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General Account of Recent Discoveries at Tocra

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2015

Fuaad Bentaher
Fuaad Bentaher*
Affiliation:
Garyanis University, Benghazi
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Extract

Short seasons of excavation between 1985 and 1992 were conducted under the supervision of the writer in an open and almost featureless area near the center of the walled city of Tocra. The excavations were part of the Garyunis (Benghazi) University training program, arranged by the Department of Archaeology for undergraduate students.

The excavation uncovered the remains of seven buildings and produced a vast quantity of stratified material. Four periods of occupation, Hellenistic, Roman (early and late), Byzantine and Islamic, were encountered within the excavated area.

The uppermost levels of all buildings excavated are to be dated mainly in the Byzantine period, but show some structural additions and minor modifications probably undertaken during the Islamic period. The floor level of each building produced a large quantity of material which is confidently referred to the 6th and 7th centuries AD. The vast majority of the dateable finds consisted of coarse pottery, including flat-based jugs, some of which were nearly complete, a very distinctive type of cooking ware with a row of finger indentations on the top of the lug, pieces of broken amphorae, mostly necks, bases and handles; one of these handles is stamped with a bust of a Byzantine emperor in a style exactly similar to that of busts on the obverse of Byzantine coins. The legend, however, is not legible (Fig. 13a). Among the finds were also a large quantity of Byzantine lamps, of which more than thirty are either complete or nearly complete, and many Byzantine coins, of which a high proportion belongs to the reign of Heraclius (AD 610–641).

Type
Roman Period and Late Antiquity
Information
Libyan Studies , Volume 25 , January 1994 , pp. 231 - 243
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Libyan Studies 1994

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References

Notes

1. The results of these excavations have been presented to the department of Antiquities at Benghazi in a series of preliminary reports. Finds recovered from the site will be presented in separate reports by several authors.

2. The dates assigned to coarse pottery recovered from the site were based on the study made by Riley, J. A., Supplements to Libya Antiqua V, Vol. IIGoogle Scholar, which is the major reference work for such pottery on all Cyrenaican sites.

3. Ptolemaic, Roman and Byzantine coins found in earlier excavations conducted at Tocra just to the south of our activities have been studied by the present writer and submitted to Garyounis Scientific Journal in a series of three articles. The first two, on Ptolemaic and Roman coins, have already been published, Bentaher, Fuaad, Ancient Coins from Tocra, in Vol. I (1988) 103–12Google Scholar and Vol. II (1989) 181–94. The third report on Byzantine coins is still in press and will appear in the same journal.

4. Continuity of urban life at Tocra and other sites in Cyrenaica after the Muslim Conquest in AD 642 has been observed by many scholars. For Tocra, see Jones, G. D. B., Beginnings and Endings of Cyrenaican Cities, in Cyrenaica in Antiquity (1985) 39Google Scholar. For Apollonia, see Widrig, W. M. and Goodchild, R. G., The West Church at Apollonia, in PBSR 28 (1960) 89Google Scholar. For Cyrene, see Goodchild, R. G., Kyrene und Apollonia (Zürich, 1971) 147–8Google Scholar. For Ptolemais see Kraeling, C. H., Ptolemais, City of the Libyan Pentapolis (Chicago 1963) 13Google Scholar. For Berenice, see Lloyd, J. A., Excavations at Sidi Khrebish Benghazi, Berenice, Supplements to Libya Antiqua V Vol. I 190–1Google Scholar.

5. Coarse pottery recovered from the kiln and the area nearby will be studied by H. M. Amin.