degree frontier defence had to be passive rather than active: it fol lows tha ·t the best solution was a policy of containment and damage limitation. The Severan strategy was brilliant in its simplicity. At Bu Ngem, Gheriat el Garbia, and very probably at Ghadames strategic barracks were built. They were certainly not fortresses, that has to be emphasised: they were not designed to be defended against assault. The buildings were an impressive permanent presence deep in nomad territory, and a visible reminder of the power of Rome. Their garrisons controlled major water sources, the essential requirement for desert survival and mobility, and 166

they were sited on the axes of established routes ftom and to the African interior. The strategy was aimed at controlling move~ent and it worked for some sixty years. Under Gallienus there was an important reorganisation. Bu Ngem was evacuated by the military c. AD 259 (Rebuffat 1972, 337) and the likelihood is that Gheriat-el Garbia and Ghadames lost their garrisons at the same time. We also know from Ras el A·in that new military building was in process on the limes c. AD 263 and that the limes Tripolitanus was already established as an entity (CIL 8.22765). Had there been a change of threat perception? My view is that the strategy of Septimius Severus which depended on denial of water to the nomads became obsolete. I believe that with the increasing availability of the camel to the nomadic barbari it had become utterly pointless to deploy the scarce resource of regular military manpower guarding watering places which were no longer essential to the nomads' movement. I do not visualise a desert swarming with meharistes, it is far more likely that the nomads had become mundane chameliers - the French terms convey the distinction succinctly. What had happened was, that al though the enemy was st i 11 the same, there had been an important change in capability. Ga l l i en u s ' p o l i c y wa s s t i l l c o n t a i nme n t , b u t t h e s t r a t e g y wa s n ow l i n e a r d e f e n c e a l o n g t h e 1 i me s • A t t h i s j u n c t u r e a n important point has to be made. There is not one scrap of hard evidence to support the persistent notion that the so-called fortified farms in the pre-desert were inhabited by a peasant militia - limitanei or gentiles, call them what you will - responsible for frontier security. It is a military nonsense, pure speculation based on surmise. The farmhouses were clearly private 1y conceived, privately bu i l t, pr iv ate l y maintained and had no official status in the defensive system of the limes Tripolitanus. In concept they were akin to the defensible bastles built along the English/Scottish border in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (McDowall in Ramm et al. 1970, 61-70). It is worthy of comment that the buildingswere certainly constructed with confidence for the future. The owners must have calculated that it was going to be economically worthwhile to establish themselves on such a scale in the pre-desert, which means that they accepted any threats of raids by nomadic barbari as a tolerable risk. Threat perception must have been low. We now come to the third factor. In Africa civil and mi lit a r y a u t h o r i t y had be e n s e p a r a t e d b y Ca l i g u 1a a s e a r 1y a s AD 3 7 (Tacitus, Histories, 4, 48, Dio Cassius, 59, 20), when control of Legio ..!_!_!_ Augusta was removed from the proconsul and the legate of the legion was made directly answerable to the emperor. After t he d am n a t i o o f Le g i o .!_!__!_ Au g u s t a i n AD 2 3 8 t h e r e wa s n o 1e g i o n stationed in Africa until that legion was remustered in AD 253 by Valerian and Gallienus (CIL 8.2482). We know from Gasr Duib that i n AD 2 4 4 - 4 6 t h e p r a e p o sTtu s 1 i m i t i s Te n t h e i t a n i wa s u n d e r t h e conmand of Marcus Aurelius Cominius Cassianus the legate of Numidia (IRT 880, Birley 1950, 60-2) and it is reasonable from th .is to deduce that the governors of Numidia were responsible for 167

the security of the frontier during the fifteen years the legion was in suspension. We also know that when Legio ..!..!_!_ Augusta was reformed the legate of Numidia was also legate of the legion (CIL 8.2797). By the time of Aurel ian, however, the legion was comnanded by an equestrian praefectus Marcus Aurelius Fortunatus vir egregius (CIL 8.2665), so that civil and military commands we r e a g a i n s e p a r a t e d a n d i t ca n be i n f e r r e d t h a t t h i s o r g a n i s a tion prevailed in Africa up to the Diocletianic reforms. In summation, it can be litana was conceived: first, limes Tripolitanus was low; defensive system in existence ceived threat; and finally, once again the responsibilities governor in a region of such nor did not have the resources power.

seen that when the provincia Tripothe threat perception along the second, there was already a linear considered adequate for the perthat it made good sense to combine of military commander and civil low risk, especially when the goverto make a challenge for imperial

COMMAND STRUCTURE From the Notitia Dignitatum we know that after the reforms of Diocletian overall command in North Africa was held by the come s r e i m i l i t a r i s A f r i c a e ( Oc c • I , 3 0 ) • F r om i t s l o c a t i o n i n the tex"tthis would seem to have been the original title. An alternative title the comes limitis Africae is found in the same sou r c e ( Oc c • V , 1 2 8 ) • Amm i a n u s Ma r c e l l i n u s w r i t e s , ' p r a e s i d i um imploravere Romani, comi tis ~ Afr icam recens provect i' (28, 6, 5). And in another passage, 'Gratianus ••. ~ dignitatem protector is at ue tribuni, comes praefuit rei castrensi ~ Africam' (30, 7, 3. These passages lead me to deduce that during Marcellinus' lifetime the title was comes~ Africam. He had been a soldier himself and is likely to have been punctilious about such matters. Cagnat, from the second passage, construed, 'le titre de comes rei castrensis' (1913, 713, n. 3), but I find thi's unacceptable. The title comes per Africam may conceivably be confirmed by analogy with the comes litoris Saxonici ~ l;)ritanniam of the Not it ia Digni tat um (Occ., 28) and with the vir clarissimus agens vices praefectorumpraetorio ~ Africanas provincias recorded on three inscriptions from Lepcis Magna (IRT 472-3, 475). It seems obvious that, even if Ammianus Marcellinus' title was not official,~ Africam clearly indicates an overall responsibility. The preferred official title s e ems , h owe v e r , t o h a v e b e e n t h e a b b r e v i a t i o n c om e s A f r i ca e (Notitia 0-ignitatum, Occ., XXV, 1, 19; VII, 140, 179; Codex Theo do s i an u s I X , 4 2 , l 8 ; CI L 8 • 1 0 9 3 7) • Th e c om e s A f r i c a e h a d t h e status of vir spectabilisl'codex Theodosianus XVI, 2, 31; Notitia D i g n i t a t um, Oc c • , V I I , 1 4 0 , l 7 9 ) a n d h i s h e a d qua r t e r s we r e a t Carthage (Codex Theodosianus XII, 1, 15).

1

Cagnat believed that the command of the comes Afr icae only extended from the Wadi Akarit in Tunisia to the Wadi el Akhal in Algeria, with the whole of Tripolitania and the major part of Maure tan i a Ca e s a r i en s i s l y i n g o u t s i de h i s r e s po n s i b 1 i t y ( 1 9 1 3 , 719-21). I find this unlikely as the three unabbreviated titles 168

we have al 1 imply responsibi 1 i ty for the defence of the Diocese of Africa as a whole, and the comes Romanus was not the man to be involved, even on the small scale that he was, in the operations a g a i n s t t he Aus t u r i an i i n Tr i po 1 i t an i a i n AD 36 3 i f t he p r o v i nc e wa s n o t pa r t o f h i s c omma n d ( Amm i a n u s Ma r c e 1 1 i n u s , 2 8 , 6 , 5 ) • The limes Tripolitanus had been established as a separate sector corrmand ~- AD 260 during the limes reorganisation of Gall ienus but it is inconceivable that the limes Tripolitanus could have existed as a command independent of the comes Africae. For low intensity police operations the province could stand on its own, but it did not have the military resources to deal with major incursions and the responsibility for defence from serious external threat must have lain with the comes Africae. COMMANDOF THE LIMES TRIPOLITANUS Although the governor of Tripolitania was a praeses whose duties were theoretically primarily judicial the earlier praesides certainly were responsible for the defences of the province. The first evidence we have of this dual role comes from an inscription from Ksar Tarcine in Tunisia (CIL 8.22763) where we read that under the praeses Valerius Vibianusa centenarium was started and that it was completed by his successor as prae"ses Aurelius Quintianus. Valerius Vibianus is encountered as praeses of Tripolitania again at Lepcis Magna (IRT 577) and Aurelius Quintianus appears as governor of Numidia in AD 303 (ILS 644). What is clear from the epigraphy is that, during certain periods at the very least, from its foundation in the early fourth century AD the praesides of the provincia Tripolitana were responsible also for the limes Tripolitanus. This arrangement was not unique,for during the same period we find another praeses of a province in the Diocese of . Africa actively engaged in military affairs. Aurelius Litua, the praeses of Mauretania Ca e s a r i e n s i s c • AD 2 9 1 , r e c o r de d h i s v i c t o r i e s a ga i n s t t he Babares transtagneneses and against the Quinquegentanei rebelles (CIL 8.9325, 8924). The praeses of Tripoli tania continued to have military duties up to c. AD 317 at least. We have confirma·ti on o f t h i s f r om Sa b r a t ha , - wh e r e an i n s c r i p t i on (I RT l Ol ) t o t he praeses Laenatius Romulus has a clear military

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India,

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As s um i n g l a k e l eve l s t o r e f l e c t r a i n fa l l i t can a l s o be s e en in Figure 13:9 from the work of Currey (1970) and Bowler (1970) on Austr alia n lake salinity, biological and sedimentological evidence, that there is also a precipitation response from that quarter which marches in step with the climate model. There decreased precipitation is noted to coincide with the model's hindc ast of higher global temperature. It should be noted in passing that this contradicts the trend to be intepreted from the precipitation response map of Klein (1982). THE

TRIPOLITANIA

CASE

HISTORY

Having seen the way in which the model is capable of describing past events in a general way, it may be instructive to turn now · to spec i f i c a r ch a e o l o g i ca l p r ob l ems • Th i s sec t i on de a l s w i t h culture change in Roman period Tripolitania, a marginal land '_Vhere the effects of cl_imatic c hange are potentially severe. Whilst conducting fieldwork in Tripolitania (western Libya) the members of the UNESffi Libyan Valleys Survey, the first author included, have been c onstantly impressed by the role of climate and environment in shaping the subsistence modes of past and present societies. For more in format ion on the work of the survey, there are a series of articles by Barker and Jones (198084). It must be stressed here that the views expressed in this paper are not necessarly those of the UNESCO Libyan Valleys Survey. Professor G.D.B. Jones of the University of Manchester and Dr. G.W. Barker, currently Director of the British School at Rome, are gratefully acknowledged for allowing the use of Survey info rma·t ion. The desert-like (hamada),

Tripolitanian landscape within the survey area is both and infertile. It consists of al imestone plateau dissected by ancient river valleys (wadis) whi ch are

215

TRIPOLITANIA Tripoli Sabrathae

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Survey area Roman period forts Romano-Libyan settlements Ancient and modern settlements lsohyets

Figure 13:10.

Roman Tripol itania - the survey area.

216

dry except for a few months of the year. The wadis vary both in depth and width ranging from scored, rocky trenches to plain-J ike troughs filled with alluvium. In the autumn and occasionally spring these dry river valleys are battered by ferocious flash floods which convert them into torrents, potentially disastrous for animals and plants. Today's climate is arid with a southwards decline in precipitation from 100mm per annum at the modern town of Beni Wal id to 25mm or less at the Romano-Libyan settlement at Ghirza (Fig. 13:10). Agricultural settlement has traditionally concentrated on the fertile coastal plain and the neighbouring hills of the Tarhuna Gebel which receive between 400mm to 200nm of rain per annum. The latter figure is generally regarded as the threshhold for dry farming; perhaps significantly it was here that the Italians colonised this century. Until the recent social reforms of Colonel Gaddafi modern land-sue in the area further south centred around herds of goats, sheep and camels. The inhabitants of this arid environment are still semi-nomadic pastoralists, growing small stands of barley in the flood loams but generally living off their animal produce. The population is dispersed over a wide area occupying specific but flexible tribal territories with a number of small towns such as Beni Walid serving as distribution centres where produce can be sold and provisions purchased. The archaeological record, however, shows that this picture of transhumance, largely based on goat herds, has not always been the case. At some period, which we now know to have been the first to fifth centuries AD, the region had amuch denser settlement pattern. Along the limestone ridges of the wadis overlooking the alluvium are a whole series of small 'castles' (in Arabic •~•plural,•~• singular). Associated with these~ are irrigation walls in the wadis below, which run across the loams and along the sides on the same axis as the wadi. Both~ and walls range in dimensions, structure and form but undoubtedly represent a large investment in agriculture rather than pastoralism. In the 1950s and 1960s, Richard Goodchild and Lady Olwen Brogan produced a series of influent .ial papers on the subject with Goodchild in particular reaching firm conclusions. These were t ha t t he~ a r e Rom an i n d a t e , p r ob ab l y o f t h e t h i r d c e n tury AD or later, and coincide with historical reference to Roman I mpe r i a 1 f r o n t i e r po 1 i c y ad v o c a t i n g t h e u s e o f a r my v e t e r a n s a s s o l d i e r - f a r me r s ( 1 i m i t a n e i ) i n s e n s i t i v e f r o n t i e r a r e a s . Th e distribution of these~' extending some 200km from west to east and 150km north to south, represented a massive and elaborate system of 1 imes infrastructure for the Roman Empire in conjunction with three outpost forts further south (Goodchild l 97 6) • The four expeditions conducted under the auspices of UNESCD and the Libyan government since 1979 have since shown that previous interpretations need to be modified. The initial results have provided examp les of many other types of structure in addition to ~ and large funerary monuments. These include farms w i .th ,o l i v e p re s s e s , co u r t ya r d f a rm s ( t h r e e o r f o u r - r o om e d 217

structures with associated stockyards forming an enr.losure), one or two-roomed farmsteads, defendable spur sites {eperon barre) with stockyards, many different forms of cemeteries and individual graves , and a s er i es of en i gma t i c and I es s er s t r u c tu res ranging from circular or rectangular houses to tent footings, both within and at some distance from the wadis. In addition, open sites with flint workings appear, associated with traces of insubstantial stone shelters. On most of the above sites, with the exception of the latter, many Roman period pottery sherds have been collected. Most of the lithic material may be identified as belonging to the Aterian industry, although in the absence of a more developed technology it seems 1 ikely that the same tradition continued well into proto-historic times. So far there is no evidence whatsoever for agricultural practises before the Romano-Libyan period. The areas surrounding Tri pol itania {Tunisia, Cyrenaica, and the Fezzan) are al 1 characterised by pastoral economies in the first few millennia BC. Herodotus describes the Libyan tribes as herders, and there can be little doubt that the prehistoric cultures of Tripoli tania fol lowed the same type of subsistence mode as their neighbours. Diagnostic lithic material is extremely scarce in the area; not one site has produced evidence to suggest the existence of a Neolithic farming society and it is not until the first century AD that settled comnunities appear in the archaeological record.Significantly these communities are dated solely on recongnisable Roman period pottery sherds {Terra Sigi l lata). The many coarse ware fragments also found at these sites have not been of use at all as alternative dating elements, simply because they have not yet been the subject of a morphological/ chronological study. At the time of writing Mr. J.N. Dore of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne is producing a type and fabric series of the coarse wares which should be available in the near future. If the evidence is to be believed, these sites all appear at the same moment and at the time when Rome is increasing its sphere of influence in the region. However, it is not beyond the realms of credibility that many o f t he s e s i t e s a r e ea r 1 i e r t ha n t he po t t e r y s u g g e s t s • Tho s e wh i ch g e n e r a 1 l y f a 1 l i n t o t h i s ea r l y p e r i o d a r e o 1 i ·v e f a r m s , courtyard farms and spur sites. The · latter series of sites, consisting of roughly built huts and stockyards on defendable p r omo n to r i e s , h a v e c o u n t e r p a r t s i n t h e Fe z z a n , t h e s o u t h e r n desert region of Libya. The promontory site at Zinchechra in the Fezzan has been studied by Daniels {1970) and is dated from the ninth century BC to the first century AD at which point a new site was founded in the wadi below. Until radio-carbon dates can be obtained, the problem of dating and interpreting these sites 1n the study area must remain. Notwithstanding the Romano-Libyan both ch:onologically I)

problems such as this, period shows a number of and spatially:

settlement interesting

dated to factors,

Gsur are found everywhere in the survey area, with an incipient date of mid/late second century AD and remain in use n om i n a l l y u n t i l t he f o u r t h o r f i f t h c e n t u r y • Ma n y o f t h e

218

irrigation these ~.

systems

2}

Courtyard farms of Tripolitania second centuries

3}

Olive farms phenomenon ,

~-

sites from

are but

in

the

wadis

appear

predominantly a first sev e r a l a r e oc c up i e d

Spur date

5}

l\Aany larger cemetery or mausolea distance from domestic areas and they dominate the landscape.

are found near north/south the first to third centuries

~-

soldier-farmers as such until i.e. one or two

to be second tradition

with

southern wadis to the late

and second century f o r a s l o ng a s t h e

desert trackways at least.

sites usually

F o l 1ow i n g on f r om t he s e a r ch a e o 1o g i ca l th eo re t i cal imp 1 i cat ions. Goodchild's missioned centuries

be associated

have a greater density in the and date from the mid-first AD.

