Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T23:01:33.374Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Is El Merj the Site of Ancient Barqa?: Current Excavations in Context

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2015

J. N. Dore
J. N. Dore*
Affiliation:
Newcastle upon Tyne
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Since 1989, the Society for Libyan Studies has been carrying out, in conjunction with the Libyan Department of Antiquities, excavation and fieldwork in El Merj (Dore 1990, 1991, 1992) which is held to be the site of two earlier towns named Barqa (also spelled Barca and Barka), one of medieval date and the other Greek, as also of a Roman-period village. In this paper I wish to review critically the evidence for the identification of El Merj as medieval Barqa.

The broad outline of the case is as follows: a town called Barqa is mentioned by a considerable number of medieval authors writing in Arabic. To judge from them the town flourished between the ninth and eleventh centuries AD but declined thereafter. The association of the names Barqa and El Merj with a single site seems to stem from one author, Ibn Sa 'id, writing in the thirteenth century, though even he is tentative in his identification (see below). After the fourteenth century there is a period which is devoid of information. By the eighteenth century the town(s) of Barqa/El Merj had disappeared (i.e. ceased to be inhabited) but local memory preserved the name and location of El Merj because Pacho visited its ruins and recorded the name in 1825 (see below). About twenty years after this a new town called El Merj began to grow up around a castle newly built by the Ottoman authorities on the remains of an earlier town. This town was called Barce by the Italians but reverted to being called El Merj after the second world war, and was finally destroyed by an earthquake in 1963.

Type
Medieval and Modern Periods
Information
Libyan Studies , Volume 25 , January 1994 , pp. 265 - 274
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Libyan Studies 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abu al-Fida: extracted in Najm and Abas 1968.Google Scholar
al-Abdari: extracted in Najm and Abas 1968.Google Scholar
Baladhuri, : Ahmed ibn Yahya al-Baladhuri Futuh al-Buldan trans. by Hitti, Philip and Murgotten, Francis as The Origins of the Islamic State 2 vols., New York, Columbia University Press, 1916–1924.Google Scholar
al-Bekri: extracted in Najm and Abas 1968.Google Scholar
Dachraoui, Farhat. 1981: Le califat fatimide au maghreb 296–3621909–973, histoire politique et institutions. Tunis, Société Tunisienne de Diffusion.Google Scholar
Dore, J. N. 1990. El Merj (Ancient Barca) — A summary report on the 1989 season. Libyan Studies 21: 19–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dore, J. N. 1991. Excavations at El Merj (Ancient Barca): a first report on the 1990 season. Libyan Studies 22: 91–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dore, J. N. 1992. Excavations at El Merj (Ancient Barca): a first report on the 1991 season. Libyan Studies 23: 101–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dore, J. N., Rowan, J. S. and Davison, J. P. 1993. Fieldwork at El Merj (Ancient Barca): a first report on the 1992 season. Libyan Studies 24: 117–119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goitein, S. D. 1967–1988. A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza. 5 Vols., Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Haj, Bi-l, Muhammed, Suleiman 1968. Shawahid qubur islamiyah min Barqa. Libya Antiqua 5: 7–18.Google Scholar
Hamilton, James 1865. Wanderings in North Africa. New Impression 1985, London, DARF.Google Scholar
Hussein, Ahmed al-Yas 1980. Libya min khilal kitabay al-y' aqubi al-ta' rikh wa al-buldan majallat al-buhuth al-ta'rikhiyah Year 2, No. 2, 51–77, Tripoli, markaz jihad al-libiyin lil-dirasah al-ta'rikhiyah.Google Scholar
Ghalbun, Ibn: translated by Rossi, Ettore as La Cronaca Araba Tripolina di Ibn Galbun (Sec. XVIII), Bologna, 1936.Google Scholar
Hauqal, Ibn: Kitab surat al-ardh li-ibn hauqal (abi al-qasim bin hauqal al-nasiby) Dar Maktabat al-hilah, Beirut, 1979.Google Scholar
al-Idrisi, : Opus Geographicum sive Liber ad eorum delectationem qui terras peragrare studeant ed. Cernili, E.et al., Leiden, E.J.Brill, 3rd Fascicule 1972.Google Scholar
al-Hakem, Ibn Abd. Futuh Misr wa akhbaruha ed. Torrey, Charles C., Leiden, 1922, reprinted New York, 1980.Google Scholar
Ibn Khordadhabah: extracted in Najm and ‘Abas 1968.Google Scholar
Ibn Sa'id: extracted in Najm and ‘Abas 1968.Google Scholar
Kitab al-Istibsar: extracted in Najm and ‘Abas 1968.Google Scholar
al-Muqaddasi, : extracted in Najm, and ‘Abas 1968, and also: Arabie text and French translation by Charles Pellat as: Description de l'Occident Musulman au IV-X siecles Alger, Editions Carbonel, 1950.Google Scholar
Najm, Muhammed Yusef and ‘Abas, Ahsan 1968. Libya fi kutub al-jaghrafiah wa al-rahalat: ikhtiyar wa tasnif Benghazi, dar libya lil-nashr wa al-tawzi'a.Google Scholar
Pacho, Jean-Raimond 1827. Relation d'un voyage dans la Marmarique, la Cyrenaique et les oasis d'Audjelah et de Maradeh, 1827, 2nd impression, 1979, Marseille, Editions Jeanne Laffitte.Google Scholar
Qudamah, : extracted in Najm and ‘Abas 1968.Google Scholar
Sa'iduny, Nasr al-Din 1982. Libya kama wasafaha rahalah jaza'iry mu'asir li-ibn ghalbun, al-hussein al-warathilany. Majallat al-buhuth al-ta'rikhiyah Year 4, No. 1, 115–131, Tripoli, markaz jihad al-libiyin lil-dirasah al-ta'rikhiyah.Google Scholar
CaptainSmith, R. Murdoch, and CommanderPorcher, E. A. 1864. History of the Recent Discoveries at Cyrene, made during an Expedition to the Cyrenaica in 1860–1861, under the auspices of Her Majesty's Government. London, Day and Son.Google Scholar
al-Tijani: extracted in Najm and ‘Abas 1968.Google Scholar
Yakut: extracted in Najm and ‘Abas 1968.Google Scholar
al-Y'aqubi, : Kitab al-a'lak an-nafisa auctore abu ali ahmed ibn omar ibn rosteh et kitab al-boldan auctore ahmed ibn abi jakub ibn wadhih al-katib al-jakubi ed. de Goeje, M. J., Leiden, E. J. Brill, 2nd ed. 1967.Google Scholar