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The Date of the Tocra Graffiti

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2015

J. M. Reynolds
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Extract

The large numbers of roughly-cut inscriptions on the inner face of the ancient city wall at Tocra, in the area south of the east gate, have often attracted attention. Interest in them flagged when it was realised that they consisted essentially of personal names; but recent developments in onomastic studies have given a new significance to personal names. Moreover since R. G. Goodchild dug there in the sixties it has been apparent that the inscribed stretch of the city-wall had been utilised for one side of a gymnasium courtyard and that the inscriptions on it are ephebic, so that they should throw some light on a civic instituion very much at the heart of the city's life. My purpose here, however, is simply to clarify the date at which the surviving texts were cut.

The gymnasium has produced two main and one subsidiary series of texts. The first consists of graffiti on blocks found in situ on the inner face of the city wall as described above, and also on the inner face of the gymnasium wall flanking the main east/west street of the city, with additional items on blocks which patently derive from the gymnasium, but are found loose or re-used in many other parts of the site. Their appearance gives the impression that they were the work of the ephebes themselves and, since they often overcut one another, that they were produced over a period of time. They normally present personal names without patronymics, often in groups or in pairs, and with a brief indication that the associated persons were customary companions and sometimes certainly lovers.

Type
Research Article
Information
Libyan Studies , Volume 11 , 1980 , pp. 65 - 72
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Libyan Studies 1980

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References

Notes

1 For an account of their publication see Oliverio, G., Documenti Antichi dell'Africa Italiana (1936) II. 168f.Google Scholar; his own work was taken over into SEG IX.419–556.1 have re-examined the inscribed blocks as systematically as I could, and, although unable to find some recorded by him (or earlier by J. R. Pacho), can add to the series both new texts and revised readings; these will be published in the volume on British archaeological work at Tocra now in preparation. For a general account of the texts see my paper on Ephebic Inscriptions at Tocra and Tolmeita, forthcoming in Libyan Antiqua.

2 Oliverio's publication observes, but does not specifically mention, the distinction, which is, fortunately, not noted in SEG.

3 See Plate 1.

4 On these features see a brief note in my paper in Gadullah, F. (ed.), Libya in History, 187 fGoogle Scholar.

5 See plates 2, 3 and 6. Parallels from Gymnasia elsewhere are to be found in Ziebarth, E., Aus dem griechischen Schulwesen2 (1914) 136fGoogle Scholar.

6 See Plate 4 and probably 5.

7 See the forthcoming paper in Libya Antique cited in n.1.

8 By word of mouth, during the excavation.

9 On dating formulae used in Cyrenaican inscriptions see the paper cited in n.4, 184 f., together with my accounts of an inscription found at Sidi Krebish which gave the first indication that in the first century B.C. an era beginning in 96 B.C. was in use (SLSAR V (1974) 19fGoogle Scholar. and in Lloyd, J. A. (ed.) Excavations at Sidi Krebish, Benghazi (Berenice) I.233fGoogle Scholar.

10 SEG IX.498; see Plate 5.

11 No. 1 below; see Plate 6.

12 Cf. SEG IX.483 (Λούκιοѕ Καρνεάδον) and 458 for tria nomina (Λ'Οκτάβίοѕ Γρανιανόѕ).

13 SEG IX.454 (ΜᾶΡκοѕ Νικαίω) (invisible on Plate 1) and 468 for a possible example of tria nomina ().

14 In consequence of this (combined with what I believe to be some misreadings in the texts as published), S. Applebaum once proposed to refer SEG IX.424, 439, 440 to Jewish residents in the city in the time of the Maccabees (Bulletin of the Israel Exploration Society XXXII (1958) 74f.Google Scholar; that is not, I think, the case

15 See Plate 7