4}

a}

to

and

are found at some in places where

' f a c t s ' a r e a n um be r o f

were, historically, the late third or hundred years after

not comearly fourth the earliest

b}

There appears farms in the continue the

a~ 'take-over' from the courtyard century, although the spur sites do of a pastoral subsistence.

c}

Cemetery sites were deliberately sites for some special reason.

d}

Settlement patterns indicating imply different subsistence

e}

The change of s~ttlement type and distribution, late prehistoric into the classical era, suggests economic change and system transformation.

located

different modes.

away

from

ecological

domestic

niches

from social

the and

The overriding problem here is just how much these changes and suppositions o we to the presence of Rome. It is well known that there were host i 1 it ies in the area at the same time as the ~ system was developing. This reference however is a spurious one and may owe more to 1 i terary convent ion than to actuality. For instance in Historia Augusta, Severus, 18.3, there are no accounts of victory celebrations and the arch which Severus erected in Rome was to celebrate his success in the Parthian wars, with no mention of Africa. If there had been major victories won in his native province and at the start of his reign it seems peculiar that Severus did not take full advantage of them to enhance his public s t anding. Goodchild's suggestion that the ~ are directly related to the needs of Rome is no longer tenable (Jones 1964; Barker and Jones 1980-84}. If the Romans

219

had little a theoretical

to

do with vacuum.

this

hinterland

region

then

that

now leaves

From an analytical standpoint we may substitute extraneous reasons for social change (such as Rome) and concentrate on a comb i n a t i on o f p h y s i ca l fa c t o r s • Cu 1 t u r a 1 c hang e may be s e en a s the final equation resulting from changes in climate, in flora and fauna populations and distribution and concomitant presssures on traditional subsistence systems. With this in mind, how do the various archaeological/historical events fit with the climatic data as provided by the model described in the previous sections? Turning to Figure 13:11, it can be seen that temperature was considerably lower than today's average prior to~200 BC and with refernce to Figure 13:2 the contemporary precipitation rates were higher. Herodotus, writing in the fifth century BC describes the long-horned cattle of the Fezzan (Herodotus, Histories, 4, 170) and the archaeological evidence from this period indicates a mainly pastoral economy. Given that large herds of animals such as cattle need a fair amount of water we can be fairly confident that the model and the archaeology fit quite we 11 at this point. Around 200 BC temperature increases swiftly. measures were taken to defend the site at about (Daniels 1968) and it may be at this point that further north were first occupied. Incidentally 1800

1600

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A

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2400-1400

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signficantly, the same period sees the apogee of hi 11-fort develo pme n t i n B r i t a i n ( Ha r d i n g 1 9 7 6 ) • Th e c o n t i n u i n g d e t e r i o r a t. i o n in climate may account for the various Roman military expeditions, such as that which led to one Cornelius Balbus receiving a t r i umph i n 19 BC. I n t he f i r s t c e n t u r y AD mo r e r e v o l t s o cc u r r e d , specifically those of the Gaetul ii (AD 37-6), Tac farinas and the Mu s u l am i i ( AD 1 7 - 2 4 ) a n d t h e Mu s u l am i i a g a i n i n t h e f o r t i e s • I n addition, other tribes had t heir territories restricted by the provincial admini st rat ion (Rachet 1970; Lancel, 1955). When a society's economic basis and carrying disturbed by an irreversible event there are three a)

An i n c r e a s e i n l a n d u s e , subsistence means.

b)

Migration

c)

Starvation.

to

a more

capacity are options open:

i • e • a n i n t e n s i f i ca t i o n o f

favourable

t he i r

area.

In this situation, (c) is clearly impractical and (a) is frustrated by a decrease in precipitation, rendering it impossib l e t o r e t a i n a ca r r y i n g c a p a c i t y b y i n c r e a s i n g h e r d s i z e • Op tion (b) thus appears to be the only real alternative. Migration, however, is only feasible if there are 'free' places to receive immigrants. Modern analogies in North Africa and the Middle East ·show that aggression and tribal warfare are the result if these optimum lands are already taken; in particular the presence of a strong cent ral government restricts migration or transhumance even more. We should, therefore, expect to find a series of revolts or inter-tribal wars within this period of increased temperature. A glance at Figure 13:11 shows that du r i n g t h e f i r s t c e n t u r y AD s e v e r a 1 p e a k s o f v e r y h i g h t em p e r a ture levels are recorded. Perhaps it is merely a coincidence that these peaks correspond very closely with the major revolts in the area. It could be claimed however, with some justification, that Rome was frustrating tribal migration at - a time of economic constriction due to a deteriorating climate. This would force the tribes into taking the only real option. The archaeological material from Tripoli tania shows that, although pastoralism was still dominant, a change in settlement types occurred. Previously tent footings and insubstantial stone structures were the only accommodation found; from the first century AD . courtyard farms, spur sites (both with stockyards) and olive farms start to develop. All these sites are located above or on the alluvial fans to take advantage of the available rainfall. Detectable at courtyard farms are cleared areas for threshing. It appears that in the face of cl irnat ic adversity, and the inability to move peacefully away from the problem, populatJon density had been maintained by developing mixed farming methods. No doubt they were encouraged to do so by the central government based on the coastal littoral, but c hange probably happened internally. By~ AD 200 temperature levels, thUgh still higher than today's, had dropped slightly and

221

judging from the number of occupied sites at this time (testified by dateable pottery), this slight improvement in temperature -and precipitation rates caused an increase in population density. Apparently the new economic order was generating a surplus; most of the diagnostic pottery (African Red Slip ware) dates from this period, and suggests that enough was produced to trade for luxury items such as fine-wares. At ab o u t AD 2 5 0 , o r s 1 i g h t l y ea r l i e r , t h e r e abrupt rise in temperature to 1.0-1.5° centigrade day levels. To the layman such an increase may particularly drastic, but in a marginal area it p owe r f u l c h a n g e s w i t h i n t h e e c o - s y s t em , w h i c h circular fashion.

.--

Increased

o c c u r s a no t he r above present not seem to be sets in motion e s ca l a t e i n a

evaporation

Less water

Soil

Fewer plants

depletion

____y

The effect on the vegetation and fauna would have been potentially catastrophic. The contemporary system of pastoralism with non-intensive agriculture (with the exception of the olive farm) would no longer be satisfactory. Herbivores such as goats and sheep would qe especially susceptible to even small changes in the environment, as witnessed in the present day drought conditions in Ethiopia and the Sudan. The same restrictions apply as before; it would not be possible to expand spatially nor to intensify the pastoral side of the economy. The only solution to the problem, given a higher carrying capacity than previously, wa s t o d e v e l o p f u r t h e r t he a g r i c u 1 t u r a l s y s t em. I n t ur n t h i s would entail more intensive land use and a more elaborate use of available water resources. The optimum place would be the wadis so that no change in settlement location need be made. The problem now facing the population was how to utilise satisfactorily the small amount of sporadic rainfall. The most obvious way Vt[a s t o b u i l d h u g e c i s t ~ r n s f e d b y s ma l l g u i d i n g wa l l s b u t a l though such cisterns were used, their implementation is regarded as too labour intensive to provide the major water source. Water could be captured in other ways, specifically by a system of walls or dams to br e ak the force of the floods running downstream in the wadis. It could then be guided by elements such as s 1u ices or s l i p ways i n to var i o us par t s o f a f i e 1d s y s t em. Once caught, the water which did not evaporate would seep through the loams, replacing lost nutrients and replenishing the water table. This change in subsistence mode would ultimately induce changes in the social sphere. Given that economic change usually occurs before social change and that any society is essentially conservative in nature, we should not expect immediate social transfo r ma t i on a s t h i s w i 1 1 b e r e t a r d e d • Wh e r e a s a mo v e t o a n a g r i cultural economy would have involved a deliberate decision, however abstract, there would be no conscious decision to change rituals and the general social intercourse which bind individuals into a coherent social group. Consequently there may wel 1 be a 222

significant time lag between economic and social change. The few examples of courtyard farms with associated irrigation walls may we l 1 r e p r e s e n t t h i s s t a t e o f t r a n s i e n c e • Th e f u I I y d e v e I o p e d system saw the open farms replaced by the castle-like~ and due to their appearance it is understandable why these buildings have been considered as fulfilling military functions. However, they may be better interpreted as a response to shifting environmental conditions and the effect they have on indigenous social s y s t ems • Bo t h pa s t a n d p r e s e n t d a y ho u s i n g i n No r t h A f r i c a a n d the Middle East are of very similar design to these~' with the high windowless walls and central courtyard being an excel lent adapt at ion to desert 1 i fe (Negev 1980). There are examples of open farms being converted into~' and because there is no change in the location of settlement, it may be postulated that there is equally no change in population type. In addition to the purely physical nature and reasons for the construct ion of the~' they may al so have operated on a symbolic level. In lands where water is scarce, sufficient population pressure coupled with a deteriorating climate means that land use intensifies. This causes resource competition, with cultivable territories assuming a much more rigid status and physical boundaries marked out. As the economic system becomes less flexible general access rights to lands once used by a whole coffillunity are transformed into specific rights of personal ownership. The ir .rigation walls, as well as controlling water flow, also functioned as boundaries between different owners. In this way each~ has its own field system. The~ themselves may be indicative of the change from group identification to an extended family unit now becoming the prime unit of production. The grouping of~ forming linear or nucleated villages along the wadis presupposes a need for co-operation in the building and maintenance of the irrigation works. These unit or small community territories are al so marked symbolically and physically by placing cemeteries and huge mausolea at the peripheries of a group's area. This would serve to maintain a tribal or group identification, whilst discouraging intruders. CONCLUSIONS A model of secular climatic variation has been shown to relate to records o f physical characteristics of sites around the world over periods ranging from a hundred to several thousand years. It is also consistent with th e regional rainfall response anticipated from modern temperature/precipitation correlations. Implications for economic and cultural variation in step with these climatic hindcasts are thus available for more detailed analysis. It must be stressed that discussion of the specific examples i s e s s e·n t i a 1 1y t en t a t i v e. A 1 t hough n e i t he r o f t he au t ho r s p r o pose to champion a mono-causal explanation for culture change, it seems reasonable and pertinent to suggest that in certain circ urns t an c e s c 1 i ma t i c a n d t h u s e n v i r o nme n t a l v a r i a t i o n s a c t a s a physical trigger which ultimately produces change in the subsis223

tence and social spheres. However much seept 1 c 1 sm there is con­ cerning the environmental approach, it appears that there is still much to be said in its favour. The new climatic synthesis has now provided an extremel y useful analytical tool for those who w i s h to u se it. BIBLIOGR APHY Agassiz, L. 1 84 0 • E tudes sur I es g I a c i ers. Ne u c hatel , Pr ivate publication . Arakawa, H • 195 4 • F iv e cen tu r ie s o f free z in g date s o f Lake Su w a in cen tral Japan • Ar c h . Met • Geop h ys • B i o k I • B , 6: 1 52 -66 • 1 9 8 0 -8 4 • T h e U N E SCO L i b y a n Barker, G • W • a n d J o n e s , G • D • B • Valleys Survey. Libyan Studies 11-15. Bowler, J.M. 1970. Late Quaternary Environments: a Study of

Lakes and Associated Sediments in South-eastern Australia.

Australian National University, Canberra, unpublished Ph.D. Thesis. Bryson, R.A. 1975. The lessons of climatic history. Environmenta I Cons ervat i on 2 (3 ) : 163-79. Bryson, R.A. 1978. Cultural , economic and climate records. In A.B. Pi ttock, L.A. Frakes, D. Jenssen, J.A. Peter son and J.W. Zillman (eds.) Climatic Change and Variability: a Southern P erspective. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 3J6-27. Bryson, R.A. and Murray, T.J. 1977. Climates of Hunger. Madison, University of Wisconsin Press. Chu , K . -C. 1973 • A pr e 1 im in ar y st ud y on the c I ima tic fl u ctuations during the last 5000 years in China. Scientia Sinica 16(2): 226-56. Cipolla, C.M. 1978. The Economic History of World Population. Harmondsworth, Penguin. Cleary, M.N. and Hobbs, G.D. 1983. The fifty-year cycle: evidence and theory. Trans. Inst. M. C. 5(1): 35-47. Cro rt , J. 1875. C I i ma te and T i me. New York, App Ieton and Co. Currey, D • T. 197 0 • Lake sy s tem s i n We ster n V ic to r ia •· Aus t ra I i an Society for Limno I ogy Bu 11 etin 3: 1 -3. o'aniels, C.M. 1968. Ga.ramantian excavation s: Zinchechra 196567. L i bya An t i qua 5: 1 13 -94 • Daniels, C.M. 1970. The Garamantes of Southern Libya. North Harrow, Oleander Press. Denness, B. 1981. Ho w to bui Id an ocean. Proc. Conf. Oceans 81, IEEE Boston: 3 4 1 -4. Denness, B .. 1983a. From seabed to the skies. Northern Executive 1 : 77-8. Denness, B. 1983b. The economy/cl imate I ink 1n 2 000 A D . Northern Executive 2: 117-8. Denness, B. in press, a. An analytical cl imate model: application to the southern hemisphere Quaternary period. Int.

SY14>. Late Cainozoic Palaeoclimates of the Southern Hemi­ sphere, Aug. 1983 SASQJA, Swaziland.

Denness, B. in press, b. The coincidence of a general climate model and historical climatic observations in East Asia.

224

Proc. Conf. Palaeoenvironment Tertiary, Jan. 1983 University

of

East

Asia

from

the

Mid

of Hong Kong. Denness, B. in press, c. The Greenhouse affair. Marine Pollution Bui let in. Oxford, Pergamon Press. Denness, B. in press, d. The energy-economy-climate 1 ink. Energy Exploration and Exploitation. London, Graham and Trotman. Goodchild, R.G. 1976. Libyan Studies: Selected Papers of the Late R.G. Goodchi l ld (ed. J.M. Reynolds). London, Elek Books. Harding, D.W. (ed.). 1976. Hi llforts: Later Prehistoric Earthworks i n Br i t a i n and I r e l and. Ox fo r d , Br i t i s h Ar ch a e o I o g i cal Reports. Hays, J.D., lmbrie, J. and Shackleton, N.J. 1976. Variations in the earth's orbit: pacemaker of the ice ages. Science 194: 1121 - 32. Jones, A.H.M. 1964. The Later Roman Empire. Oxford. Klein, W.H. 1982. Detecting carbon dioxide effects on climate. In W.C. Clark (ed.) Carbon Dioxide Review. New York, Oxford University Press: 215-42. Koch, L. 1945. The East Greenland ice. Medd. om Gr9nland 130, n r • 3 • C o p e n h age n • Kucztnski, T. 1980. Have there been differences between the growth rates in different periods of the development of the Capi ta list World economy s i nce 1950? - an application of c luster a~alysis. Historische - Socialwissenschaftliche Fors c hungen Band 6. Stuttgart. Lamb, H. H. 1977. Climate: Present, Past and Future; 2 Climatic History and the Future. London, Methuen and Co. Ltd. Lance l , S. 1 9 5 5 • S u b u r b u r e s e t N i c i be s , u n e i n s c r i p t i on de Ti g is is. Li bye a 3: 2 8 9 - 9 8. Milankovit c h, M. 1938. Astronomische Mittel zur Erforschung der erdges c hi c htlichen Kl imate. In B. Gutenberg (ed.) Handbuch der Geophysik, 9. Berl in: 593-699. Negev, A. 1980. House and city planning in the ancient Negev ~nd Provincia Arabia. In G. Golany (ed.) Housing in Arid Lands. Lo 11don, Arch i t e c t u r a l Pre s s . Rachet, M. 1970. Rome et les Berberes .. Brussels. Sing, G. 1971. The Indus Valley culture. Archaeological and Physical Anthropology in Oceania 6(2): 177-89. Taulis, E. 1934. De la distribution des pluies au Chili. Materiaux pour l'etude des calamites 33, Geneva (Soc. Geog r • ) : 3 - 2 0 • Van Duijn, J.J. 1977. The long wave in economic 1 i fe. De Ee on om i ·S t 1 2 5 ( 4 ) : 5 4 4 - 7 6 . Wigley, T.M.L., Jones, P.O. and Kelly, P.M. 1980. Scenario for a warm high-CD 2 world. Nature 283: 17-21. Yamamo t o , T. 1 9 7 2 • Lo n g t e r m v a r i a t i o n o f r a i n f a I l i n t h e Fa r Ea s t. J a pa n e s e Phy s i o g r a p h i ca l Mag. 8 1 ( 4 ) : 1 9 9 - 2 2 2 • Yao, S.-Y. 1943. The geographical distribution of floods and drought s i n Ch i n e s e h i s t o r y 2 0 6 BC - AD 1 9 1 1 • Fa r Ea s t Qua r t er l y: 3 5 7 • Yao, S.-Y. 1944. Flood and drought data in the T'u-shu Chi Chung and Ch'ing Shi Kao. Harvard J. Asiatic Studies 8: 214. 225

14. GHIRZA By

D.J.

Smith

This colloquium on town and country in Roman Tripolitania, convened in honour of Olwen Brogan, would be incomplete - not to say unthinkable - without a contribution on Ghirza. The explora­ tion of this rem arkable and extremely important site was a joint venture but it was Olwen who conceived the undert aking, who raised the funds on which our four small expeditions set out in 1955-58, a nd·who stirred so m any to assist us in one way or another; and although we spent altogether less than twelve weeks in the field the work proved fruitful beyond all expectation. That this contribution to the colloquium comes from me rather than from Olwen is simply a matter of practicality, but it gives me the opportunity to put these facts on record while offering it as my affectionate tribute to her. This is a timely occasion, for it is now possible to say that our definitive report of Ghirza is at last about to be published. I propose, therefore, to proffer a glimpse of its contents. (For particulars see the appendix to this paper). THE SITE

(Fi g . 14:1)

Ghirza li e s approximately 15 0 mi le s ( 2 4 0 km) in a s tr a i ght line south-east of Tripoli and some five miles up the Wadi Ghirza, a southern tributary of the Zemzem. The site and asso­ ciated fea tures comprise remains of (1) flood-control walls in the wadi, -(2 ) a size able settlement on its north side, with middens, c emeteries, cisterns, wells, and quarries, and (3) a spectacular series of monument al tombs. The last are in two groups, one - the North Tombs - near the settlement, the other the South Tombs - about l¾ miles (2.8km) further up the wadi. THE WAD! The system of flood-control walls extended apparently from the vicinity of the settlement to the South Tombs. It represents 227

N N 00

Figure

14:1.

Ghirza

from

the

air,

looking

west

(c.

1960).

