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Excavations in the Severan Basilica at Lepcis Magna, 1951

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

J. B. Ward Perkins
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During the summer of 1951, the British School undertook an examination of the remaining unexcavated Byzantine levels within the Severan basilica at Lepcis Magna. In converting the basilica to Christian use, Justinian's architects had raised the floor-level at a number of points, and it was hoped that the deposits stratified between the two floor-levels might yield evidence of the condition of the building immediately before the Byzantine reconquest of Tripolitania. In this respect the excavations proved uninformative. A section cut through the low platform built out from the south-east apse into the first two bays of the nave, to house the sixth-century chancel, revealed a uniform and deliberate fill of earth and rubble lying directly on the cement basis of the earlier floor, which here, as everywhere else, had been previously stripped of its Severan paving of slabs of Proconnesian marble. A section in the southernmost of the four chapels that fill the angles of the building, flanking the two apses, revealed a similar fill, the only difference being that, in this case, the original paving slabs were found re-used at the sixth-century level and had evidently been prised up from the earlier pavement at the time of the sixth-century reconstruction. By the sixth century, the pavement of the adjoining forum had already been buried beneath half a metre of flood-sand, and we may suspect that the Byzantine architects had to remove a similar accumulation from the basilica before putting it into repair.

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Research Article
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Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 20 , November 1952 , pp. 111 - 121
Copyright
Copyright © British School at Rome 1952

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References

1 The excavation was supervised by Mrs. D. W. Brogan, and the survey is the work of Messrs. G. A. Clarke and G. H. Slater of Cambridge University. Thanks are due to the Antiquities Department, to Mr. C. H. Johns, Controller of Antiquities, and to the Super-intendent of Antiquities for Tripolitania, Dr. Vergara-Caffarelli, for much practical help during the work; and to the following members of the local staff: S. C. Catanuso; who made a preliminary survey of the church, before excavation; to S. De Liberali, who took the photographs reproduced on pls. XX, XXI and XXV; and to S. Episcopia, who served as foreman during the excavation. The identification of the south chapel as a synagogue was first proposed by Mr. G. U. S. Corbett.

For the Severan basilica and forum, see Il Foro e la Basilica Severiana di Leptis Magna (I Monumenti Italiani: rilievi raccolti a cura delta R. Accademia d'Italia, fasc. viii–ix), Rome, 1936Google Scholar; also Bartoccini, R., Africa Italiana, i, 1927, pp. 53–74Google Scholar and ii, 1928–29, pp. 30–49; Perkins, J. B. Ward in Journal of Roman Studies, xxxviii, 1948, pp. 59–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and in Proceedings of the British Academy, xxxvii, 1951Google Scholar, forthcoming. For the conversion of the basilica into a church, see Romanelli, P., Atti del IV° Congresso Internazionale di Archeologia Cristiana, Roma 1938, Rome, 1940, pp. 266–270Google Scholar; Perkins, J. B. Ward and Goodchild, R. G., in Archaeologia, xcv, 1953Google Scholar.

2 See Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania, p. 281, map 5.

3 A fact which no doubt contributed to its early collapse.

4 The columns, which range from 3·52 to 3·63 metres high, all appear to come from the upper order of the north-west apse of the basilica, which was dismantled by Justinian's architects to provide materials for this and for the near-by church (church 3) off the head of the colonnaded street. Among the debris of the earlier excavations there is a voussoir-block of sandstone, decorated in relief with a compass-traced Greek cross.

5 Lepcis, church 2, in the Forum Vetus: Bartoccini, R., Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana, viii, 1931, pp. 23–52Google Scholar; Romanelli, op. cit., pp. 264–6; Ward Perkins and Goodchild, op. cit. Sabratha, church 1, in the former judiciary basilica, Romanelli, op. cit., pp. 246–253; Ward Perkins and Goodchild, op. cit.

6 The three steps to the east of the niche are (from bottom to top) 31, 22 and 39 cm. high, respectively; those to the west, 28, 25 and 37 cm. The lateral benches are both 43 cm. high.

7 As can be seen in pl. XXI, b, the wall was plastered before the benches were added; but the plaster is identical in each case, and there is nothing else to suggest that this was more than the successive stages of a single operation.

