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The Revival of Berber Art

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

W. H. C. Frend
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Extract

Much has been written about the revival of Celtic art in Britain during the last century of the Roman occupation, but so far evidence for similar movements in other parts of the Roman Empire has received but little attention from British archaeologists. Yet it is now nearly half a century since M. P. Gavault, a French archi- tect, excavated a 4th-5th century Christian church at Tigzirt on the Mediterranean coast west of Port Gueydon, and drew attention to the unclassical character of the ornamentation of the supports to the clerestory arches in the church. His suggestion was that the ornamentation was inspired by pre-Roman, Carthaginian originals, and implied a popular movement away from classical design.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 16 , Issue 64 , December 1942 , pp. 342 - 352
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1942

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References

1 P. Gavault, Etude sur les Ruines romaines de Tigzirt. Paris, 1897, p. 22. ‘Au déclin de l’Empire l’art chrétien, essentiellement populaire, revint aux thèmes anciens, en croyant peut-être faire du nouveau. Nous dirions qu’il eût alors une sorte de renaissance punique, si le terme n’était pas trop fort’.

2 S. Gsell, ‘Comptes-Rendues de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres’, (=CRAI) 1898, p.481-99. ‘Onsurprendlàles symptomes d’une renaissance determinee sans doute en grande partie par le triomphe de chrétienté’, p. 496.

3 S. Gsell, op. cit. p. 495.

4 S. Gsell, Recueil de Constantine, 1902, XXXVI,p. 27 ff.

5 Augustine, Ep. 87, 10. CSEL, XXXIV, 2, p. 406. Contra Litteras Petiliani, 11, 83, 184, pl. XLIII, col. 316. cf. Ammianus Marcellinus (ed. Loeb), XXIX, 5, 15.

6 Augustine, Ep. 84, 2. CSEL, XXXIV, 2, p. 293, on region of Setif ‘sed cum Punica lingua, cuius inopia in nostris regionibus evangelica dispensatio multorum laborat, illic autem euisdem linguae usus omnium est’. cf. Ep. 209, 3. See note by author on this subject in J.T.S., July-October, 1942, p. 188.

7 A notable exception is the frieze, dated approximately to the end of the 2nd century A.D., found during the excavation of the theatre at Hippo (Bone). The frieze is cut in very flat relief, and the geometric designs, which form the greater part of the ornamentation, include many which were popular with the Berbers two centuries later.

8 Dr L. Carton describes some of these more grotesque Romano-Berber sculptures which he found at Thuburnica near the present Algerian-Tunisian border. Bulletin archéologique du Comité des Travaux historiques (=BAC), 1908, p. 436.

9 A. Vel, Recueil de Constantine, 1905, XXXIX, 204. The statue now stands in the courtyard of Constantine Museum.

10 This is now in the museum at Tebessa (illustrated under ‘Pilastre’ by H. Leclercq in the Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne, 1939, column 1031).

11 Now in the church of the Sacré Coeur, Constantine, CIL, VIII, 17715.

12 P. Monceaux, Bulletin de la Société nationale des Antiquaires de France, 1909, p. 210. Also at Kheret el Ousfane, see S. Gsell and H. Graillot, Mélanges de l’Ecole de Rome, 1894, XIV, 575.

13 S. Gsell, Musée de Tebessa, 1902, p. 52, figure 4.

14 P. Cayrel, Mélanges de l’Ecole de Rome, 1934, LI, 133.

15 S. Gsell and H. Graillot, Mélanges de l’Ecole de Rome, 1893, XIII, 499 and plate VII.

16 CIL, VIII, 18742.

17 Illustrated in A. Berthier’s and M. Martin’s ‘Les Fouilles à Bou-Takrematem’, Revue Africaine, 1936.

18 Carved comices now in Algiers Museum, See S. Gsell, BAC, 1901, p. 158-61.

19 P. Monceaux, BAC, 1895, p. 76-77.

20 M. Simon, Mélanges de l’Ecole de Rome, 1934, LI, 167.

21 cf. A. Baliu, Les Ruines de Timgad, Paris, 1911, pp. 40-4 (photograph published).