(Photo

by courtesy

of

Shel 1 Oil

Company)

t he er ea t i on o f a cu 1 t i v ab 1e a r ea o f c. 3 0 1. 5 a c r e s ( l 2 2 ha ) • The s i t ua t i on o f t he s e t t 1em e n t and No r th Tomb s a t o n e end o f t h e cultivated stretch of the wadi and of the South Tombs at the other end suggests that ownership of this land may have been divided between two principal families, and other evidence has been noted which supports this suggestion. There is also evidence which throws light on the cultivation of the wadi (see below). Its products certainly included olives as well as probably barley, wheat, grapes, figs, dates, lentils, other pulses, and even water-melons. As there is no scientific evidence for a significantly more favourable climate in antiquity the implication is that the low rainfall (under 25mm per annum) was much more successfully exploited in the past than today. THE

SETTLEMENT

(Figs.

14:2,

14:3)

Part of the settlement occupies a spur between two small left-bank tributaries of the wadi, namely the Shabet et-Tiswyr and the Shabet el-Gsur, and it seems probable that the settlement originated here. At any rate the two known wells, most of the larger buildings including one of particular signficance, and nearly all the middens including the largest, are on this spur. The other part of the settlement, comprising most of the buildings, st a nds on the north side of the Shabet el-Gsur. Altogether the remains of 38 buildings, excluding numerous huts, have been identified. Most range from single-roomed structures to a row of several rooms, some of the latter having an upper storey if not a tower at one end, but six are examples of the so-called fortified farms (gsur) which are so characteristic of the hinterland of late Roman Tripolitania. One of these, on the north bank of the Shabet el-Gsur, still preserves much of two storeys with high rooms and evidence for a tower at one angle. This building actually represents the extensive enlargement, apparently in a single oper a tion, of one comprising a row of five rooms. Two others, on the spur, are especially notable for their exceptional size, about 50m square, again suggesting two principal · families. ~oth are extremely ruined but each appears to have been a fortified farm surrounded by continuous outer ranges. In one is the only olive-press known at Ghirza. THE

MIDDENS

None of the middens already mentioned had been noted before our survey. The seven identified are all closely associated with the larger buildings. It must be significant that five of them, and these the largest, are on the spur, supporting the suggestion that the settlement originated here and also indicating that it lasted longest here. All have demonstrably been diminished by erosion, yet one is st i 11 some 100m long and about 6m high. They are strewn with sherds of lamps and fine red pottery, but are largely composed of ash, sand, and animal dung, goats' droppings being particularly evident. Random sampling has revealed that they also contain an exciting variety of other organic remains, including not only the instructive botanical evidence bearing on

229

N \>)

0

Figure

14:2.

Ghirza: buildings the olive press,

on the north side of the Shabet on the south side. (Photo D.J.

el-Gsur. Smith)

Foreground,

left,

uprights

of

N

'v,.)

Figure

14:3.

Ghirza: (Photo

view in the settlement, Department of Antiquities

looking south across of Tripolitania).

the

Shabet

el-Gsur.

the cultivation of the wadi and on the wild vegetation and environmental conditions at Ghirza, but also textiles, rope, leather, and even human hair. THE CEMETERIES Five cemeteries and many outlying tombs which had not been noticed by previous visitors to Ghirza were also recorded. One cemetery is associated with the monumental South Tombs, one with the North Tombs. Two others are near the bui !dings on the spur. These together comprise scores of tombs constructed with low walls and covering slabs. On many were remains of vessels which contained offerings of food and drink and on some were small stone mensae or offering-tables with hollows for liquid offerings. At least two of the burials in the cemetery at the South Tombs we r e c r em a t i o n s , b u t t h e f e w e x c a v a t e d i n t h e o t h e r cemeteries were certainly, or presumably, inhumations. One of the excavated tombs yielded an intact lamp and an incomplete bowl of late third-century types, but generally the pottery from the c eme t e r i e s i s - 1 i k e t ha t o n t h e m i d d e n s - o f t h e f o u r t h a n d fifth centuries. The fifth cemetery, some distance to the north of the settlement, comprises scattered cairns, and associated with several of these are small clearings, mostly U-shaped, outlined and subdivided longitudinally by up to five rows of stones. In some of the clearings are offering-tables of the kind seen in the other cemeteries. Elsewhere are many more small tomb s , s i n g 1y a n d i n g r o u p s , a n d a f e w o f t h e s e p r e s e r v e ' h e a d stones' still~ situ. These have a short stone shaft swelling at the top into a 'head'. Two heads with stylized human features we r e f o u n d ( F i g • l 4 : 7 ) • THE TEMPLE The large buildings are all choked with their own debris and excavation of one of these was beyond our resources. But there was one of medium size which appeared intriguingly different from any·other, its remains suggesting the possibility of a church, and t h i s we v e n 1: u r e d t o c l e a r o u t . I t l i e s o n l y a f ·e w me t r e s ~outh of one of the tw~ largest bui I dings on the spur. To our surprise this turned out to have been a temple of Semitic type comprising an arcaded courtyard with a 'high place' (actually a slightly raised chapel, centrally between two other chambers) on its west side: a rustic version of urban temples of Romano-Punic deities, such as, for example, that of Baal-Saturn at Dougga. The two steps up to the chapel were flanked by ritual columns for wh i ch t h e r e a r e e x t r em e l y a n c i e n t p r e c e d e n t s i n t e mp l e s i n t h e Semitic homelands, notably the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem (there they were of brass or bronze and each had a name). Later an antechapel was added, again with ritual columns flanking its entrance, and a secondary chapel was constructed on the north side of it. In the antechapel there had been a large stone basin with, on its rim, a lengthy inscription in characters of the ancient Libyan 'alphabet'. From the debris came many stone bowls, offering-tables like those in the cemeteries, and

232

Figur e 14:4.

Ghirza: small altar inscribed in Li byan charact e r s , f ro m t he t em p l e. (Pho t o Depa r t me n t o f An t i quities of Tripolitania) 233

most also

importantly a series of were inscribed in Libyan

small altars. Some of characters (Fig. 14:4).

the

altars

Although outside the scope of a colloquium on Roman Tripolitania the later history of this building is worth noting. Its r u i n s we r e r e o c c u p i e d d u r i n g t h e p e r i o d ~. AD 9 5 0 - l O5 O b y , apparently, a Berber merchant and his family. This period also yielded many graffiti in Libyan characters as well as domestic objects, refuse, ostrich feathers and eggshell, even leaves, and merchandise. The last included decorated and glazed pottery from the Qalaa of the Beni Hammad in Algeria, circular wooden mirrorboxes seemingly of local manufacture,and 85 fragments of plain and pa t t e r n e d t e x t i l e s • Amo n g t he t e x t i l e s i s c o t t o n , p e r h a p s from Egypt, and silk, presumably from the Byzantine world; but some o f t h e r e s t we r e e v i d e n t 1 y w o v e n 1o c a 1 1 y , w h i 1e o t h e r s represent a weaving technique known elsewhere and already a millennium old. These finds are dated by associated coins as well as by the pottery of the Beni Hammad and their contribution to knowledge of the economic history of inner Tri pol itania in the Fatimid period is unique. There is some evidence that other build i ngs at Ghirza were also inhabited probably in this period. THE MONUMENTAL TOMBS (Fig.

14:5)

Ghirza has long been renowned particularly for its monumen~ tal tombs. Some are still relatively well preserved and in 1955 many figured and decorative reliefs fallen from friezes still lay with other architectural elements all around them. Olwen Brogan took particular interest in these and devoted much time to their detailed recording in situ. Thereafter several lorry-loads . of figured stones weretransported to the archaeological museum in Tripoli, together with the whole of one of the South Tombs which was d i s ma n t 1e d f o r r e - e r e c t i o n i n t h e mu s e um u n d e r t h e s u p e r v i s i on o f t h e 1a t e D r . E. Ve r g a r a -Ca f f a r e 1 l i , t h e n D i r e c t o r o f the Department of Antiquities of Tripolitania and our valued colleague. Reconstruction drawings of the tombs, by young architects on National Service 'lent' to us from a regiment of the B.oyal Engineers then stationed in Tripoli, are an important feature of our report. The typical tomb comprises a podium supporting a false cella, with a false stone door, and a surrounding arcade surmounted by friezes and apparently a flat roof. Some have a flight of steps leading up to the false door. All have a vaulted burial chamber in the podium, with a subterranean entrance originally closed by a sliding stone slab, and a duct for libations to be poured into the vault from the top of the podium. All the vaults were empty but the burials must almost certainly have been c r ema t i on s • Th e r e a r e s t y l i s t i c s i m i l a r i t i e s be t we e n t h e t w o groups of tombs but also differences, and it is particularly not ewo r t h y t ha t i n s c r i p t i o n s s e em t o ha v e b e e n ex c 1 u s i v e t o t he north group. Three inscriptions, in Latin, appear from personal names to be epitaphs of three generations of one Romano-Libyan family, and on other internal evidence two of them date from the four th century. 234

C: Q)

E ::, C:

0

E

---; 0 ·-c:

o.. ro ::,

~

01- ·bD 0

0..

..c: ..... ~ I-

oc:

I-

t""' 0 1./')

Q)

235

Figure

14:6.

Gh i r za: re I i e f depict in g a ch i e ft a in, fr om mo nu men t a I t om b No r t h B ( 4 t h c e n t u r y ) • ( Ph o t o De p a r t ment of Antiquities of Tripolitania)

Figure

14:7.

Gh i r za: s tone head f r om Cemetery 2, near the s e t t I eme n t , n ow i n t h e Ar c h a e o I o g i c a l Mu s e um , Tripoli. (Photo Department of Antiquities of Tripolitania) 236

In both groups of tombs there were five of the type described, but in each group there were also two ~xceptional tombs. One of these in the south group is of the obelisk type, originally c. 50 ft (15m) high, of Punic ancestry and characteristic of TunTsia and Tripolitania. In contrast, one of the exceptional tombs in the north group is in the form of a classical ~eripteral temple, though w i t_h a f lat roof. The other two except i on s , one in each group, were almost identical in plan and construction and very different from 9-ny of the other tombs. Though both had a subterranean chamber with . a small entra~ce closed by a sliding stone slab this entrance was approached through a similar chamber with an entrance at ground level which had no m~ans of closure. It is tempting to see in · these two tombs provision for some special asp~ct of the cult of the dead, perhaps even for persons wishing to sleep in the outer chamber in the hope of experiencing prophetic dreams, an anci~nt Libyan practice recorded by Herodotus. The form of superstructure of these two tombs is uncertain. The figured reliefs of the friezes embrace innumerable fascinating subjects including crude portraits of the deceased, mythological figures and scenes, symbolic motifs, and representations of agricultural activities, hunting, combat and ritual. Of special interest are two reliefs each depicting a chieftain seated on a folding st _ool and attended by servants (Fig. 14:6). There is a similar Roman relief from Ghadames~ where the 'asnam' are clearly the ruins of monumental tombs presumably similar to t ho s e t y p i ca l o f Gh i r z a. THE

CULTURE

OF

THE

SETTLEMENT

f\mong the North Tombs were found two fragments of a Lat in inscription recording a lavish funerary sacrifice of 51 bulls and 38 goats on an occasion of the parentalia. It seems most remarkable that this ancient Roman festival should have been known and celebrated in so remote a place on the southern fringe of the Romanized world. More importantly this inscription gi .ves an invaluable indication of the enormous wealth, in terms of live~tock, of the family to which the North Tombs belonged. There is of course other evidence of Romanization at Ghirza, not only in the architecture and sculpture of the monumental tombs, however debased some of the sculpture may be, but also in other Latin inscriptions. But these inscriptions reflect the Romanisation only of the families - perhaps no more than two - who could afford monumental tombs, the cost of two of which was thought wo r t h y o f r e c o r d i n .t h e e p i t a p h s a b o v e t h e i r f a l s e d o o r s . Ev i dence of another element in the culture of the settlement is suggested by at least one other inscription in Latin characters but apparently in the Punic language or a derivative thereof. Yet another inscription in Latin characters may be in the native Libyan .language; and al though the temple described above is of Semi t i c - t ha t i s , Pun i c - t y p e , i t i s c l ea r f r om t he de c o r a t i on of stones used in its construction and from the Libyan inscriptions on altars found in its ruins and also from Libyan inscrip-

237

tions in other bui !dings that the of the settlement were essentially THE PERIOD

AND HISTORICAL

everyday Libyan.

language

and culture

CONTEXT OF THE SETTLEMENT

A few small sherds of first and second century terra sigillata were recovered from one or two disturbed cremation burials in the cemetery at the South Tombs and from the excavation of the temple. These suggest sporadic or small-scale occupation of the wadi in early Imperial times; and it may be recalled that the temple stands on the spur which seems probably to have been the site of the original settlement. The sherds from the cemetery at the South Tombs, and the cremations there, may or may n o t i n d i ca t e t ha t t h i s w a s t h e ea r l i e s t o f t h e c em e t e r i e s • But if the agricultural exploitation of the wadi possibly dates from this early period, the postulated division of the cultivated land between two principal families seems probably to date from the third century; for the earliest monumental tomb in both groups is stylistically assignable to the mid-to-later third century. These are the obelisk tomb of the south group and the temp l e t om b o f t h e no r t h g r o u p , e a c h a n e x c e p t i o n a l t y p e a t Ghi rza. Presumably the weal th necessary for the construct ion of these tombs would have taken time to accumulate, and they can be seen as evidence of tribal peace and prosperity consequent on the Severan campaigns in the interior and establishment of the legionary ou~posts. The other exceptional tomb in each group, with a permanently open outer chamber, is at present undatable; but all except one of the other tombs in both groups appear to range from the fourth to the fifth century. The exception, in the north group, is perhaps of the early sixth. It may again be recalled that this is the period of the lamps and pottery from the middens, the cemeteries, and the temple. The temple, in fact, is the latest known example of a pagan Semitic shrine in Roman Africa. It is interestin~ to consider all this in the wider historical context of Roman Tripolitania, the Vandal · occupahon of the coast (AD 455-533), and the Byzantine reconquest and campaigns in the i n t er i or ( 5 3 3 - 4 7 )'. The ear l i es t e v i den c e o f o cc up at i on accords with evidence for the widespread import into the interior of early Imperial terra sigillata (which Olwen Brogan was the first to demonstrate). This evidence suggests numerous though s ca t t e r e d f a r m s s u ch a s t h a t i n t h e Wad i e l -Am u d ( w h i c h , a g a i n , Olwen was the first to record). Near this farm stands the mausoleum of the Libyphoenician family which presumably owned it. There may have been a similar and contemporary farm at Ghirza. But the floruit of the settlement at Ghirza spans the period of the revival of the coastal cities in the fourth century, their subsesquent decline, the Austur ian raids upon them from 363 to the early fifth century, and then the Vandal occupation. During this period the interior must gradually have developed independently until the Byzantines ousted the Vandals and then, in 547, inflicted a crushing defeat on a confederacy of hostile Libyan tribes. Ghirza's heyday was almost certainly a direct consequence of the demise of Roman authority over the tribes; and it 238

seems v e r y p r o b a b l e t h a t a t 1e a s t o n e f a c t o r i n t h e d e v e 1o pm e n t and prosperity of the settlement was the establishment of - the temple as a bastion of pagan opposition to the infiltration of Christianity from the north. Significantly, the building was destroyed by fi re, and the few latest sherds from its ruins are of the sixth century. It is hard to avoid thinking that Ghirza also must have been a focus of opposition to the Byzantine forces. APPENDIX:

THE

REPORT

This paper has been a mere sketch of the survey of Roman Gh i r z a , w i t h s om e po s s i b l e i mp 1 i c a t i o n s a r i s i n g f r om i t • Th e report about to appear will provide abundant detail and illustration from which readers may draw their own c onclusions. It is entitled Ghirza: ~ Romano-Libyan Settlement iI!_ Tripolitania, will comp r i s e 3 l l A 4 - page s o f t ex t p 1u s fo u r i n d i c e s , l l 5 f i g u r e s , and 172 half-tone plates mostly with more than one illust rat ion. The text includes fifteen appendices, viz:

1. 2. 3. 4•

5• 6• 7. 8. 9. l O• 11.

12: 13. 14.

15.

Dr. J.W. Hayes, Roman pottery and lamps Dr. J. Walker, Roman coins Dr. D.B. Harden, Glass 0. B r o g a n a n d D. J • Sm i t h , A l t a r s a n d o t h e r de c o r a t e d s t o n e s from Building 32 (the temple) 0. Br o g q.n , I n s c r i p t i on s and gr a ff i t i i n the L i by an a 1p ha be t from Ghirza and elsewhere in Tripolitania (totalling 40) R. A. S. and Dr • D. W. Cow p e r , S k e l e ta 1 r em a i n s f r om t he c em e teries Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Wood and charcoal 0. Brogan and J.M. Reynolds, Latin inscriptions 0. Brogan, Gasr Banat Dr • J • Wa 1k er , I s 1am i c co i n s f r om Bu i l d i n g 3 2 D.J. Smith and C. Tagart, Islamic pottery and lamps from Building 32 G. Lloyd-Morgan and C. Tagart, the mirror-boxes from Building 32 0. Brogan and D.J. Smith, Miscellaneous finds from Building 32 Dr. J.P. Wild, Textiles from Building 32 Drs. M. van der Veen, Botanical remains ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We a r e d e e p l y g r a t e f u l t o t h e De p a r t me n t o f An t i q u i t i e s o f Tripolitania for undertaking to publish the report, and also to the Soci~ty for Libyan Studies for assistance with cartography and draughtsmanship, for generously funding the appointment of Miss Charlotte Tagart to assist us during the last six years of preparation for publication, and most recently for commissi oning Dr. David Mattingly to compile the indices. Acknowledgements to our many other collaborators and supporters are made in the report.

239

15.

ROMANS AND GARAMANTES AN ENQUIRY INTO CONTACTS By

M.