8 The outward splay, from the back to the front, is 6 cm.

9 A pair of shallow, vertical slots, visible immediately above this patch of plaster (pl. XX, a), is probably to be ascribed to the succeeding, Byzantine phase; see p. 120. These slots measure 58 cm. high by 7 cm. broad (left) and 67 cm. by 8 cm. (right); the lower ends are level, 2·79 m. above the Severan pavement. They are now partly filled with plaster; but it is not clear whether this is what remains of the seating to hold in place some object that was fixed into them, or whether it represents a later phase when they were out of use and were perhaps plastered over.

10 Represented by no less than three surviving examples in Tripolitania: at Lepcis, the curia in the Forum Vetus, excavated by Guidi and now awaiting publication by Dr. U. Ciotti; and at Sabratha, the curia on the north side of the Forum (Bartoccini, R., ‘La curia di Sabratha’, Quaderni di Archeologia della Libia, i, 1950, pp. 29–58Google Scholar), and the second phase of the cruciform, vaulted building (later a baptistery) at the south-west corner of the Forum (Ward Perkins and Goodchild, op. cit., fig. 3).

11 Pearson, H. F. in The Excavations at Dura-Europos: Preliminary Report of the Sixth Season of Work, New Haven, 1936, pp. 309–396, pls. VII, VIIIGoogle Scholar; a definitive report, by Mr. Carl H. Kraeling, is in preparation. It should be recorded that Mr. Kraeling, who has kindly examined the plan and photographs of the new room at Lepcis, is unconvinced by the identification of it as a synagogue.

12 For this and other fittings of the ancient synagogue, see Sukenik, E. L., Ancient Synagogues in Palestine and Greece (British Academy, Schweich Lecture, 1930), Oxford University Press, 1934, pp. 52–61Google Scholar. The actual Ark was a double-doored wooden chest, with a gabled or rounded roof, independent of the niche within which it was placed. One must imagine curtains screening the niche.

13 The bema (βῆμα) was normally of wood (ibid., p. 57

14 ibid., pp. 57–8, citing Tosephta, Megilla 4 : 21.

15 ibid., p. 53.

16 Revue archéologique, 1884, i, pp. 273 ff.Google Scholar, pls. VII–X; Cagnat, R. and Gauckler, P., Les monuments historiques de la Tunisie, i, les temples païens, Paris, 1898, pp. 152–4, fig. 16Google Scholar.

17 Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania, 480.

18 Most recently discussed by Bartoccini, in Quaderni di Archeologia della Libia, i, 1950, pp. 33–5Google Scholar.

19 Aedif. VI, 4, 1: cf. VI, 4, 6.

20 Unpublished. The catacomb was destroyed in 1942, but enough is known of the paintings found in it to establish its character.

21 The scale of the moulding suggests that this slab may come from the temple in the adjoining forum; the material and workmanship are Severan.

22 Berthier, A., Les Vestiges du Christianisme antique dans la Numidie centrale, Alger, 1942, passimGoogle Scholar.

23 Inscribed on the under surface with the mason's signature cut in Greek characters, cf. Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania, 799, 800, 800a. The full text could not be read within the trench excavated.

24 Two large angle-pilaster capitals in the pulpit, and sections of the angle pilasters themselves in the chancel screen, Ward Perkins and Goodchild, op. cit., pl. XI, a and b.

25 Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania, 400, 429, and 651.

26 As proved by excavation in 1951.

27 Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania, map 5, p. 281. The street-plan to which this street belongs goes back to the end of the first century B.C.; but we do not know how far the earlier town extended down it, towards the wadi.

28 Romanelli, P., Leptis Magna, Rome, 1925, pp. 102–3Google Scholar; Bartoccini, R., Africa Italiana, i, 1927, pp. 60–2Google Scholar.

29 E.g., the features cited by Bartoccini (loc. cit.), which are the result of a decision, taken during the course of the work, to veneer the whole of the lower part of the interior of the basilica in marble; or the substitution within the two apses of an elaborate, canopy-like central feature in place of the uniform double order originally planned (Bartoccini, , Africa Italiana, ii, 1928–1929, pp. 33 ff.Google Scholar). Giovannoni's a priori criticisms of this feature (Palladio, i, 1927, pp. 183–4Google Scholar) have not been borne out by subsequent work: the work-manship is unquestionably Severan.

30 Guidi, G., Africa Italiana, ii, 1928–1929, pp. 231 ff.Google Scholar; Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania, 427.