22 These and many other examples of rustic Romano-Berber ceramic art are now in Constantine Museum, where they await publication by their discoverers M.M. Martin and Berthier.

23 P. Gavault, op. cit. 17 ff.

24 A. Berthier, ‘Fouilles dans une chapelle chrétienne à l’Oued R’zel’, Revue Africaine, 1936.

25 A. Berthier, ibid.

26 G. Marçais, L’Art Musulman de L’Algérie, Alger, 1909, p. 4-9, plates I and II. An extremely fine example of Kabylie wood carving dated to the 14th century, in which the craftsman has contrived to find room for nearly all the patterns typical of Berber art in the later Empire, is described by Prof. Marcais under ‘Note sur une Coffre Kabyle, in Revue Africaine, 1927, p. 92-8.

27 This subject has been dealt exhaustively by M.M. Poinssot and Lantier. See articles on ‘L’église d’el Mouasset’ in BAC, 1925, p. 172 ff., and ‘La Chapelle de l’Evêque Honorius, in BAC, 1932-33, pp. 787-93. Also ‘Les Mosaïques de la Maison d’Ariadne à Carthage’, in Monuments Piot, XXVII, p. 28, and ‘Les Mosaiques d’El Haouria’ in the Actes du Premier Congrès de la Fédération des Sociétés savantes de l’Afrique du Nord, 1935, p. 183-206.

28 Herodian (ed. Stavenhagen) VII, 4, 4, ‘ϕύαει γάρ πoλvάvθρωπoς σύσα ἡ Λιβύη πoλλoύς ειχε τoύς τἠv γῆv γεωργoῦvτας.

29 The best commentary on these inscriptions is J. Carcopino, ‘Les Castella de la Plaine de Setif, in Revue Africaine, 1918, pp. 1-22.

30 J. Carcopino, ‘Sur l’Extension de la Domination romaine dans le Sahara du Numidie’, Revue Archéologique, 1924, pp. 316-25.

J. Guey, ‘Note sur le limes de Numidie et le Sahara au ive siècle’. Mélanges de l’Ecole de Rome, 1939, LVI, 220.

31 The probable prototype of the modem Berber ‘tighremt’, except that the place of the church has been taken by the mosque. Otherwise the plan is identical.

32 Most of the buildings were of mud and stone construction, but in some villages very carefully hewn and dressed blocks were used in what appear to be ordinary buildings, e.g. at Tebessa Khalia two miles south of Tebessa. The growth of prosperous villages in the Hauran in the 4th century may perhaps be quoted as a parallel development in Syria.

33 Among other texts bearing on this, see:—

Expositio totius Mundi et Orbis (ed. Lumbroso), p. 80-1.

‘Ab hac provincia, Africae regio dives in omnibus invenitur; omnibus bonis ornata est, fructibus quoque et iumentis, et poene ipsa omnibus gentibus usum olei praestat’.

34 For instance, at Henchir el Gouma, and Henchir Khadem, between Cillium and Thelepte (Kasserine). P. Gauckler, BAC, 1897, p. 385

35 Each Romano-Berber village in Numidia, hitherto examined, contains not one, but five or six chapels, just as a modern North African village may contain a number of mosques and koubbas, each for a separate brotherhood.

36 E. Albertini, CRAI, 1938, p. 101.

37 Gsell and Graillot, Mélanges de l’Ecole de Rome, 1893, XIII, 499-501. This same war-cry has been found on a number of other similarly carved objects from Numidian churches, e.g. Vegesela, Sef-ed-Dalaa, and Henchir bou Said. Iomnium (Tigzirt) and Vazaivi (Ain Zoui) also were both undisputed Donatisi sees in the early 5th century.

* An interesting series of Libyan and Romano-Libyan votive and funerary carvings is shown by J. Guey in his ‘Kriba et à propos de Kriba’, Mélanges de l’Ecole de Rome, 1937. LIV, p. 85 ff.