Milburn

Rather than dwelling on events, real or not, which may have been discussed by more specialized historians, I propose to raise s ome ma t t e r s on wh i ch I p e r s on a l l y , s peak i n g a s a Saha r an and i n no way a Classical specialist, would like to see some fieldwork. J. Desanges has devoted a number of extremely erudite works to populations of the era, often working amid a welter of confusing material and still coming up with the best available solution, even when this may be, to all intents and purposes, an unpalatable and infinitely frustrating "lemon". In terms of possible or known contacts, these will be discussed under the headings of Trade, Military and Enigmatic. There is very little that I feel able to say on the military side, unless we include the trip of Julius Mater nus to Agysimba or treat the "Tomb of Tin Hi nan" as a .fortified building, albeit riot one known to have b~en occupied by Romans. In the enigmatic section, towards the end, I shall try to deal with some of the weighty problems of the exact identity of the Garamantes, perhaps better termed "les vagues donnees du probleme garamant ique" (Pauphilet 1953, 81). If we - may assume that Rome did not envisage actual conquest of large chunks of the Sahara - al though desperately anxious to protect her own interests and installations - then Roman penetration in any depth is likely to have been solely on a reconnaissance basis, with an eye on military or economic considerations. Trade

Contacts

Desanges' major finding would seem to be that trans-Saharan trade was not of any particular economic importance at the time (Desanges 1975, 414), a conviction shared by Bovill (1968, 42), 241

Bulliet (1975, 128), Mil b urn and Nowak (1978-79) and Wheeler (1954, 97-107). The main items exported by Rome from Africa are held to have been barley, olive-oil and wheat (Bovi 11 1968, 42). Swanson (1975) sees t rans-Saharan trade as a myth and R ueger (1978, 342-3) regards actual Roman trade-routes through the Sahara as fiction. Just how many items of Garamantian trade goods related to Roman buyers, as opposed to locals, I k now not. A certain number of possible trade items are postulated by Daniels (1970a, 43-4), who recalls that no ancient authority actually states that caravan trade either from or via the Garamantes e x is t ed • B r og a n (1 975 , 282) ho l d s t h at t h e r e is plenty of evidence of trade between them and the Roman and Byzan­ tine worlds, while Law (1967, 196) states that ivory, slaves and carbuncles traded by the Garamantes to the north had to be sought in the lands to the south of Fezzan. In the general outline of the development of animal economy and transport in the Sahara, Shaw (1979, 686) envisages increas­ ing desiccation compelling herders to develop suitable means of transport, such as the domesticated horse, mule, donkey and camel, a s op po s e d to do mes t i c a t ed ca t t I e • Lea v i n g asi d e t h e academic controversy as to whether the camel was actually import­ ed afresh, or merely domesticated from bare necessity to suit current conditions, I see no reason to doubt that it came into use in a transport context about this time, as has been suggested by various authors (Bovill 1956; Brogan 1954; Wilson 1984). Curiously enough, the Zagawa are held to have introduced it into "central Sudan" (whatever this means) and to have dominated not only the route from Chad to Murzuk via Bi Ima, b ut also the Darb e l Arb a' i n (Monn eret 1938, 2 0 4). Lange and Be r thou d (1977, 34) indeed maintain that the collapse of the Garamantian kingdom was t u r n e d to ad v a n t a g e b y v a rio u s Ber b er e l em e n t s , s u ch a s t h e inhabitants of Jebel Nefusa, to develop a new type of relation­ ship between Berbers and inhabitants of Sudan, the former looking southwards and becoming the principal architects of the. expansion of long-distance trade. To speak of expansion implies that a trade had existed· , hence most probably that Garamantes had prior been involved. As well as the concept of their operating deep into the Sahara to southwards, there seem to have been contacts from Fezzan towards the east (Law 1967, 187). Rebuffat (1970, 10, 14) sees an ancient route to Egypt via Augila, noting that the Gara­ mantes m ust have been masters of the way to Siwa via Augi la. Mention was made last cent ury of a g reat annual caravan between Darfur and Si w a (Hosk i n s 1 837, 86) , a 1 though on 1 y a g ue ss can be made at the possible anti q uity of this inst i t ution and the . identity of its instigators. The mining and exploitation of salt since the Neolithic has been postulated over a wide area, not only in fertile Morocco (Souville 1976, 199), b ut also inside the Sahara (Dalloni 194 8, 88), the t ype-tool for its extraction being seen as the grooved 242

axe ("hache a gorge "), of wh ich so man y i mpos i ng specimens ( Ke 1 le y l 9 5 l ; St r i e d t er 1 9 8 4 , f i g . l 0 , t op too 1 ) •

exist

Surprisingly, Quiggin (1978, 53) mentions no Saharan salttrade earlier t ha n t hat described i n t h e four t eenth century by lbn Battuta from Te gh aza , Mali. Coming dow n to t h e present day, a good deal has been written about sa l t-ca r a v ans by Ritter ( 1980): and the work i ng of salt-mines, i n t h is case in the eastern sector of the Te n ere Tafassasset dese r t, toge t her with the cooperation betwee n salt-producers a n d T uareg caravaneers, has been studied in depth by Vik 0 r (19 82 ) , wi t h special reference to Bilma. A short-lived operation in Amadror, Ahaggar, is now of no con s e q u enc e , t hough t he m i n e s a t Tao u den n i , Ma l i , s t i l l ope r a t e • The Zagawa control l ing th~ Bilma region in the Middle Ages, of whom the first mention by an Arab s o u r ce may have been in the eighth century, in respect of the eastern Sahara (Tubiana 1979, l ) , are he l d by Monn e r e t ( l 9 3 8, 2 0 2 - 3) to have had a sphere of influence as far north as Zui la, thus ostensibly making them a very powerful group indeed. If they and/or groups subject to their authority dominated that part of the Bornu Route lying, at very least, between Bilma and Murzuk, plus the salt industry of Bilma, said by Monneret (1938, 204) to have had the same importance as that of Teghaza in Mali, then we have to ask whether the Garamantes - by now seemingly consigned to oblivion - may not have been playing the same game prior to the Zagawa rise to power? We learn via Herodotus (De Sel incourt 1976, 332) of Garamantian settlement at a salt-hill, to the west of Augila, and that the inhabitants spread soil over the salt to sow their seeds in. In view of the imp o rtance of salt, therefore, anyone able to transport it to areas where it may not have been in ready supply wo u l d b e p r o v i d i n g a v a l u a b l e , a n d p e r h a p s a l s o p r o f i t a b l e , service. Mo s t c o n v e n i e n t l y , l o n g a f t e r t h e s e n o t e s we r e s •t a r t e d , I have been provided with a reference to dried-up salt-lakes in Fezzan, exploited comme·rcially by people who settled between the time of our Lord and the eighth century and sold salt at great profit (Trebbin 1981, 17-18). Alum is a commodity with uses inside Africa and also abroad. Some i n t e r e s t i n g h i n t s as t o i t s r e l a t i v e an t i q u i t y a r e g i v en i n several works; for instance it seems that alum-mining near Bi lma had nothing to do with salt-working some 3km to the northwest of that v i l l age. I t i s f ea s i b l e th a t a l um f r om Kaw a r was be i n g exploited before the salt-works of the oasis were ever known (Lange 1983, 22). Giv.en that alum was used in Venice for glass-manufacture, it is likely, albeit at a post-Garamantian period, that some of the glass trade-beads arriving in Africa contained some African ingredients. It is thought that Kawar alum also travelled as far a s .Ou a r g l a i n no r t h A 1g e r i a a s we l 1 a s t o Eg y p t (Lange l 9 8 3 , 2 2 ) • 243

One alum-producing vi 11 age of Ka war was Qas r Umm Isa ("Castle of the Mother of Jesus"), possibly to be identified with Ayemma and perhaps indicating Christian influence (Lange and Berthoud 1977, 28; Lange, 1983, 22). The so-called emeralds of the Garamantes have been dismissed by Monod (1974; 1984) in so far as their being true emeralds is concerned. I am less sure about those said to have been procured from the Blemmyes in Ethiopia and taken into India, or those mined near Luxor, which may be one and the same thing (Kirwan 1937, 70, 73). To make them of interest in our particular context, we shall need to demonstrate that Garamantes were found in Nubia (Kirwan 1937, 98). The version of Cosmas ·Indicopleustes edited by McCrindle (1897, 120) seems to indicate the contrary. I thank L. Al lason-Jones for the information (7 Dec 84) that true eme r a l d s ha v e b e e n f o u n d i n E g y p t , n o t i n g a l s o t h a t ma n y s t o n e s so described in excavation reports are actually amazonite felspar (Ogden 1982, 92). In 1972 I came across a greenish chalcedony bead lying on a neolithic site at Adrar Bous, in the Tenere Desert in Niger: it bore only a trace, at either end, of the start of an attempt to drill it. We are told that there came a time when the encroaching desert brought about a rapid end to the brilliant Tenerian era, some time around 2000 BC, with inhabitants and cattle forced to emigrate or perish. From the vast amount of lithic industry left in situ,' some of it clearly in the process of manufacture (like the bead), this would seem to have been the case (cf. Milburn, in press a; Quechon and Roset 1974, plate 3). More important still, we learn that such beads preceded the Classical Era. The amazonite quarry at Eghei Zumma in Tibesti was inspected by the British Ennedi Expedition 1957 and evidence of very ancient working found (Arkell 1959, 24; 1960, 4 0). In December 1983 C.E. Weisbecker, who died in May 1984, kindly mentioned finding "green beads" close to a well in Tibesti, reca _l ling that these were similar to some located in "an old military post" he had visited in the early 1930s. No fu ·rther details were available. It has been asked whether Tibesti amazonite has been comp a r e d w i t h s o - c a l l e d em e r a l d s o c c u r r i n g i n Pu n i c g r a v e s (Mil burn and Nowak 1978-79, 109). In citing the long search of Arkell for the enigmatic "Garamantian ca.rbuncles mentioned by Pliny", Edwardes (1937, 107) quotes Arkell as thinking that certain undr i I led stones then at Bida might turn out to be jasper or serpentine, as well as possibly being the carbuncles above-mentioned. Bo v i l l ( l 9 6 8 , 2 0 ) r e l a t e s t ha t t h e Ca r t hag i n i an s ob t a i n e d carbuncJes from the Garamantes, that these were known in Europe as Carthaginian stones and that after the fall of their great city, the Romans found it worthwhile to continue the trade. I can o f f e r no s u g g e s t i on a s t o t he i den t i t y o f t he s e s t one s • One modern suggestion seems to be "almandine garnet", for which I am 244

indebted London.

to

David

Allen,

Librarian

of

the

Horniman

Museum,

Desanges (1981, 424) appears to over-emphasise the use of ostrich eggs by Garamantes, although these might just have been traded with peoples unversed in their decoration, such as Europeans. Lucian actually states that wi Id asses and the ostrich we r e h u n t e d , a s we l l a s o s t r i c h e g g s • Th e n e i g h b o u r i n g t r i b e s , seemingly not Garamantes, collected the eggs, eating the contents and making cups from the shells (Lucian, Dipsads, 2, 6, 7). The giraffe is another creature on which we have scant information. In some rock art it is depicted - over a vast area - held on a leash by a human figure. As late as 1972 it was apparently being captured and kept by nomads in the area south of Agadez, Niger (Lhote 1972, 195) and we may surmise that its milk, hide and meat may have been appreciated by non-Saharans in antiq u ity. A possible insight as to other trade items is provided by goods brought up to the area of Touggourt (3306N 0604E) by Ahaggar Tua r eg from the Tamanrasset area in the time after about 1660: the y exchanged gold-dust, feathers, fat and ostrich eggs for produ c ts they required. Southwards, they carried out razzias fo r camels, gold, cowrie - shells valued as money and some slaves, t hough basically for their own domestic use (Gast 1965; 130 - 1) . I have mentioned these Tuareg activities since it is they in g eneral - no matter how interbred over many centuries who are unceasingly a popular choice as descendants of the Garaman t es ( c f. Lhote 1972, 194). In terms of Roman goods found deep in the Sahara, omitting for the mo ment those from the "Tomb of Tin Hinan" near Tamanraset, a Roman pot "with a pointed base" was found in a " t umu l u s " b e t w e e n D j a n e t ( 2 4 3 4 N 0 9 2 9 Ed ) a n d i t s a i r p o r t b y a legionnaire c learing away obstacles (Lhote 1979, 44, 50), being described as identical to others previously found in .the Germa region . In August 1984 H. Lhote kindly showed me a photograph of an alleged Roman pottery fragment found near Marandet, in the Agadez reg i on of Nig e r, at the time unpublishe d. Roman potter y as a trade item in the Sahara may well be fortuitous, unless it was very much better than native ware or had some kind of snob appeal: plenty of people seem to have possessed jt around Germa, although Saharans had been manufacturing their own pottery for many millennia (Roset 1983, 119). I hav e read that Cyrenians were in direct touch with negro peoples by Saharan routes, but that trans-Saharan trade fell off con s iderably during the Roman occupation (Trimingham 1963, 13). While I.have encountered this theory nowhere else, it may help to bring into perspective some weird inscriptions ocurring as far apart as Benghazi harbour (Lloyd~~1977, 241) and Er-Roui in northern Niger, well down along the Bornu Route (De Burthe 1939, 6 9 9 ) : t he 1a t t e r I s h owe d i n Cam b r i d g e i n S p r i n g l 9 8 3 a n d w a s

245

irrmediately rewarded by J. Reynolds' favourable reaction. (There are other characters engraved at Er-Roui, also engimatic, on which comment has no place here}. Since then it has come to .my notice that J.Ph. Lefranc (1953 } found clearly similar material at the Pass of Maknusa and Tmed el-Koumas, Fez zan, as did R. Rebuffat at Bu Ngem (Rebuffat 1975, 165-87}. It was noted that the latter must represent the language of the inhabitants prior to the construction of the Roman fort (Rebuffat 1970, 187}. Though in no way able to help solve the question as to who may have been the engravers, I have tried to bring all five sites into one short article, in the hope that serious study will be undertaken (Milburn 1984b}. MILI TARY CON TACTS The Black Rhinoceros (Diceros Bicornis} apparently featuring on coinage in the reign of Domitian (Mattingly 193 0 and pl. 81, nos. 16-17} has led me further afield, or even astray, than I believed possible. This two-horned beast became known in Rome very soon after the journey of Julius Maternus to Agysimba, travelling with the king of the Garamantes. If the latter was on a warlike mission, it is possible that the former was looking for corrmer cial o p en i n g s , al thou gh he i s named b y on e sour ce as a general (Lhote 1972, 194}. Whether we should think of Agysimba as Air, Tibesti or the Djado Plateau is more than we may ever know. AYr is less accessible from Germa than the other two zones. Yet I have seen camel-riders - admittedly possessed of a form of transport probably not available to Julius Maternus whose clandestine presence in north-west A�r was explained to me as travelling bet ween Arli t, north Niger, and far-off Ghat in Fezzan . Lhote (1972, 193-4} has noted the presence of a number of rhino rock carvings within A'1·r, without really specifying which type was involved; a scrutiny of such of the illustrations as are even reasonably clear indicates a number of each, Bicornis and the one-horned Simus, or White Rhinoceros. I am unaware of any corpus of r o ck ar t for T ibe s t i or the Djado Plat ea u. F or A ·1· r, Desanges (1975, 398} notes only the presence of Bicornis. A characteristic of Dicero s is that, when alarmed, its tail sticks up vertically, while the Simus curls up its tail in simi­ lar circumstances (Gowers 1950, 62}. The Black Rhino - smaller, nastier, able to survive in arid conditions and preferring its own comp ar.n y - may no t have been that enc o un t ere d i n Ag y si mba (Gowers l 9 5 0 , 70 } • However th e co-e x i s ten ce t h er e of bo th s p e ci e s d oe s ap p ear feasible, depending on whether the exact translation means "where rhinos forgather" or "where rhinos mate" (Mauny 1978, 127}. In the eve�t that numerous rhinos were seen, then Simus may have been involved; Bicornis ho wever seem more l ikely to have been around in the arid climate of Roman times, probably at altitude.

