Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T16:58:11.476Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Town and City in Tripolitania: Studies in Origins and Development 1969–1989

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2015

G. D. B. Jones*
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Manchester

Extract

The manifest achievement of the colonial epoch in the Maghreb was the clearance and, in places, restoration of the great archaeological heritage that awaited investigation in North Africa. To the near exclusion of other themes such as agriculture and the economy, the images of magnificent classical ruins have sprung from the pages of many books, and for better or worse, shaped the mentality of the previous generation and also of that which followed after the Second World War.

Nowhere was this more true than the great coastal cities of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, unearthed and re-erected on a tide of pre-war cultural imperatives. To some extent the wealth of outstandingly well preserved urban remains (associated with an abundance of epigraphic evidence) at the time militated against the refinement of research objectives. It fell to archaeologists working in the colonial twilight of the post-war period, first, to assay the publication backlog and, second, to deepen the level of investigation along lines that were becoming familiar elsewhere through the increasingly sophisticated stratigraphic analysis of urban sites.

In the post-war years the first strand saw, for example, the final publication of the Severan harbour and the market at Lepcis Magna (Degrassi 1951, Bartoccini 1958; for the city as a whole see Bianchi Bandinelli et al. 1966 and Squarciapino 1966); and this continues today with the publication of the work of Kenyon and Ward-Perkins (Kenrick 1986) and various Italian teams (Joly and Tomasello 1984) at Sabratha and at Lepcis (Caputo 1987; Ward-Perkins 1989). The Kenyon and Ward-Perkins excavation at Sabratha, with its sophisticated stratigraphic methods, marked a significant movement into the second area of increasingly searching analysis of archaeological sequences on multi-period sites. For a variety of reasons — logistical, financial and methodological — archaeological investigation effectively remained at that level until 1969, the starting point for this survey of the emporia and the less well-known towns of Tripolitania.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Libyan Studies 1989

