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Inscriptions in the Libyan Alphabet from Ghirza in Tripolitania

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

J. M. Reynolds ,
Olwen Brogan  and
David Smith
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Extract

Ghirza is the site of a Roman frontier settlement in the pre-desert zone of Tripolitania in North Africa, 5 miles south-west of the confluence of the Wadi Ghirza and the Wadi Zemzem, 80 miles from the coast of the Gulf of Sidra and 150 miles (in a straight line) south-east of Tripoli. It is best known for its two groups of monumental tombs decorated with rough sculptured reliefs showing the life of the inhabitants; but it is also notable for other antiquities, and especially for its ‘town’ of fortified farmhouses, clustered together on the edge of the wadi.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 32 , Issue 126 , June 1958 , pp. 112 - 115
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1958

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References

1 For the tombs see Olwen Brogan, Illustrated London News, 22 and 29 January, 1953; D. E. L. Haynes, The Antiquities of Tripolitania (1955), pp. 154 ff.; for the settlement, Illustrated London News, loc. cit.; Olwen Brogan and David Smith, ‘The Roman Frontier Settlement at Ghirza: an interim report’, Journal of Roman Studies, XLVII (1957), 173-84.

2 Folks are silvered bronze coins first introduced by the Emperor Diocletian (A.D. 284-305).

3 J. M. Reynolds and J. B. Ward Perkins, Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania (1952), pp. 222 ff., nos. 898-90 in Latin and nos. 901 and 903 in Latino-Libyan; see also J. M. Reynolds, ‘Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania: a supplement’, Papers of the British School at Rome, XXII (1955), pp. 135 ff.

4 R. G. Goodchild, ‘The Latino-Libyan Inscriptions of Tripolitania’, The Antiquaries Journal, XXX (1950). 135-44.

5 J.-B. Chabot, Recueil des Inscriptions Libyques (Paris, 1940), Preface, p. i; J. Duveyrier, Les Touareg du Nord (1864), 386-90; Oric Bates, The Eastern Libyans (1914), 84-90.

6 Chabot, op. cit., no. 2; Valerius Maximus, 1. 1. 21, Ext. 2, refers to an inscription cut for Massinissa himself on some elephant tusks, gentis suae litteris, but this has been thought to be in the Neo-Punic alphabet of Carthage.

7 Ibid., nos. 1–11.

8 Ibid., preface, pp. iv ff.

9 No. I below is cut on a column of one of the monumental tombs in the northern cemetery (Tomb North A). This tomb cannot be dated exactly, but the two adjacent tombs, one of which appears to belong to the same family, have Latin inscriptions which mention folles (see note 2 above). We believe the Libyan inscription to be unconnected with the original owner of the tomb and therefore considerably later than its original construction, though it might be a graffito of one of the workmen.

10 Nos 1 and 2 below.

11 Op. cit., preface, pp. iv ff.

12 It is hoped to publish the inscriptions in full in Papers of the British School at Rome.