246

Some i n t e r e s t i n g po i n t e r s t o re l a t i v e l y m i l d de s e r t con d i tions are furnished even less than 150 years ago. In 1847 . or 1848 it seem s that a well-known Tebu, Hadj Aberma, went with oxen fr om Kano up to Ghat, around t he month of December and with his o xe n being wa te red every se c ond day (Barth 1855, I, 201). Travel1 ing w ith a Targu i guide in th e fearful emptiness of the Tenere Tafas sa sset , Nige r , mention was made to Kilian (1935, 23) of Madama hav i ng been one of th e me mo r able pasture-areas of h is a nces tor s . My ow n co ns t ernat i o n wa s c omple te upon exam1n1n g s ome of my own p i c t u r e s o f we s t Sa h a r an r h i no r o ck ca r v i-n g s (Nowak and Ortner 19 75, figs. 136 and 143). In neit her c ase wa s the tai l of apparent Bicornis st i c k i ng straight up a nd the latt e r e xam ple was curled in a tight s p i r al, which ma y, f or all I know, por tray an artistic trait rather than being true t o l i f e . There is said to be no evidence that Bico r nis was ever bro ught to Rome: furthermore it has been suggested that the Af ri c an rhino was never taken ther e otherwise than by way of Egypt and it maybe considered unl i kely that the Romans would wish to import Bicornis if it were less t rouble anyway to obtain the larger and more impressive Simus (Gowers 1950, 70-1). This view i s ques t ioned severely by Desange s (1978a, 20 4 -9) who regards the referen ce to the "Ethiopian bul l" in the arena as pertaining to _ Bi c ornis. The T r i ump h o f Co r n e l i u s Ba l bu s a f t e r h i s exp e d i t i on i n 2 1 o r 2 0 BC ( De s a n g e s 1 9 7 8 b ) h a s e x c i t e d a g r e a t de a l o f c om me n t. It was sugge s ted that th e names Alas i and Balsa might represent llezi and Abalessa respe c t i ve l y, wh i le the Dasibari river could be the Niger itself (Lhote 1954 , 49 , 53, 55). I 11 izi (2629N 0828E) lies on the ro u t e fr o m Dj a n et nor t hw a rd towards the Ghad ame s a r ea , w h i l e Ab a l e s s a i s n o t f a r we ~ t - n o r t h - we s t o f Tama n r a s s e t a n d i s t h e v i l l a g e a l mo s t e n c r o a c h i n g o n t h e f am o u s "Tomb of Tin Hinan", of which mo re ano n . While Lhote (1954) saw th e ve nture as a m ili tary undertaking ~s far - south as the ri~er N ig er , o the r s were mo re cautious and Desanges (1957; 1978b) examin e d va ri ou s versio n s of t h e text of Pliny the Elder. We see t hat th e Alas i and Bal s a of Lhote (1954) become Ha l a s i t a n d Ba l l a ( De s a n g e s l 9 5 7 , 1 6 ). At t h e s am e t i me no alternative geographical posit i on were offere d fo r t hese o r for the Dasibari f lu men (Desange s 1957, 9 - 10 ) . It has occu r red t o me to wonder whether Plin y is a c tua l ly s aying that all the to wns and peoples were c ap tu r ed . Or whether, as an alternative me a ning, they s i mply fea t u red in the tri ump h . Th e te xt r uns as fol lo ws : " ••• nos a uteu rs on t r apporte que les vi l les s u s di tes on t ete prises par lui(m a is ) l ui-me me a mene en triom ph e l es noms et les images de natio n s e t de villes q u i to ut es son t a utr es (que celles qui precedent ) ••• " Following the long and detailed text i n 195 7 , which had been preceded by a shorter n o te ( 1956), Desanges t h e n trie d to round off the whole question s ome two decades la t e r ( 19 7 8b ). 247

Here it was found that Pliny had used some details given by Agrippa, namely the estimate of distance travelled by the Roman co l umn , i n Rom a n m i l e s , t ow a r d s t h e s o u t h f r om S a b r a t h a • 'r h e figure arrived at is about 1350km and the t o t al length of the round trip is stated to be between three and four months. The con c l u s i on i s t h a t t h e r e i s n o q u e s t i o n o f Co r n e l i u s Ba l b u s having crossed the Sahara (Desanges 1978b, 192-5). My sole c orrme n t i s t ha t p e r ha p s on e c a n n o t b 1am e a n am b i t i o u s m i l i t a r y corrmander from using in his triumph some names of places and peoples of which he might have come to hear, through contact with such folk as the Garamantes. ENIGMATIC

OR UNCERTAIN

CONTACTS

The "Tomb o f T i n H i nan " n ea r Ab a 1e s s a i s a h y b r i d con struction, quite regardless of the remarks of Camps (1965; 1974) about monuments with an ante-chamber ("monuments chapel le"), being apparently a fortified structure of supposedly Roman inspiration: one corner of it later served as a bu r ial-place for the r ema i n s o f a t a 1 1 p e r s o n age , s ump t u o u s 1 y c a p a r i s o n e d a n d w h o s e f u n e r a r y b e d w a s d a t e d t o t h e f i f t h c e n t u r y AD ( F i g • 1 5 : 1 ) • T i n Hinan was, according to legend, · the first q u een of the Sahara (MacKendrick 1980, 279) this being a story u nknown to me previously from study of non-American sources. The best i 1 lustrations of the excavation are those of Reygas e (1950, 88-106), w i t h u s e f u l ma t e r i a 1 a l s o s u p p l i e d b y Ga u t i e r a n d Re y g a s s e (1934).

a

The building is of dressed stone blocks and resembled a t umu 1u s , o r s i mp 1e p i 1e o f r u b b l e , w h e n f i r s t r e c o u n t e d , d u e t o the habit of passing locals of adding a stone to the pile (Leh u r aux l 9 2 8 , l 5 8) • I n i t i a 1 ex ca v a t i on was by an Ame r i can traveller and a French warrant - officer in 1925, as a result of which some extravagant c laims were made. Reygasse later c arried excavation someway further. Accompanying the burial below the f lo-or of Room l (Fig. 15:2) occurred a wood bowl with imprints of coins of Constantine the Great and a Roman lamp. Much jewellery and many beads were also present. Two fragments of Libyco-Berber ·inscriptions are also rnentioned as having been incorporated into a wall and are held to predate the erection of the structure, or anyway that portion in whose walling they were used as building mater i al (Rey gas s e 1 9 5 0, f i g. l 5 5). It remains to determine whether the building, at anytime in its hi stor .y prior to the start of Tuareg legend and fantasy, was solely dedicated to honouring a legendar y Berber "princess" from far-off Tafilalt, Morocco, as well as to ascertain to what degree Rome may ha,ve been directly involved, if at all. The knowledge of even one Roman soldier - possibly a deserter of a prisoner could have been turned t good use by native craftsmen. For some time now have been perplexed by references to possible existence of structures of similar architecture Tibesti (Ki-Zerbo 1979, 87; Toy 1964, 114). A third reference that by Bovi 11 (1968, 43) who maintains that the building

248

the 1n is is

Figure

Figure

15: 1.

15:2.

Plan of the Monument Rueger 1979).

of Tin

Plan of the south-west corner, Hinan (after Rueger 1979).

249

H inan,

Abalessa

Monument

(after

of Tin

constructed in a manner still known to the Tibu of Tibesti. Not one of these three authors quotes a source and I am sti11 try.ing to find out where the story began. An article by Lhote (1954) contains much comment not accept­ ed by some authors, nor mentioned by others. He found it to be a fortified defensive system not peculiar to Berber nor Arab con­ texts. It is dominated to the south by a spur only 40m off, though the monument itself is on a knoll, overlooking a wadi and a flattish o pen space below, suitable, Lhote felt, for chariots and horses. He infers that foes probably had no bows and arrows, though finds of metal barbed points inside the building indicated that the defenders did have. Hence they may have preferred control of the flattish·area and the water-point in the wadi to the dominating spur to the south. He thought that only six or seven rooms out of the total eleven were habitable, noting the existence of the same number at Ikakeden and Tadjart, two ruined establishments found at the modern village of Iherir, in the Tassili-n-Ajjer and roughly between Ilezi and Abalessa: these have a flat area adjacent and are not seemingly known to other authors dealing with the ques­ tion of Tin Hinan. I have not personally seen them. Lhote holds that they could lodge a similar-sized garrison, namely a total of around 100 men. Included in the figure would be some ten or twenty on g u a r d d ut i e s o r t e n di n g a ni ma 1 s , w ith t h e ma in b o d y" sleeping alongside one another on the floor and generally accep­ ting the discomforts of active service conditions as a prerequi­ site of safety. (I thank H. Lhote for the information (8.12.84) that he revisited the the sites of Ikakeden and Tadjart in 1974. The supposedly Roman elements had been dismantled by the locals for use as building material and he learned nothing new. Cf. Perret ( l 9 3 6). The thick walls, the work involved and the surrounding ditch a11·evoked for Lhote a well-organised military contingent. Tin Hinan is buried in what amounts to a eellar beneath Room 1. An oak beam is seen as a foreign element • . Lhote compares the defen­ sive wall of Zinchera· (presumably Zinchecra, Fezzan), a site later excavated by C.M. Daniels (1970b), to that of Tin Hinan. Personally I had wondered about some apparent pillars lying about abandoned (Figs. 15:3, 15:4), first seen in early 1979. How do these relate to traditional funerary architecture: May a number h a v e va n is h e d a lr e a d y ? If s o , ma y t h e y h a ve be e n use f u l as building-material somewhere nearby? Notes made in 1979 and during a later visit also showed me some irregularities in the "passage" running between the south-west outer wall of the build­ ing and the room housing the burial-chamber: put in another way, it could be said to be joining rooms 2 and 5 (see Fig. 15:2). The "passage" seemed to run gradually uphill, to be irregular in width and indeed to contain, in places, substantial masonry quite incompatible with a passage. This is directly contrary to the opinion o f Camp s ( l 9 65 ; l 9 7 4 ) who see s the ex i s t enc e o f a I Ide ambu1atoire" c o u p 1 e d t o a "m o n um e n t c h a p e l le 11 , o f w h i c h he h a s

a

250

Figure 15:3. A pentagona 1 p i 1 l a r - l i k e s t one lying below the knol 1 on wh i ch t h e mo n u me n t i s constructed, almost in front of the main en trance.

Figure 15:4. A hexagonal pillar-like stone outside the south-west portion of the outer wall and some way down t h e s i de o f t he knoll.

251

seen a number of examples in the Maghreb, though not perhaps in the western Sahara. He even states elsewhere that such a bur.ial i s a l way s a t t he c en t r e (Camp s l 9 7 4 , 5 l O) and I a 1 so fee 1 t ha t the orientation of the main entrance - apparently about northeast - is hardly acceptable for a true "monument chapel le".

a

Or fa l i ( l 9 7 9 , 2 5 9 ) e n v i s age s t he p r e s e n c e o f n a i l s on t he floor of most rooms "as arising from a custom of wishing to nail the dead person down so that he or she never returns to haunt the living", a rite which she holds to be common in "preislamic" mo n ume n t s o f No r t h A f r i c a ( t h o ugh n o t , I am c e r t a i n , o f t h e Sahara). In what percentage of the scant archaeological reports relating to Saharan excavations has metal been found? In 1978 the site was visited by Rueger, who made a new plan, long overdue, and emitted a number of penetrating remarks which go far towards nullifying some of Camps' more irrational theories and to paving the way for a new approach, in the event that a new excavation be forbidden (Rueger 1979). He found that the fortress-like structure possessed walls varying between one and four metres in thickness, with iron nails and carbonised beams suggestive of flat(?) roofing atop the mighty dry-stone walls. Room 1, in the south-west corner of the site, had evidently been made s ma 1 l e r w i t h t he s p e c i f i c i n t en t i on o f bu r i a l i n m i n d , w h i 1e the outer walls were strengthened and doorways closed up (Rueger _ 1979, 251). He concluded that, with its Roman grave-goods so deep into the Sahara, the monument is illustrative of trade-routes of camel-nomads, while the racial type of the skeleton together with the Berber elements of Tuareg legend with its mythical veneration of Tin Hinan demonstrate connections between Numidian and Mauritanian in the southern Sahara (Rueger 1979, 254). In the undulating terrain around Abalessa and neighbouring Silet can be seen numerous imposing - though extremely low s tone mo n um e n t s o f o t he r age s , s u ch a s "V - s hap e s " w·i t h t he i r associated "flat bordered cakes" and the much rarer "axle-shapes" (Reyga s.s e l 9 5 0, f i g. 7 0 ·and f i g. 6 8 respect iv el y); the f i r st and last named types can be several hundreds of metres in overall length (cf. Reygasse 1950, fig. 127). In 1982 I saw, albeit some way to the north, a stupendous site comprising no less than nine "V-shapes", around a half-dozen "flat bordered cakes" and a lone "axle-shape", discreetly placed at the south-east end of the complex. (For two quite exceptional composite "V-cum-axle-shape" monuments - whose entire significance has yet to be worked out - see Milburn 1981, fig. lb; 1983a, fig. 3). Detailed remarks on a number of monument types are contained in a forthcoming text (Milburn, in press b; cf. Engl j ae h.r i ng er et al • , i n press ) • Fi n a l 1 y I can th i n k of not h i n g more desirable thanthat further excavation should be effected at the site of Tin Hinan, albeit by none other than a multidisciplinary team combining Classical specialists and Saharan

252

archaeologists, suitably tackle some "preislamic"

prepared, monuments

SOME UNCERTAINTIES

mentally and physically, of the region in addition. AND

to

SOME QUERIES

It is confusing to find mention in Herodotus of Garamantes who avoid all intercourse with men, possess no weapons of war and do not know how to defend themselves, then to read, only a few pages later, of their hunting troglodytes in four-horse chariots ( De Se l i n co u r t 1 9 7 6 , 3 2 9 , 3 3 2) , an i n cons i s ten c y noted by the editor himself. This curious anomaly goes back, in English, at least into the last century. The edit ions available to Desanges (1962, 92) indicate clearly that the first account applies to the Gamp ha s an t e s ( c f. De sang e s i n Maun y 19 7 8 , 1 3 6 ) • After believing that the Garamantes faded out of history some t i me a f t e r t h e e n d o f Rom a n o c c u pa t i o n , u n t i 1 be c om i n g Ch r i s t i an , t hen 1a t e r s u b j e c t t o Ar ab i n v ad e r s (Law 19 6 7 , 2 0 0 ) , I find that this may have been so in Fezzan and the rather nebulous zone to the south, perhaps as far as the river Niger. On a map of "Medieval Nubia", however, Garamantes are shown in the area about north-west of Meroe, although the Blemmyes are given pride of place, somewhat further east and across the Nile (Shinnie 1954, fig. 1). Th i s some w ha t u n exp e c t e d s i t u a t i on may we 1 1 have been gleaned from · Monneret (1938, 207), although the apparent disapproval of Crawford (1947, 11-12) that Garamantes should be mentioned in the Bayuda desert is evident. This desert was "later cal led the dessert of Goran, Gorhan or Gorham". Monneret appears to have dipped heavily into remarks by MacMichael (1912, 235-41) who produces a welter of quotations which do not succeed in equating the Garamantes with the "Kura' an", the inhabitants of the above-mentioned zone (cf. Kirwan 1934) • . He deduces that the Garamantes were a nomad race covering a .large area, from north of Fezzan as far as Upper Egypt and perhaps even further south, allowing for the wide spaces of the south being foreshortened by historians writing in the north. Here perhaps is the whole crux of the matter, the supreme difficulty of positive identification of far-off ethnic groups. The Desert of Goran is mentioned by Leo Africanus as lying at the southern border of Nubia (Leo 1600, 11). Looking around for other possible contacts, the task of knowing precisely who was involved is frustrating in the extreme. The F r e n c h e x p e d i t i o n t o t h e Fe z z a n ( Be l l a i r 1 9 5 3 ) r i g h t l y comnents on the differing populations all termed Garamantes: some are depicted as redoubtable nomad warriors, some as agriculturalists and stock-raisers, and others as long-distance traders (cf. Trimingl;lam 1963, 12). Their colour has been called in question too; yet all seems to fall into place if we admit that the term covers varying populations all found in Fezzan, white and blacks, nomad s and s eden t a r i s t s , w a r r i o r s and cu 1 t i v a t o r s •

253

Another a r t ic 1 e b y Des a n ge s ( l 9 7 8 c ) p o r tr a y s them as a n intermediate r ace, neither b 1 ack or white, conc 1 udin g that south Morocco, south Algeria, south Tunisia and Fezzan were peopled· in antiquity to a great extent by negroids. If I may here add some personal impressions and taking African slavery as an age-old institution, some so-called "noble" Saharan nom ads today have plenty of negro blood. As late as the seventeenth century we have a record of an Ar ab faction in Mal i, the Kel Kou mer, becoming Tuareg, so as to put themselves on the same footing as their piratical neighbours. Perhaps some of the faces portr ayed in the charming work by Rochegude (1983), a number of them perfectly indistinguishable from those of contem­ porary Moors, may be descended from such folk. One notes that they play football and that vei 1 ing is very slack indeed among some of the men. I suggest that if as much inter-ethnic love-making went on in Classical times as nowadays, then a hybr id race was inevit­ able. Anyone who looks at some modern Tuareg or at many inhabi­ tants of t h e Ca n a r y Is 1 a n d s w i 1 1 h a ve no t r o u b 1 e in co mpr eh e n d ing. The widely-held notion of "noble white Tuareg" and "negroid slave" simply holds no water, though slaves appear more likely to be negroid than nobles in general. Some Kel Ow i Tu a r eg of s o ut h er n A 'i r , N i g e r , l o ok to me remarkably Indian: whether this has any connection with some Tuareg jewellery, which the noted British Sudan specialist A.J. Arkell (1935) equated with certain Indian-type tr inkets of Darfur, o n l y t i me wi 1 1 te 1 I. Th e Ke 1 Ow i a r e pop ul a r l y r ep u ted to have come from abroad. The name of the Garamantes has also been bandied about in­ discriminately. They are seen as having been both Ahaggar and Tassili-n-Ajjer from around 1200 BC (Mattre 1976, table VII) and a more recent catalogue on sale to the public mentions "Garaman­ tian graves" (Kuper 1978, 9). This latter descript ior:i would be less disastrous, were other types mentioned simultaneously. I ·have reproduced elsewhere his table, though adding a note to the effect that the graves are better termed "protohistoric stone monuments" (Mi !burn 1984a, 294): not al 1 Saharan cairns have been shown to be graves. At one and the same time it may be reasonable to ascribe to the Garmantes monuments seen and excavated in the area of Tedjere, south Fezzan, by Bellair et al. (1953) on the basis that similar s t r u ct u r es wer e s een by the s am e peop le i n W ad i Ad j i a 1 • Their presence in what was probably a most inhospitable region, by comparison with the urban splendour of Garama and its area, lends colour to the notion of the existence of var ious types of Garamantes . In terms of other peoples, I have wondered about the Kesh Kesh of protohistory and the Ikashkeshan, a Tuareg faction whose 254

BENDEL (Azawak,

FUCHS

LHOTE

STUEHLER (Ajjer, Algeria)

Niger)

Nobles (lmajeren)°

Nobles South:

(North:lmuhar. lmajeren)

Nobles (lmocharen)

Nobles (lhaggaren. singular: Ahaggar)

Vassals (lmrad or Kel Ul l i = "Goat People")

Vassals (lmrad. singular: Amrid)

Marabouts (lneslemen) ("Aristocracy") Marabouts (lneslemen)

Vassals (lmrad or Kel Ul I i = "Goat Peop 1e")

Vassals

(lmrad)

Servants (lklan) "are not Tuareg, but black slaves".

l\"8.rabouts (lneslemen. singular: Aneslem)

Smiths

(Enaden)

Handworkers/Smiths (Enaden)

Slaves (lklan. singular: Akli)

Former slaves ( Ider fan/ Imrad) Slaves

(lklan)

Handworkers (lneden. singular: Ened) Slaves

(lklan)

Smiths (Enaden) " • . p u t a t t he b o t t om of the social scale." Figure

15:5.

Four views of Tuareg

social

organisation,

all

published

in 1978.

