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Gasr el-Gezira, a Shrine in the Gebel Nefusa of Tripolitania

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

Olwen Brogan  and
David Oates
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Extract

Gasr el-Gezira stands on high ground about one kilometre south of the edge of the escarpment overlooking Wadi el-Matmùra where it debouches on to the Gefara, the coastal plain of Tripolitania, and about four kilometres due north of kilometre-stone 166 on the Jefren—Giado road. The escarpment in the neighbourhood is over 400 metres high, and the building stands at a height of 745 metres above sea-level, on the watershed between the wadis running down to the Gefara and those feeding the affluents of the Upper Sofeggin system to the south.

The building is surrounded by scattered troglodyte dwellings and sparse olive groves, interspersed with fig gardens and more open land used for cereal cultivation. The remains of a Roman village lie some three hundred metres to the south-east, and the whole complex marks the north-eastern extremity of an area of Roman olive cultivation, roughly coinciding with the district known as ez-Zintan, and probably to be assigned to the period between the first and the fourth centuries a.d.

Type
Research Article
Information
Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 21 , November 1953 , pp. 74 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © British School at Rome 1953

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References

1 Map reference U 717756, Sheet 1752 (Gasr el-Hag) of the 1/100,000 survey of Libya by the Istituto Geografico Militare, British war-time issue with grid. The site was visited by the authors in October 1952 in the course of a survey of the antiquities of the Gebel Nefusa carried out on behalf of the Department of Antiquities, Government of Libya.

2 Cf. Cagnat, R. and Gauckler, P., Les Monuments historiques de la Tunisie, i, Les Temples päiens, Paris, 1898, plates IV and XVIIIGoogle Scholar, and passim; Krencker, D. and Zschietzschmann, W., Römische Tempel in Syrien, Berlin, 1938, plates LXXXIX–XCIII (Hibbariye)Google Scholar.

3 We are indebted for this suggestion to Mr. G. U. S. Corbett, F.S.A., but have not reproduced it in the section, since there is no evidence on the point.

4 Cagnat and Gauckler, op. cit., pp. 84–5 and pl. XXV.

5 ibid., pp. 8–10 and pl. IV.

6 Cagnat and Gauckler, op. cit., p. 120 and pl. XXV.

7 A curious three-fold shrine in Britain may also be mentioned, the Triangular Temple of Verulamium (Wheeler, R. E. M. and Wheeler, T. V., Verulamium, London, 1936, pp. 113–20Google Scholar). This had at its north end a central shrine, containing the statue of the deity, and on either side of the shrine secondary compartments, in each of which was a small, brick-lined pit. Burnt fragments of dedicatory objects under the pits included pine-cones, which are taken to indicate an eastern cult, perhaps that of Cybele.

8 Cowper, H. S., The Hill of the Graces, London, 1897, p. 238Google Scholar and fig. 27. Merighi, A., La Tripolitania antica ii, Verbania, 1940, pp. 147–8Google Scholar.

9 Saladin, H., ‘Rapport sur la Mission faite en Tunisie, 1882–83’, Archives des Miss. scientif., 3me. sér., xxiii, 1887, p. 129Google Scholar.

10 Gsell, S., Monts. antiques de l'Algérie, ii, Paris, 1901, p. 81Google Scholar. The mausoleum at Morsott is a two-storeyed building and has two doors at ground-level like those of Gasr el-Gezira, one at the side, under the cella, the other in front, slightly to one side. The chamber to which the latter gives access, however, was regarded by Gsell as an addition to die original structure.

11 Goodchild, R. G., ‘Roman Sites on the Tarhuna Plateau of Tripolitania’, Papers of the B.S.R. xix, 1951, pp. 51–6Google Scholar. Goodchild remarks (p. 55) that probably ‘the cult-statue was intended to be seen but not closely approached’.

12 ibid. p. 55, n. 25.

13 Reynolds, J. M. and Perkins, J. B. Ward, The Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania (IRT), British School at Rome, 1952, 591Google Scholar.

14 CIL viii, 9450, 10525 bis, etc.; IRT 661.

15 IRT, p. 245.

16 A. Merlin, Inscr. latines de la Tunisie, 1944, 619, Pacat(us Drepanius).

17 Gsell, S., Hist. Anc. de l'Afrique du Nord, iv, Paris, 1929, pp. 301–13Google Scholar.

18 IRT 286–9.

19 IRT 104.

20 IRT 848.