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

Aurigemma, S. 1916. II fortificazioni della città di Tripoli. Notiz. Arch. Minist. Col. 2: 217230.Google Scholar
Bartoccini, R. 1927. Rinvenimenti vari di interesse archeologico. Africa Italiana 1: 213248.Google Scholar
Bartoccini, R. 1958. II Porto Romano di Leptis Magna. Rome.Google Scholar
Bianchi Bandinelli, R., Vergara Caffarelli, E. and Caputo, G. 1966. The Buried City. Excavations at Leptis Magna. London.Google Scholar
Birley, A. R. 1988. Septimius Severus: The African Emperor. (2nd ed.). London.Google Scholar
Brogan, O. 1975. Round and about Misurata. Libyan Studies 6: 4958.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caputo, G. 1987. II Teatro Augusteo di Leptis Magna (MAL III). Rome.Google Scholar
Caputo, G. and Ghedini, F. 1984. Pitture del Tempio d'Ercole di Sabratha (MAL XIX). Rome.Google Scholar
Carter, T. H. 1965. Western Phoenicians at Lepcis Magna AJA 69: 123132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daniels, C. M. 1987. Africa. In Wacher, J. S. (ed.), The Roman World I: 223265. London.Google Scholar
Degrassi, N. 1951. II mercato Romano di Lepcis Magna. Quaderni di Archeologia della Libia 2: 2770.Google Scholar
Di Vita, A. 1968a. Influences grecques et tradition orientale dans l'art punique de Tripolitaine. MEERA 80: 783.Google Scholar
Di Vita, A. 1968b. Shadrapa e Milk'ashtart dei patri di Leptis ed i templi del laro nord-ouest del Foro vecchio leptitano. Orientalia 37: 201211.Google Scholar
Di Vita, A. 1969. Le date di fondazione di Leptis e di Sabratha sulla base dell'indagine archeologica e l'eparchia cartaginese d'Africa. Hommages M. Renard III, ( Collection Latomus 103), Brussels: 196202.Google Scholar
Di Vita, A. 1974. Un passo délia Stadiasmos tes megales thalasses ed il porto ellenistico di Lepcis Magna. Mélanges P. Boyance, Rome: 229240.Google Scholar
Di Vita, A. 1976. II mausoleo punico-ellenistico B di Sabratha. Rom. Mitt. 83: 273285.Google Scholar
Di Vita, A. 1978. Lo scavo al nord del Mausoleo punico-ellenistico A di Sabratha. Libya Antiqua 11–12 (1974-1975): 728.Google Scholar
Di Vita, A. 1982a. II progetto originario del forum novum Severianum a Leptis Magna. Mitt, des Deutsches Arch. Inst. Rom Abteilung 25, Erganzungsheft: 84106.Google Scholar
Di Vita, A. 1982b. Gli Emporia di Tripolitania dall'età di Massinissa a Diocleziano: un profilo storico-istituzionale. ANRW 2.10.2: 515595.Google Scholar
Di Vita-Évrard, G. 1965. Les dédicaces de l'amphithéâtre et du cirque de Lepcis. Libya Antiqua 2: 2937.Google Scholar
Di Vita-Évrard, G. 1979. Quatre inscriptions du Djebel Tarhuna: le territoire de Lepcis Magna. Quaderni di Archeologia délia Libia 10: 6798.Google Scholar
Di Vita-Évrard, G. 1982. Note sur ‘trois’ senateurs de Lepcis Magna. Le clarissimat des Plautii. Epigrafia e ordine senatorio I (Tituli 4): 453465; contributions de la Tripolitaine à la prosopographie de deux senateurs, proconsuls d'Afrique, ibid. 467-470.Google Scholar
Di Vita-Évrard, G. 1984. Municipium Flavium Lepcis Magna. Bulletin archéologique du comité des travaux historiques, n.s. 17B: 197210.Google Scholar
Goodchild, R. G. and Ward-Perkins, J. B. 1953. The Roman and Byzantine defences of Lepcis Magna. PBSR 21: 4273.Google Scholar
Haynes, D. E. L. 1959. The Antiquities of Tripolitania. Tripoli.Google Scholar
Hodder, I. and Hassall, M. 1971. The non-random spacing of Romano-British walled towns. Man. 6.3: 391407.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ioppolo, C. 1982. Allineamento e visuali ottiche del foro severiano di Leptis Magna. In Vita, Di 1982a: 94100.Google Scholar
Joly, E. and Tomasello, F. 1984. il tempio a divinità ignota di Sabratha. (MAL XIX). Rome.Google Scholar
Jones, G. D. B. 1989. The development of air photography in North Africa. In Kennedy, D. (ed.), Into the Sun: Essays on Air Photography in Archaeology, Presented to D. Riley. Sheffield: 2543.Google Scholar
Jones, G. D. B. and Kronenburg, R. 1988. The Severan Buildings at Lepcis Magna. Libyan Studies 19: 4353.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kenrick, P. M. 1986. Excavations at Sabratha 1948-1951. A Report on the Excavations Conducted by Dame Kathleen Kenyon and John Ward-Perkins. London.Google Scholar
Leglay, M. 1968. Les Flaviens et l'Afrique. MEFRA 80: 201246.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leglay, M. 1974. Recherches et découvertes éprigraphiques dans l'Afrique Romaine depuis 1962. Chiron, Band A: 629646.Google Scholar
Manacorda, D. 1977. Testimonianze délia produzione e il consumo dell'olio Tripolitano nel III secolo. Dial, di Archeologia 9–10: 542601.Google Scholar
Manacorda, D. 1983. Prosopografia e enfore Tripolitane: nuove osservazioni. Prodaccion y comercio del aceite en la Antigiiedad II (Martinez, J. M. Blazquez and Rodriguez, J. Remesal (eds.), Madrid: 483500.Google Scholar
Mattingly, D. J. 1982. The Roman road-station at Thenadassa (Ain Wif). Libyan Studies 13: 7380.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mattingly, D. J. 1984. Tripolitania. A Comparative Study of a Roman Frontier Province. (Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Manchester).Google Scholar
Mattingly, D. J. 1987. Libyans and the ‘limes’: culture and society in Roman Tripolitania. Antiquités Africaines 23: 7194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mattingly, D. J. 1988. The olive boom. Oil surplus, wealth and power in Roman Tripolitania. Libyan Studies 19: 2141.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Messana, G. 1979. La Medina di Tripoli. Quaderni dell'Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Tripoli n.s. 1: 636.Google Scholar
Millar, F. 1968. Local cultures in the Roman Empire: Libyan Punic and Latin in Roman Africa. JRS 58: 126134.Google Scholar
Potter, T. W. 1987. Review of Kenrick 1986. Ant. J. 68, Part II: 410411.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Romanelli, P. 1959. Storia delleprovince romane delTAfrica. Rome.Google Scholar
Squarciapino, M. F. 1966. Leptis Magna. Basle.Google Scholar
Squarciapino, M. F. 1974. Sculture del Foro Severiano di Leptis Magna. (MAL 10). Rome.Google Scholar
Torelli, M. 1971. Le ‘Curie’di Leptis Magna. Quaderni di Archeologia delta Libia 6: 105111.Google Scholar
Torelli, M. 1974. Per una storia délia classe dirigente di Leptis Magna. Rendiconti Accad. Lincei ser. 8. 28: 377410.Google Scholar
Walda, H. and Walker, S. 1984. The art and architecture of Lepcis Magna: marble origins by isotopic analysis. Libyan Studies 15: 8192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walda, H. and Walker, S. 1988. Isotopic analysis of marble from Lepcis Magna: revised interpretations. Libyan Studies 19: 5559.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ward-Perkins, J. B. 1979. Town planning in North Africa during the first two centuries of the Empire. Milt. des Deutsches Arch. Inst. Rom Abteilung 25. Erganzungscheft: 2949.Google Scholar
Ward-Perkins, J. B. 1989. The Severan Buildings of Lepcis Magna, (ed. Jones, G. D. B.). London.Google Scholar
Whittaker, C. R. 1974. The western Phoenicians: colonisation and assimilation. Proc. Cambridge Philol. Soc. n.s. 20: 5879.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whittaker, C. R. 1978. Carthaginian imperialism in the fifth and fourth centuries. In Garnsey, P. D. A. and Whittaker, C. R. (eds.), Imperialism in the Ancient World. Cambridge: 5990Google Scholar