,t

piratical skills came very much to the World War. The Kind in, a name applied to tants of Bornu not so long ago, sounds Gindanes of Classical times. MacMichael claims that the Tuareg are known in Darfur a large colony of them close to El Fasher wa s f i r s t pub l i s he d i n l 9 2 2 •

fore during the First A'ir Tuareg by inhabirather similar to the (1967, I, 114) however as Kenin, there being at the time his book

Speaking of a society whose members indulged in some widely divergent occupations, I like the title of the work by Haaland (1981), concerning migratory herdsmen and cultivating women. A modern parallel could be seen in the case where lordly nomad "aristocrats" have obi iged sedentary underlings to grow crops: the practice may be very ancient indeed (Milburn 1983b, 2). In an attempt to demonstrate the problem of coming to grips with the exact identity of the Garamantes, it may be that even con t emp o r a r y w r i t e r s o f t h e d a y w o u l d h a v e h ad t h e s am e t r o u b l e in obtaining the facts as appears to have been experienced by the various authors named in Figure 15:5. Saharan society is nothing if not complex. To sum up, Desanges (1978c, 50-1) thinks that the Garamantes represented the coexistence of differing ethnic elements: he would also be hard pressed, he admits, to answer such a question a s "w ha t i s a Gae t u l i an ? " ( c f. Fen t r e s s l 9 7 9 fo r n ume r o u s s i m i l a r difficulties). In two further works (Desanges 1956, 214; 1957, 43) it is suggested that the Garamantes' fame arose due to their being so far distant, so remote. Since those days, though buried beneath the sands of time, their name - though not their faces is still remembered. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS · Before all else, it gives me great pleasure to be asked to contribute to a work dedicated to Mrs Olwen Hackett. lt was she, 9ver ten years ago, wh~ found me a companion, Charles Freeman, wel I-versed in measurement of stone structures, to accompany me to former Spanish desert territory. Had he not awakened in me a keen interest in the enigmatic Saharan monuments, this article wo u l d n eve r have be e n w r i t t en. I take t h i s opp o r t u n i t y o f he r e expressing my deep gratitude. I am also indebted to the specific points: I. Carradice, R. Rebuffat, Miss J.M. Reynolds,

following for help and advice on L. Galand, A. Laronde, H. Lhote, C. E. Weisbecker.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Arkell,

A.J.

1935. Some Tuareg ornaments and their connection I n d i a. Jou r na l of the Roy a I An th r o po I og i ca l I n s t i t u t e 297-306.

with

65:

256

Ar ke l l , A. J. 195 9. Pre l i mi nary rep or t on the arch a e o logic a l results of the British Enned i Expedition 1957. Kush 7: ·l 526. Arkell, A.J. 1960. Report of the archaeological results of the Br i t i s h En n e d i Exp e d i t i on , 19 5 7. Man 6 0 : 4 0. Bar t h , H. 1 8 5 7 ·• Tr ave l s and D i s cove r i es i n Nor t h and Ce n t r a l Africa. London, Longman. Bellair, P., Gobert, E.G., Jodot, P. and D. Pauphilet 1953. Mission au Fezzan. Tunis, Institut des Htes Etudes de Tunis. Bendel, F. 1978. Die Schmiede der Tuareg. In Museen der Stadt Koeln (ed.), Sahara. 10.000 Jahre zwischen Weide und Wueste, Koeln, Museen der Stadt Koeln: 370-4. Bovill, E.W. 1956. The camel and the Garamantes. Antiquity 30: 19-21. Bovill, E.W. 1968. The Golden Trade of the Moors. London, Ox fo r d Un i v e r s i t y Pr e s s , second e d i t i on. Brogan, 0. 1954. The camel in Roman Tripolitania. Papers of the British School at Rome 22: 126-31. Brogan, 0. 1975. Inscriptions in the Libyan alphabet from Tripolitania, and some notes on the tribes of the region. In J. and T. Bynon (eds.), Hami to-Semi t ica. The Hague, Mouton: 267-89. Bulliet, R.W. 1975. The Camel and the Wheel. Cambridge, Harvard University Press. Camps, G. 1965. Le tombeau de Tin Hinan ~ Abalessa. Travaux de l'lnstitut de Recherches Sahariennes 24: 65-83. Camps, G. 1974. L'age du Tombeau de Tin Hinan, Ancetre des Touareg du Hoggar. Zephyrus 25: 497-516. Camps , G. l 9 7 7. Rech e r ch e s s u r I e s p l us an c i en n es i n s c r i p t i on s libyques de l'Afrique du Nord et du Sahara. Bulletin Archeologique nouvelle ser ie, fascicule 10-1 lb: 143-66. Crawford, O.G.S. 1947. Christian Nubia: a review. Antiquity 21: 10-15. Dal~oni, M. 1948. Mission Scientifique du Fezzan (1944-45). VI. Premiere partie. Algiers, Institut de Recherches Sahariennes. Daniels, C.M. 1970a. The Garamantes o·f Southern Libya. London, Oleander. Daniels, C.M. 1970b. The Garamantes of Fezzan: excavations on Z i n ch e c r a l 9 6 5 - 7. The An t i qua r i e s Jou r n a l 5 0 ( l ) : 3 7 - 6 6. De Burthe d'Annelet, Lt. Col. 1939. A travers l'Afrique Francaise • . Du Senegal au Cameroun par les confins libyens ... et au Maroc 1935 par les confins sahariens (Oct 1932 - Juin 1935)~ Carnets de route. Paris, Firmin-Didot, Vol. 1. De sang e s , J • l 9 5 6 • A p r o p o s d u t r i om p h e d e Co r n e l i u s Ba l b u s • Travaux de l'lnsitut de Recherches Sahariennes 14: 213-14.

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a

a

a

258

2:

21-4. Lange, D. and Berthoud, S. 1977. Al-Qasaba et d'autres villes de la route centrale du Sahara. Paideuma 23: 19-40. Law, R.C.C. 1967. The Garamantes and trans-Saharan enterprise i n C l a s s i ca l t i me s . Jou r n a l o f A f r i can H i s t o r y 8 : l 8 l - 2 OO. Lefranc, J.Ph. 1953. Inscriptions antiques du Fezzan. Travaux de l'Institut de Recherches Sahariennes 10: 191-2. Lehuraux, L. 1928. Sur Les Pistes du Desert. Paris, Plon. Leo, J. 1600. A Geographical Historie of Africa, Written 1n Arabicke and Italian. London, G. Bishop. Lhote, H. 1954. L'Exped i ton de Cornelius Bal bus au Sahara en 19 av. J.-C. Revue Africaine 98: 41-83. Lhote, H. 1972. Les Gravures du Nord-ouest de l'Air. Paris, Arts and Metiers Graphiques. Lhote, H. 1978. Die Tuareg. In Museen der Stadt Koeln (ed.), Sahara. 1 0. 0 0 0 J ah re z w i sch en We i de u n d Wu es t e. Koe l n , Museen der Stadt Koeln: 355-9. Lhote, H. 1979. Gravures, Peintures Rupestres et Vestiges Archeologiques des Environs de Djanet (Tassili-n-Ajjer). Algiers, Pare National du Tassili. Lloyd, J.A., Reece, R., Reynolds, J.M. and F.B. Sear 1977. Excavations at Sidi Khrebish, Benghazi (Berenice). Tripoli, The Department of Antiqut ies (Supplement to Libya Antiqua, V), Vol. l. MacKendrick, P. 1980. The North African Stones Speak. London, Croom Helm. MacMichael, H.A. 1912. The Tribes of Northern and Central Kordofan. Cambridge, University Press. Ma cM i ch a e l , H. A. 19 6 7 • A H i s t o r y o f t he Ar ab s i n t he Sud an . London, Frank Cass. Second impression. Ma i t r e , J • - P. 1 9 7 6 . Co n t r i b u t i o n a l a p r e h i s t o i r e r e c e n t e d e l'Ahaggar dans son contexte saharien. Bulletin de l'Institut Fondamental d'Afrique Noire 38, serie B: 715-89. Ma t t i n g l y , H • l 9 3 0 . Co i n s o f t he Ro man Em p i r e i n t he B r i t i s h Museum, Vol. II. Vespasian to Domitian. London, Trustees of the British Museum. Mauny, R. 1968. Le periple de la Mer Erythree et le probleme du c orrmerce romain en Afr ique au Sud du Limes. Journal de la Soc i e t e de s A f r i can i s t e s 3 8 : l 9 - 3 4 • Mauny, R. 1978. Les contacts terrestres entre Medi terrane et Afrique tropicale pendant l'antiquite. In R. Lonis (ed.), Afrique Noire et Monde Mediterraneen dans l'Antiquite. Dakar, Les Nouvelles Editions Africaines: 122-46. Milburn, M. 1981. Multi-arm stone tombs of central Sahara. Ant i qui t y 5 5 : 2 l 0 - 1 4 • Mi l bur n , M. l 9 8 3 a. Though t s on A f r i ca and t he Can a r i e s : mo nu men t s , i n s c r i p t i o n s a n d v o y a g e s o f t h e a n c i e n t s . E I Mu s e o Canario 43: 21-30. Milburn, M. 1983b. The Tuareg of the Sahara and the Sahel. London, Young Explorers' Trust. Milburn; M. 1984a Archaeology and prehistory. In J.L. Cloudsley-Thompson (ed.), Sahara Desert, 291-310. Oxford, Pergamon Press. Milburn, M. 1984b Sur quelques inscriptions enigmatiques des confins nigero-fezzanais. Le Saharien 91: 22-5.

259

Mi l burn, M. In press a. On pre - and pro to h i s tor y of Tener e Tafassasset. Leba 6. Milburn, M. In press b. Du sud-fezzanais au Nord-nigerien l'epoque protohistorique. Atti del Colloquio del Centre lnternat ional de Recherches Sahar iennes et Sahel iennes, Decembre 1983, Florence, 1st i tuto Geograf ico Mil i tare, Centro Nazionale delle Ricerche. Milburn, M. and Nowak, H. 1978-9. On the study of Libyan and Saharan stone structures as a possible means of researching early desert trade and contacts. Almogaren 9-10: 107-34. McCrindle, J.W. 1897. The Christian Topography of Cosmas, an Egyptian Monk. London, Hakluyt Society. Monneret de Villard, U. 1938. Storia della Nubia Cristiana. Rome, Pont. Institutum Orientalium Studiorum. Mono d , Th • 19 7 4 • Le my t h e d e II l ' Em e r a u d e d e s Ga r am a n t e s 11 • Antiquites Africaines 8: 51-66. Mono d , Th • 19 8 4 • L' Erne r au de de s Gar ama n t e s. Sou v en i r s d' u n saharien. Paris, l'Harmattan. Nowak , H. , 0 r t n e r , D. a n d S • 0 r t n e r 1 9 7 5. Fe I s b i l de r de r Sp an ischen Sahara. Graz, Akademische Druckund Verlagsanstalt. Ogden , J • 1 9 8 2 • Jew e I I e r y o f t he An c i e n t Wo r I d . Lo n d o n , Trefoil Books. Orfali, D. 1979. La necropole d'Abalessa. In H.G. Horn and C.B. Rueger (eds.), Die Numider. Reiter und Koenige noerdlich der Sahara. Bonn, Rheinisches Lsandesmuseum: 255-61. Pauphilet, D. 1953. Recherches archeologiques Tejerhi et dans l'Ouadi el Ajal. In P. Bellair et al. (eds.) Mission au Fezzan (1949). Tunis, lnstitut desHtes Etudes de Tunis: 71-98. Perret, R. 1936. Recherches archeologique et ethnographiques au Ta s s i l i de s A j j e r s ( Saha r a Ce n t r a l ) , l e s g r av u r e s r up e s t r e s de l 'Ou e d D j a r e t , l a pop u l at i on e t l e s r u i n es d' I he r i r • Journal de la Societe des Africanistes 6, 1: 41-64 and pl.

a

a

I -XX. Que ch on , G. a n d J • - P. Ro s e t 19 7 4 • P r o s p e c t i o n a r c h e o l o g i q u e d u · Mass i f de Term i t ( N i g er ) • Ca h i er s ORS TOM 1 1 , s er i e Sc i enc es Humaines: 85-104. Rebuffat, R. 1969. Zel.la et les routes d'Egypte. Libya Antigua 6-7: 181-7. Rebuffat, R. 1970. Routes d'Egypte de la Libye interieure. Stud i Mag re bin i 3: 1- 2 0. Rebuffat, R. 1975. Graffiti en 11Libyque de Bu Njem". Libya Ant i qua 11 - 12 d: 16 5- 8 7. Reygasse, M. 1950. Monuments Funeraires Preislamiques de I' Afrique du Nord. Paris, Arts et Metiers Graphiques. Ritter, H. 1980. Salzkarawanen in der Sahara. Zuerich and Freiburg im Breisgau, Atlantis. Roet ween t h e ~ and i t .s a s s o c i a t e d s a t e l l i t e s e t t l em e n t • Th i s is not at all clear on the ground because, whereas the ~ itself has survived as a prominent feature of the countryside, the associated settlement is badly robbed and its extent is difficult to esta bl ish with confidence on the ground. Figure 16:12 therefore, represents a composite plan derived from a detailed structural survey of the~ extended westwards to include the dependent settlement, a plan of which is partly derived from air photographs taken at low level through kite photography. The academic justification for such plans is, of course, that it breaks the dichotomy which has normally been allowed to divide primary from secondary settlements in earlier studies of settlement. Figure 16:13 takes this a stage further by offer.ing a reconstruction drawing of the buildings associated with the main~ in a view from the southwest. The examples we have category of courtyard~

been discussing in the pre-desert.

281

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F i g u re 16 : l 3. A r e co n s t r u c t i on d r aw i n g o f ~ Ag l and i t s associated settlement. Cf. Figs. 12:7 and 16:12. of courtyard, as opposed to l ight-wel 1, ~ are more modest in size. Normally the survey teams have concentrated on examples whe r e t h e s t r u c t u r a l s e q u e n c e i s c l e a r a n d i n f o r ma t i v e o r t h e associated features can be interpreted with clarity thanks to the quality of preservation on the grounq. Two examples are given he re. F i g u r e l 6 : l 4 p r e ·se n t s a ~ i n a n e x c e p t i o n a l s t a t e o f preservation from the Wadi Khanafes (Kn 1) in its immediate structural context. This area together with the adjacent Wadi Umm el-Agerem is notable for the quality of the surviving remains and Wadi Khanafes l represents a relatively simple example of the way in which ancillary structures developed in the immediate vicinity of the~As the plan shows, two ranges which are chronologically undifferentiated developed to the north and south of t he r e c t an g u l a r ~. One o f t he r a n g e s ho u s e d an o l i v e press. The periphery of the~ does not reveal much in the way of surface remains to indicate the various zones of activity that occurred around the structure. This is in part due to the position of .the~ close to a modern track, and in an area along the main northern approach to Ghirza. Better preserved peripheral remains can be found in the more remote areas and the~ at Wadi Ghirza 75 (Gh 75) is a case in point. It belongs to an is~lated group of structures forming the most remote group of 2 82

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farms based on floodwater control in the southeastern pre-desert. In this case the virtual absence of destruction has made it possible to plan a~ in the context of its ancillary building and together with traces of the associated activites (Fig. 16 : l 5 ) • An e l on g a t e d rec tang u 1a r bu i l d i n g fo rm s the ma i n subs i diary structure to the south of the~ and may be simply designed to accommodate humans. In contrast most of the structures to the east seem to be asso ciated with stock, although there is reason to think that some of the structures shown may be of a post-Romano/Libyan date. Despite considerable wind erosion on the crest of the scarp various midden areas are also defined, notably the principal structure directly in front of the~ entrance. As a l r ea d y de s c r i bed i n t he ca s e o f t h e e l -Am u d comp l e x •, olive presses and the building structures in which they are held form a particularly important part of the peripheral buildings in the area of the~ or farm. There is no need in this con text 283

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Figure 16:15. One of the southernmost� (G h 75): the virtual absence of . destr _ ucti o � ha s m a_de_ it possi ble to pla n a � set amidst its ancillary butldrngs and traces of its associated activities. to describe the structure and functioning of the press complex as that has already been done in an article by Mattingly in this volume • Many of the results described stem from his exam ination of th e p r e s s ho u se (L m 4 E ) in t h e e 1 -Am u d f ar m ( Matt i n g 1 y and Zenati, in Barker and Jones 1984). The provision of separate press houses m ust in the case of el-Am ud be presumed to be a relatively early feature of the far m buildin g s. As shown by Figures 16:16 and 16:17, individual presses can occur both incor­ porated in open far m s, enclosed within � or in ancillary In the more elaborate examples, structures attached to�however, the press house forms a separate structure, and examples of this are known in a number of places. There is no indication, however, that they are necessarily late i n the structural se­ quence involved. The example chosen here, however, is in fact of late Roman date and derives from the Wadi Legwais, where an exceptionally well preser ved olive press was located below the main� (L g 2). For clarity this plan (Fig. 16:16) ranks in the same class as the excavated example from el-Amud; a brief clearance of the site enabled a reconstruction of the arrange­ ments _shown in Figure 16:17. T he water tank can be seen upper left beyond the uprights of the press, while the arrangements for the windlass are, apart from the foundation blocks, conjectural". Altogether, the example from Gasr Legwais is one of the finest so far located and recorded by the Valleys Survey. 284

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purpose of making a structural differentiation of the remains that might contain the seeds of a sociological differentiation. In this context two cemeteries in the Bir Scedua area have already been published (Buck, Burns and Mattingly, in Jones and Barke r l 9 8 3 , 4 6 - 5 l ) . A d i s t i n c t f ea t u r e o f man y c em e t e r i e s i s provided by rectangular mortuary structures with associated stele, while circular graves are very common and have many parallels in the Wadi el-Agial far to the south in the Fezzan. these latter seem to fo~m a separate group, arguably in a strictly indigenous tradition. The example chosen for illustration here (Fig. 16: 18) is the cemetery near Wadi Antar, which is also the subject of a separate article in •this volume by Brogan and Reynolds. In this case the range of funerary styles is particularly large. Apart from a tower tomb there are also rectangular platforms and graves, cist burials and circular cairns, all apparently belonging to the Romano-Libyan period. There are in addition a small number of peripheral Islamic burials on the northwestern side of the site. Detailed.work on the interpretation of the cemeteries is now in hand and this example is simply shown in Figure 16:18 as an instance of the richness of the material on which typological studies can be based.

287

Th i s i s i n a sense t rue of the who l e of the Va l l e y s Survey. Broadly speaking, the Romano-Libyan structures, which are still abundantly evident in the pre-desert area, form a data base of quite extraordinary potential. This article, it is hoped shows something of the methodologies that have been developed by the Valleys team in recording and classifying the surviving aboveground structures. It is dedicated to Olwen who has done so much to heighten awareness of the archaeological potential of the Tripolitanian pre-desert. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This summary structural survey is intended as an indication of the methodologies that have been developed in the UNESCO Libyan Valleys Survey and is not, of course, intended to replace a full statement which will appear under the auspices of the Department of Antiquities of the Socialist Peoples Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. The survey team led by myself and Dr. Barker are particularly grateful to the President of Antiquities, Dr. A. Shaiboub, and to his staff both at Tripoli and Leptis Magna for facilitating the work in which members of the Department staff participated. In particular it is appropriate to note the contributions of Mr. Shi tewi Mohammed and Mr. Muammur Boggar, the latter from the Beni Ulid office. Further individual acknow1e d g eme n t s w i l l be f o u n d i n t he a r t i c l e s r e f e r r e d t o i n t he bibliography. In this case acknowledgements are limited to those who have taken par t in the product i on of the p l ans that are reproduced. These may be identified by their initials, notably Dr. David Mattingly and Mr. J.R. Burns, who acted in a supervisory capacity on a number of occasions. The role of Mr. David Buck must also be acknowledged, while Mr. Hugh Coddington is responsible for many of the plans as they appear in the form reproduced here. The intitials J .A G.W.W.B. j. B. J .R.B. R.H.B. I.E. R.S.G. G.D.B.J. S.P.

c red i t for individual below: John Allan Dr. G.W. Barker Joh n B l a ck bu r ·n J .R. Burns Dr. R.H. Bewley I. Ezzabi R. S. Grove Jones G.D.B. Professor Simon Probert

plans

may

A.M. D. J.M. P.M. A.O'C. A.M. P. I .R. S. G. S. R. S. D.W.

be

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by the

A. Massoud Dr. D.J. Mattingly P. Moffat A. O'Connor A.M. Pryor I.R. Skirton G. Sumner R. Suddaby Dr. D. Welsby

BIBLIOGRAPHY , G. W.W. a n d Val.leys Survey Barker , G. W.W. a n d Valleys Survey archaeology in Barker

J o n e s , G. D • B • l 98l . Th e UNESCO L i b y an 1980. Libyan Studies 12: 9-48. J o n e s , G.D. B • l 9 82• Th e UNESCO L i b y an 1979-1981: palaeoeconomy and environmental the pre-desert. Libyan Studies 13: 1-34.

288

G.W.W. and Jones, G.D.B. (eds.) 1984. The UNESCO Libyan Va l l e y s Su r v e y V I : i n v e s t i g a t i on s o f a Romano - Li by an fa rm, Pa r t I • L i by an S t u d i e s l 5 : l - 4 4 • Barth, H. 1857. Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa. London. Brogan, 0. 1977. Some ancient sites in Eastern Tripolitania. Libya Antiqua 13-14: 93-129. Buck, D.J., Burns, J.R. and Mattingly, D.J. 1983. Archaeological sites of the Bir Scedua basin: settlements and cemeteries. In Jones and Barker 1983: 42-54. Goodchild, R.G. 1950. Roman Tripolitania: reconnaissance in the de s e r t f r on t i e r zone. Geog r a p h i ca I Jou r na I l l 5 : l 6 l - 7 8. Jones, G.D.B. and Barker, G.W.W. 1980. Libyan Valleys Survey. Libyan Studies 11: 11-36. Jones, G.D.B. and Barker, G.W.W. 1983. The UNESCO Libyan Valleys Survey IV: the 1981 season. Libyan Studies 39-68. Hayn e s , D. E. L. l 9 6 6 • The An t i q u i t i e s o f Tr i po I i t an i a. Tr i po l i . Mattingly, D.J. 1984. Tripolitania: a Comparative Study of a Roman F r o n t i e r P r o v i n c e . ( 2 Vo l s . , u n p u b l i s h e d Ph •D. t h e s i s , Un i v e r s i t y o f Manche s t e r ) • Ma tti ng l y, D.J. and Zenati, M. 1984. The excavation of building Lm 4E: t h e olive press. In Barker and Jones 1984: 13-22.

Barker,

289

17. THE UNESCO LIBYAN VALLEYS SURVEY: DEVELOPING METHODOLOGIES FOR INVESTIGATING ANCIENT FLOODWATER FARMING By

G.W.W.

Barker

The project which is the subject of this paper began in 1979 with a direct brief from UNESCO to investigate the nature of ancient farm i n g in the Tr i pol i tan i an pre - des er t of nor th we s t Libya, to give an archaeological perspective to present-day plans for agricultural development in the same region (Fig. 17:1). F i e l dwor k t o o k p l a c e i n 19 7 9 , 1 9 8 0 , 1 9 8 1 a n d 19 8 4 , a n d a f i n a 1 season is projected. The British part of this Anglo-Libyan project has been staffed principally by archaeological lecturers and postgraduates from Manchester and Sheffield Universities, the institutions of the two directors of the project (respectively Prof. G.D.B. Jones and myself, although I am currently on secondmen t t o t h e B r i t i s h S c h o o 1 a t Rome ) , t o g e t h e r w i t h r e s e a r c h postgraduates from Cambridge, London and Newcastle Universities. The p u r po s e o f t h i s pap e r i s t o de s c r i be t he de v e 1op men t o f t he p r o ·j e c t ' s me t h o d o 1o g y f o r i n v e s t i g a t i n g i t s a g r i c u 1 t u r a l g o a 1 s and to assess its strengths and weaknesses. The Tr i po 1 i tan i a ri pre - des er t i s t he reg i on w h i ch 1 i e s be tween the coastal zone and the true desert. It consists of an undulating rock plateau (principally limestone, but in places mantled with basalt), dissected by the two great wadi systems of the Sofeggin and ZemZem. The major wadis may be several kilome t r e s w i de , bu t t he t r i bu t a r i e s a r e o f t en n a r r ow t r e nch e s a f e w hundred metres across. Both are floored with a mosaic of flood 1o ams , g r ave l s , and s and dune s • Ra i n f a 1 1 on t he no r t he r n bound ary with the Gebel hills and coastal plain is approximately 200mm a year, the minimum for permanent dry farming without irrigation, but rainfall decreases very rapidly moving southwards across the pre-desert to c. 25mm or less some 100km away at the boundary with th~ rockdesert and sand seas of the Sahara. The regime consists of sporadic and often highly localised cloud bursts on a few days a year, which cause torrential floodwaters to fill the depressions on the plateau or flow down the wadis, reworking the alluvial sediments and replenishing their nutrient levels. 291

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their implications for ancient agriculture. The limestone bedrock of the main plateaus weathers to yield insoluble residues wh i ch co 1 1e c t i n de p r e s s i on s , wh e r ea s t he b a s a l t w h i ch o v e r l i e s the limestones in places weathers to form deeper soils with better nutrientand water-holding properties. In the wadis, apart from . the floodloams and aeolian dunes, there are extensive l ow- an g I e fan s o f co a r s e con g l om e r a t e s : pa r t o f t he f l u v i a l component of the latter may be the equivalent of the Pleistocene Older Fill characterised by Yita-Finzi (1969). In some wadis there are also low terraces of fine sands about a metre above the floodplains. As today, in antiquity these different deposits would hqve offered very different properties of stability, water retention, fertility and the like, and the correlation between different wall types and different geomorphic units makes it clear that such differences were understood and exploited by Ror:nano - L i by an fa r mer s ( F i g. 17 : 5). The rec o g n i t i on o f t he i mp o r -

299

tance of geomorphic factors in controlling land use brought the realisation that our earlier survey maps needed much more inform­ ation about wadi topography, geology and geomorphology. In the Wadi Agerem, for example, resurvey showed that areas apparently without wadi walls were in fact sand traps where walls had been buried by large accumulations of wind- blown sand, and that the walls correlated in general with the cobbly fill and alluvial fans rather than the scarp edge as mapped in 1979 (compare Gilbertson!=...!_�. 1984, Fig. 9, with Jones and Barker 1980, Fig. 3) • One o f the most i mpr essiv e w all sy st ems st u die d by the project was associated with an open farm (Lm4) in the Wadi el Th is was Amud, i n the so u thwester n pa rt o f the su rv ey ar ea • first mapped in 1981, but was investigated again in much greater detail in 1984 (Fleming and Burns 1984). The amended plan is shown as Figure 17:6. Floodwaters entered the fields through a set of sluices at the western end of the system and through subsidiary sluices in the side walls. The western zone clearly took the full force of the water, and cross wadi walls were built here to impede flow. Water could escape from the system in the central zone at point 17 in Figure 17:6, and walls parallel to the direction of flow suggest that this zone was divided into smaller fields. In the eastern zone, water could be ponded by the major earthwork 23, and fed into the cisterns 3 and 4. The western sl u i c es consisted o f 5 6 entran c es f o r me d by tw o orthostats, with capstones acting as a walking platform above. It is assumed that wooden gat es were u sed to re gu l ate f low by clo si ng off part icular sluices • Our first impression of the farm in l 98 l had been of a unitary system, but the 1984 study indicated at least two phases of construction in the field system, and the excavation of the sluices showed that over half had been blocked or modified, leading Fleming and Burns to conclude that the original prototype had to be altered because of too l ittle con­ trol of too much water. The third major component of our methodology ha·s been the �tudy of food refuse an9 other organic residues, primarily animal bones and plant remains, collected from middens associ:�.ted with the Romano-Libyan farms. Preliminary analysis by Dr. Marijke van der Veen of botanical remains collected in the 1957 excavations of fourth and fifth century deposits at Ghirza found a dominance of six row hulled barley, together with other domesticates in­ cluding bread wheat, olive, grape, fig, date, almond, lentil, pulses, and water-melons (van der Veen 1981). Threshing remains such as inter node fragments and the presence of an olive press indicate that these crops were grown locally rather than being imported • G hi r za to d ay is s o uth o f the 25 mm r ai n f all isohy et, yet cereals and olives require c. 200mm of rain a year and f igs c. 800-1200mm. There may be some evidence for a slightly less arid climate in Roman times (discussed below), but not for any major transformation, and it seems clear that the primary reason for the successful cultivation of these crops at Ghirza was the efficacy of the system of floodwater farming, with its ability to compensate for inadequate rainfall by concentrating runoff from a 300

WADI

snc,en r wa II s

UlvlM EL-BAGEL

th,clc

battered

{)tied

walls

stu, r es (and flow -❖-

possible

wfller

walls

dlfe c r,on) inters

200m

~Lm6 .....>

af

Figure

17:6. Plan of the field system relating to the open farm Lm 4 i n t he Wad i Um m e l - Bag e l , a t r i bu t a r y ch an n e l o f .:. Wadi el-Amud · (after Barker and Jones 1984, Fig. 17). large catchment into the restricted cultivated land of the wadi floor or plateau depression.

Faunal and botanical samples have been collected by the project from middens associated with a number of open farms and ~' and a r e cu r r en t l y u n de r s t u d y r e s p e c t i v e l y by Dr • G i l l i an Clark and Dr. van der Veen. Sheep and goats have been the most n ume r o u s s p e c i e s i d e n t i f i e d i n a l l o f t h e s amp l e s , w i t h came l s only occurring in very low frequencies, but one of the most interesting results has been the rather high frequency of gazelle identified in the samples from the Lm4 farm - hunting seems to have played a quite significant role in diet at this very southerly site. The plant remains provisionally identified from the farm are much like those of Ghirza - six row hulled barley pred om i n a t i n g , w i t h g r a p e s , o 1 i v e s , d a t e s , f i g s a n d l e g um e s a l s o be _ ing grown and a range of wild plants present which is more or

301

less typical of the present day adapted to dry sandy environments.

vegetation

of

grasses

and

shrubs

Clearly thus far we can document in some detail how the Romano-Libyan farmers managed the floodwaters, and what crops and an i ma l s t h e y we r e ab l e t o ma i n t a i n a s a r e s u l t • I n t i me , t o o , the full analysis of the fauna should provide considerable information on the butchery system of the stock economy, and probably too on husbandry goals - for example on the relative importance of different species and of different products (meat, or secondary products such as wool, hides, milk, and traction), and of the extent to which stock were maintained for primary subsisten c e needs or for external markets. Similarly the botanical analysis should provide a great deal of information on the husbandry systems in the fields (fallow, rotation etc.), as well as on t h e c r o p p r o c e s s i n g p r o c e d u r e s o n t h e f a r m s • Comb i n i n g t h e i n fo r ma t i on f r om t h e s t u d i e s o f w a l l t e c h n o l o g y w i t h t h e f a u n a l and botani c al data, Gilbertson has proposed two principal models of land use (Gilbertson et al. 1984, 66-8): in the first, the area immediately below each cross wadi wall, where scouring and erosion would have been a major problem, would have been used for olives and grasses, and the more stable soils immediately upstream of the cross wadi walls reserved for cereals; in the second, most of the floodplain would have been used for olives and pasture, with small stands of cereals being grown amongst the trees. There is evidence for both systems, and the variation in farm design and field layout suggests that we shall discern further variation in agricultural organisation, for example from north to south across the survey area as well as through time. These various studies are enabling us to describe with some precision how Romano - Libyan farming operated and what it produced. The fourth component of our methodology, building on all the data described above, has been to attempt to quantify the scale of product ion, to test the assumption that a surplus of foodstuffs was being produced in the pre-desert for the coastal markets. In one preliminary study of a~ and two · satel lite far ms i n t h e Wad i M i mo u n (Ba r k e r and Jon e s 1 9 8 2 , 1 5 - 2 0 ) , I ca l culated from the size of the population that could be housed in the buildings, from the amount of water that could be stored in each farm's cistern, and from the potential productivity of the associated field systems, that a single family could have managed the smallest farm and produced a very modest surplus of a few l amb s o r k i d s ; t h e l a r g e r s a t e l l i t e f a r m c o u l d h a v e p r o d u c e d a surplus 0£'500-1500 litres of oil and a few stock; but the whole system managed as one agricultural unit could have sustained about fifty people, a flock of about 500 sheep and goats, and produced a substantial surplus of oil, cereals and animals. Much more precise information has been obtained from the 1984 excavations of the olive press belonging to the Lm 4 farm in Wadi elAmud (Mattingly and Zenati 1984). The main oil tank had a capacity of 3000 litres, and two ancillary vats had a combined capacity of 1200 litres, whilst an adjoining store had space for at least 30 amphorae containing perhaps 3000 litres. The excavators concluded that "the press had a potentially large product ion

302

capacity and was designed to furnish several distinct grades of oil - for cooking, washing, lighting and so on ••• clearly, then, even on the fringes of the desert the production of olive oil was on a large scale ••• and was a complex and sophisticated business ••. linked in some way with the Roman market system" (l\Aattingly and Zenati 1984, 17). There seems little doubt that at least the major open farms such as Lm 4 were industrial enterprises engaged in market production on a considerable scale. The fifth component, and certainly one of the most critical, has been the work on the climatic and ecological context of the agricultural systems, research directed by David .Gilbertson with major contributions from David Jones and Chris Hunt. There is a large literature about the climatic context of Roman farming in North Africa, but there is remarkably 1 ittle hard evidence and even less that is closely dated and clearly related to phases of ancient settlement. Preliminary work by Gilbertson and Jones in 1980 and 1981 found no clear evidence for any differences in climate between the Romano-Libyan period and the present, though wetter periods of greater antiquity had resulted in the formation of palaeosols on the plateaus, the erosion of which might be associated in part with Romano-Libyan farming (Gilbertson and Jones 1982). The full study of these data confirmed their findings (Barker et al. 1983), but the more detailed samples collected in 1984 and still under study by Gilbertson and Hunt are producing some indications of a marginally less arid climate at a time which may after all correlate with Romano-Libyan farming, and also hints of a build up of saline deposits which, whether induced by greater flooding or by irrigation or both, could have had a drastic effect on agricultural productivity. The tentative nature of these findings cannot be over emphasised, and chronological links between our geomorphology and archaeology are still far less precise than we would wish, but it seems clear that the relationships between climate, environment and farming in pre-desert antiquity will be found to be far more complex than suspected hitherto. A final approach u~ed by the project has been image analysis of Landsat satellite data (Dorsett et al. 1984). A pi lot study in 1984 to correlate the false colour components of the images with differences on the ground found uni ts variously associated with geology, geomorphology and vegetation. The terrain analysis and evaluation made possible by these correlations is enabling us to reasses? the validity of our original sampling strategy based primarily on geological maps published shortly before our project began. One immediate result of the exercise has been to show that the plateaus are covered by sediments and soi 1 s in the plateau depressions which have been noted often, but which have been impossible to quantify by normal survey techniques on the ground. It is now clear that, although the major Romano-Libyan sites are along the wadi edges, the plateau was potentially a major agricultural resource, and the frequency of wate ·r control wa l l s i n a n d a r o u n d t h e s e d e p r e s s i o n s ( ma n y o f t h em ad m i t t e d 1y undated) suggests that Romano-Libyan farmers were well aware of this. Many depressions would have been within daily walking 303

distance from the farms, and many more 20-30 kilometres away could have been used easily by herders sleeping away from the wadi f a r m s f o r a f ew d a y s • Th e a r ch a eo 1 o gy o f t he p 1 at eau s clearly needs much more scrutiny, and any assessment of the potential productivity of the wadi farms has to follow an invest­ igation of the extent to which the plateau depressions were exploited . To date, therefore, the Libyan Valleys Survey has establish­ ed the principal characteristics of Romano-Libyan farming, in much greater detail than ever before, but we still need more precise information about spatial and chronological variation, about the relationships between agriculture and environmental change, and about productivity. When all the data have been studied from the 1984 investigation of the el-Amud farm (Barker and Jones 1984), we hope to be able to provide such precision for the earlier phase of Romano-Libyan farming, but the final season is essential to study the� system in the same detail: in particular, we want to study a length of wadi with two or three contemporary�' to investigate the nature of cooperation or competition in their economic systems as well as the problems noted above. Our final conclusions can only follow this study, but already it seems likely that, whilst� farming was clearly capable of producing a substantial agricultural surplus, its intensity w a s in some se ns e it s d ownf all • On t h e one h an d , t he system was a r t i cul ate d w i t h the coastal zone, and could not remain unaffected by political and economic changes there and in the wider Roman world. On the other, whilst it may have been at least partially stimulated by climatic amelioration, its inten­ sity made it extremely vulnerable - unlike the Bedouin lifestyle - to small scale fluctuations in rainfall and to environmental degradation (whether climatically- or self-induced or both); and the demographic scale of the system compared with the levels of the desert population before and afterwards also made it extreme­ ly vulnerable to external or internal pressures for change. Modern experimental work on the potential productivity and stabi­ lity of different agricultural systems in Libya also suggests that, without recourse to modern programmes of pasture develop­ ment, intensive cereal ·production by Romano-Libyan farmers could have resulted in drastic declines in yields within a few decades (Chatterton and Chatterton 198 4 , 198 5 ) • There ar e no t go i ng t o b e a ny e a sy ans we r s, whi ch I r e ca 1 1 was th e ge n t le ad v ic e o f La d y B r ogan w h en s h e f ir s t 1 e d us i n to the survey area in 1979 with unfailing courtesy in the face of our youthful enthusiasms and hopes for quick results. It is a great pleasure to record our gratitude to her in this volume. The project was initiated by the late John Ward-Perkins, but I am sure he would agree that the successful foundations for our work were laid by the systematic researches throughout the pre-desert by Richard Goodchild and Olwen Brogan. We have followed in their footsteps, and our admiration for what they achieved has grown each year; it is particularly pleasurable for us that one of the major contributions of our project to date, the investigation of 304

t he e l -Am u d f a r m , h a s f o l l owe d o n d i r e c t l y f r om O l we n B r o g a n ' s pioneering work at the site (Brogan 1964).

BIBLIOGRAPHY Barker,

G.W.W. and Jones, G.D.B. 1981. The UNESCO Libyan Valleys Survey 1980. Libyan Studies 12: 9-48. Barker, G.W.W. and Jones, G.D.B. 1982. The UNESCO Libyan Valleys Survey 1979-1981: palaeoeconomy and environmental archaeology in the pre--desert. Libyan Studies 13: 1-34. Barker, G.W.W. and Jones, G.D.B. (eds.) 1984. The UNESCO Libyan Valleys Survey VI: investigations of a Romano-Libyan farm, Part I. Libyan Studies 15: 1-44. Barker, G.W.W., Gilbertson, D.D., Griffin, C.M., Hayes, P.P., and Jones, D.A. 1983. The UNESCO Libyan Valleys Survey V: s e d i men t o l o g i ca l p r o p e r t i e s o f Ho l o c e n e w a d i f l o o r a n d plateau deposits in Tripolitania, northwest Libya. Libyan Studies 14:69-85. Barth, H. 1857. Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa. London, Longman. Behnke, R.H. 1980. The Herders of Cyrenaica. Chicago, University of Illinois Press. Brehony, J.A.N. 1960. Semi - nomadism in the Jebel Tarhuna. In S. G. W i l l i mot t and J. I . Clarke (eds.) Fie l d Stud i es in Libya. -Durham University, Department of Geography Research Papers Series 4: 60-9. Brogan , 0. 1 9 6 4 • The Rom an r em a i n s i n t he Wad i e l -Am u d . L i by a Antiqua 1: 47-56. Brogan, 0., and Smith, D.E. 1957. The Roman frontier settlement at Ghirza: an interim report. Journal of Roman Studies 47: 173-84. Chatterton, B. and Chatterton, L. 1984. Medicago - its possible role in Romano-Libyan dry farming and its positive role in _ mod e r n d r y fa rm i n g. L i by an S t u d i e s l 5 : I 5 7 - 6 0. Chatterton, B. and Ch at t er ton, L. 1 98 5. A hypo the t i ~ a l answer to the de c line of the G r anary of Rome? Paper presented to a s em i n a r o f t he Soc i e t y f o r L i by an · S t u d i e s , She f f i e l d , Jan u ary 19th. Forthcoming in Libyan Studies 16. Clarke, J.I. 1960. The Siaan: pastoralists of the Jefara. In S.G. Wi 11 imot and J.I. Clarke (eds.) Field Studies in Libya. Durham Univer s ity, Department of Geography Research Papers Series 4: 52-9. Dorsett, J.E., Gilbertson, D.D., Hunt, C.O. and Barker, G.W.W. 1984. · The UNESCD Libyan Valleys Survey VIII: image analysis of Land s at satellite data for archaeological and environmental surveys. Libyan Studies 15: 71-80. F I em i n g , A. M. a n d Bu r n s , J •R. l 9 8 4 • Th e f i e l d s y s t em s a n d t h e slui ce s. In Barker and Jones (eds.) 1984: 31-42. Gilbertson, D.D. and Jones, D.A. 1982. Ancient environments and the impa c t of man. In Barker and Jones 1982: 21-31. Gi lbertson, D.D., Hay e s, P.P., Barker, G.W.W. and Hunt, C.O. 1984. The UNES CO Libyan Valleys Survey VII: an interim c lassifica t ion and functional analysis of ancient wall te c hnology and land use. Libyan Studies 15: 45-70.

305

Goodchild,

R.G.

1950.

The

'Limes

Tripoli

tanus'

I I.

Journal

of

Roman S t u d i es 4 0 : 3 0 - 8 •

Good ch i l d , R. G. 1 9 5 4 • Oa s i s f o r t s o f ' Le g i o I I I Au g u s t a ' o n t h e routes to the Fezzan. Papers of the British School at Rome 22: 56-68. Goodchild, R.G. 1976. Libyan Studies: Selected Papers of the late R.G. Good ch i I d. ( J •M. Re y n o l d s , e d • ) • Lo n d o n , E l e k • Good ch i 1d , R. G. , a n d Wa r d - Pe r k i n s , J •B. 1 9 4 9 • Th e ' L i me s T r i p o litanus' in the light of recent discoveries. Journal of Roman Studies 39: 81-95. Jones, G.D.B. and Barker, G.W.W. 1980. Libyan Valleys Survey. Libyan Studies 11: 11-36.j Mattingly, D.J. and Zenati, M. 1984. The excavation of Building Lm 4 E: the o l i v e pres s. I n Barker and Jones (eds.) l 9 8 0:

13-22. Nachtigal, G. 1879. Sahara und Sudan. (reprint Academische Druck u. Verlagsanstalt. Veen, M. van der 1981. The Ghirza plant remains: agriculture in the Tripolitanian pre-desert. Jones 1981: 45-8. Vita - Finzi, C. 1969. The Mediterranean Valleys. University Press.

306

J.967).

Graz,

Romano-Libyan In Barker and Cambridge,

18.

CONCLUDING By

G.D.B.

REMARKS Jones

When I accepted the invitation to assume the Chairmanship of the Society for Libyan Studies it was already clear that the difficulties created by the vicissitudes of present day politics might well hinder the achievement of academic goals. I nonetheless took up the task for a number of distinctly positive reasons. First of all, I was naturally convinced of the importance of the research that had been achieved by British archaeologists with their Libyan counterparts in the Department of Antiquities, and, at the same time, anxious that better knowledge and appreciation of their achievements should be disseminated to the European academic world. Part of that process was naturally the promotion of conferences such as the one at which these papers were delivered; and in this context I am sure that all those who participated would wish to express a vote a thanks both to our President, Dr. Joyce Reynolds and the former Secretary of the Society, David Buck, for organising the proceedings, as well ~s to the latter and D~. David Mattingly for editing the various contributions into publication form. Second, I felt that the Society for Libyan Studies had a ma j o r r o l e i n t h e p u b l i c a t i o n o f No r t h A f r i c a n a r c h a e o l o g y , particularly where a backlog of British excavation existed. Hence amidst these papers you will read a summary of one of the Society's major initiatives, namely Dr. Philip Kenrick's analysis of the unpublished work of Kenyon and Ward-Perkins from Sabratha, which will appear as a major work in 1986. Thirdly, I was also concerned with the growth of North African archaeology as a whole, and the relative troughs and upturns .in the graph of interest in any academic subject. In this context I knew that the UNESCO Libyan Valleys Project had done something essential to the vitality of growth in the subject area, not simply by opening up field survey, and ultimately excavation, on a fresh scale, but also by creating a new 307

and younger generation of interested archaeologists. The spread of their research interests would inevitably, I felt, bring a fresh look at some of the major themes of Tripolitanian history and archaeology. This is indeed happening in several ways, whether through the detailed studies of ceramics, or of a funda­ mental part of the economy, as you may read from the work of John Dore or David Mattingly, or through attempts to draw up fresh models f o r t h e pr o c e s s es o f a c c u lt ur at i o n in a f r o nt i e r z o ne (that we call Romanisation), as you may again ready from the contributions of Rob Burns and David Buck. If at times the bricks for their models rely heavily on the fresh information and, I hope, standards set by the UNESCO Libyan Valleys programme for North African field survey in general, then this wealth of new information should be particularly welcomed in the overall context of the Mahgreb. To the west, we should remember t h a t t h ere a r e n ow l i mi t e d o p p o r t u ni t ie s a v a i 1 a b le t o French scholars in the Mahgreb proper; while to the east, 1n Cyrenaica, it is fair to say that since the major initiative in urban rescue archaeology undertaken by Dr. Lloyd and his colleagues at Sidi Khrebish in modern Benghazi, British archaeo­ logists have been relatively unsuccessful in bringing field pro­ jects, even those whose or i gi n li es i n the Good c hi ld er a, to completion, let alone publication. On the other hand, by and large, Tripolitania has been an area where French, Italian and British archaeologists have worked alongside the Libyan Department of Antiquities with considerable success. In this context we are most grateful to the Italian and French scholars who attended the conference and, particularly to Madame D i Vi t a - E vr ar d a n d Pr o f ess or Re b u f f a t f o r t h eir c o nt ri butions. The wealth of historical, epigraphic and archaeological mat�rial being produced in several languages (most notably the major volume on Ghirza by Olwen Hackett and Dr. David Smith) corporately, I suggest, makes Tripol itania currently the most important a r e a o f act i ve a c a d em i c s tu dy in N o r th A f r ic a . Mo r e over, the stockpile of evidence is not exhausted in periods of temporary political or other difficulties. As you can see, from the work of Dr. Joyce Reynolds and of Dr. Jenny Pr ice, there is much that can be done on epigraphical or arte1actual studies from the area. In this context, the work of Dr. Susan Walker of the British Museum and Hafed Walda, on isotopic analysis of marbles from Lepti� Magna (and why not Sabratha next?) shows how impor­ tant fresh research, affecting not only Libya but also the long distance economics of the Mediterranean world, can be carried on outside Libya. Hafed Walda is, I believe, an example of the kind of initiative the Society can and should be promoting. By this I mean making available specialist skills to our Libyan colleagues to enabte them to promote Libyan expertise in a whole variety of fields, particularly in conservation and in the range of graphic and display techniques that are currently needed in the new museums that will shape emerging ideas of the Libyan heritage, in 308

the analysis and related

of the studies.

palaeo-environment,

and

1n anthropological

Be h i n d t h i s t h i n k i n g l i e s t h e l o g i c o f c e r t a i n r e c e n t events. We should not forget that in the Third World and elsewhere the cultural consumer is willing to buy British, that is to buy-in British archaeologial and related expertise, be it for museums in Saudi Arabia, field archaeology and museum display in Libya, or the estab l ishment of ai r photographic archives in Jordan. Yet, on the other hand, we should remember that it is the customer who ultimately is going to call the tune. May I rem i n d you o f the speech that Co l on l Gadd a f i made i n 1 9 7 8 i n a survey of the national budget, when he called for the work of the Libyan Department of Antiquities at the time to become more attuned to present needs. His words are worth repeating - "The Department's present activities, in spite of their historical importance, had little relevance to t he present Libyan culture or national consciousness." He went on to suggest that Jslamic and Arabic research "might be more relevant or that~ if people wished to be concerned with the Graeco/Roman period, t hey might wish to examine their agrarian pol icies and so mak e arc haeology relevant to modern problems." One c o u l d h a r d l y ma k e t h e p o i n t mo r e a p t l y ; a b r o a d t h e e r a of consumer-orien ted field archaeo l ogy is upon us, and British archaeologists should be willing to meet it by providing field programnes that both offer an important component in understanding the problems of agriculture and r elated problems in the Third World, and also, serve to expand the understanding of archaeology into a fresh dimension, beyond the trenches of traditional excav at i on, i n to an a ppr e c i at i on of the ma j or con t r i but i on s th a t can be made by its sub-disciplines, part ic ularly palaeo-environmental studies. But, if there are new rule s and the consumer cal ls the tune, it is no use proposing programmes of work, however interesting or academically well motivat ed , if the consu mer does not want them or considers them of litt le value according to his own c r i t er i a. One co u l d hard l y have had a sharper rem i n de r than in the review of the first season of the Libyan Valleys Project when , i n t he f a c e o f a cad em i c c l a i ms t o have l o ca t e d n ea r l y 1 5 0 0 largely unrecorded sites in the first season, one high-level Libyan comment was to the effect that whether 500 or 5000 such sites had been identified, this by itse lf was no use to tell the Libyan people. As a result, as Dr. Barker has stressed, the agricultural goals and the techniques of palaeo-economic and environmental archaeology, necessary to investigate them, have r ema i n e d c en t r a l to the s t rate g y of the Va l l e y s Pro j e c t i n l ate r years, that is why "how?" rather than "where?" has preponderated in analysing the fresh archaeological material. In this context the genuine development of the Libyan historical consciousness over the last decade has actually favoured both the project and, conversely, the kind of results that it is producing from its academic data base. In the past and st i 11 to some ex ten t today , for mos t L i by ans the spec tac u l a r arch a e o I o g y of the Roman period effectively epitomises the colonial heritage

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that the Jamahiriya has abandoned to such effect. The transition from being one of the wor Id's poorest nations at the end of the Second World War, to a country enjo y ing the highest per capita i n come i n A f r i ca , t a k e n w i t h t he r e l a t i v e s ma l l n e s s oft he p O p _ ulation, has perhaps led to an in c reased desire to create a national heritage. The Department of Antiquities, in creating a new national museum at Tripoli, is f ul f illing a manifest part of that desire, whereas on the other hand, with constructional works sprouting across the country, it ha s the grea t est difficulty in places in preserving the monument s of Libya's archaeological heritage, and persuading the author i ties that heritage is worth conserving, at least in part. At t he same time, in one of the mo s t h o p e f u l p o r t e n t s o f f u t u r e t h i n k i n g , l a r g e n um b e r s o f schoolchildren are being introdu c ed, as part o f their curriculum, to some of the great c lassical s ite s such as L ptis and Sabratha, and this will, hopefully, lead to t he achieve ent of a balanced approach in which the monuments of t he Graeco/ Roman period can be seen as simply one stage in t he dev el opment of the overall herit age that has shaped the pr esen t n at ion and c ontributed to its historical identity. Moreover, the resul t s of the Valleys P r oject have themselves, perhaps, fostered the growing realisation of a separate Libyan identity in antiquity by the sheer volume of Romano-Libyan sites that have been identified and the cultural material found within them. Had not archaeological interpretations been created so much in the aftermath of the invasions of the Second World Wa r , t h e n p e r h a p s t h e n a t i v e co n t i n u um , a l r ea d y a t t e s t e d b y language or nomenclature in many of the pre-desert inscriptions, might have received less biased treatment which more freely stressed the underlying continuity in the desert culture. Indeed, the system of farming that the project has examined in increasing detail is probably still best seen in terms of an indigenous response to the growth of external market forces on the Tr i po l i tan i an l i t tor al i n an imper i a l context. Qui t e a par t from its greater academic veracity, for the modern Libyan such a line of argument is obviously more ideologically acceptable (and indeed understandable, when one thinks of the steady flow of agricultural goods northwards today from Garian and Tarhuna to the coast) than the concepts of colonisation and invasion linked to the idea of late Roman limitanei settlement in the past. Obviously the ine v itable construction of ideologies and the search for a national heritage places the academic and, above all, perhaps, the archaeologist, on difficult ground. Yet the embarrassment de richesses created by the Valleys Project will perhaps be judged in the next decade to have been sufficient in itself to make a distinct contribution to the formulation of a view of the national heritage in the pre-desert. If it does so, then no little part of the resultant national debt should be laid, not before the principals of the present project ·and their colleagues in the field, but before the scholar whose work in a sense made a large scale archaeological response to the pre - des er t so des i r ab l e and u l t i ma t e l y es sen t i a l • 0 l wen Brogan, as she then was, first went to Ghirza in 1953.

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Thereafter, whether working in collaboration there with David Smi th l a t er i n th a t decade , or a l on gs i de R i ch a rd Good ch i l d .and others elsewhere in the field, she continued to produce a stream of publications that helped to give Tripolitania a well recognised place in Roman provincial studies and indeed, through the work of Vita-Finzi, for example, opened up avenues of research in related fields, the potential of which had not previously been appreciated. With the decline of available resources across the sixties and seventies, her personality ensured that the vehicles and helping pairs of hands and feet were begged, borrowed or pressed into service from willing sources. As her own field trips grew fewer in number she was able, in a sense, to guide the first probings of the UNESa) Libyan Valleys scheme, with its manpower and resources, towards the goals that she had already seen. We followed in her footsteps and thanks to her knowledge, whether published or otherwise, we were able to select er i ter ia and priorities amidst the plethora of eviden c e to hand. If one wan t s a n e x amp l e o f t h e p r o c e s s , t h e n o n e n e e d 1o o k no f u r t h e r than her initial discovery of the importance of the complex of sites at Wadi el-Amud, modestly sub-titled in the very first e d i t i on o f L i by a An t i qua a s "An I n t e r i m No t e" and l a t e r , go i n g on to say of the ruins that she had surveyed "that a great deal of profitable work remains to be done". With this telling under s tat eme n t I m i g h t con c l u de t h i s t r i bu t e to O l wen Hacke t t , whom one, no t wo, generations of Libyan and British archaeologists affectionately know as Umm Ghirza, "mother of Ghirza". To her achievement the papers of this conference were dedicated and I hope that she will find the resultant publication a welcome tribute from her friends and colleagues.

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