Gholaia limes castle

[Jona Lendering]

Here are some photos of the Gholaia limes castle, plus some notes about the history of the limes Tripolitana. Enjoy!

[Peroni]

Excellent article Jona!

Laudes, well deserved.

[Jona Lendering]

Thanks for the compliments. There will be more, but not very soon.

[Caballo]

And a laudes from me too. I particularly valued the graffitto drawing from Roman times of the fort- a huge insight....





Regards

Caballo

[Titus Martius]

Excellent! I read your articles with great pleasure.

[Robert Vermaat]

Very nice article Jona. Any idea when the fort went out of use?

[Tarbicus]

And a laudes from me too. I particularly valued the graffitto drawing from Roman times of the fort- a huge insight....

That's more than just graffito, it's an incredibly well executed sketch. Compare to here: [url:igoqjmzd]http://www.iit.edu/~chinkar/freehand3.htm[/url]. Considering it is freehand on a wall (presumably) it's an exemplary piece of work. Thanks Jona.

[mcbishop]

And a laudes from me too. I particularly valued the graffitto drawing from Roman times of the fort- a huge insight...

It may indeed be a graffito of the fort but there must be an element of doubt over whether it is Roman in date - those crenellations look awfully Ummayad to me, compared to the typical T-shape that tends to be shown in Roman representations. As for the lack of realistic representations in Islamic art, you only have to visit the baths at Qasr Amra in Jordan to put the lie to that common misconception.

That being said, still an invaluable depiction of the site from an early date.

Mike Bishop

[Jona Lendering]

Very nice article Jona. Any idea when the fort went out of use?

Yes and no. The latest ostracon appears to be written between 257 and 261. Archaeological remains are hard to date, because there is no terra sigilata in Bu Njem. Roman coins, however, appear to be much later and the "shopping mall" in the vicus appears to have been in use well after 360 (I do not know the evidence). I would say that the archive came to an end in c.260 but that this was not the end of Roman Gholaia.

It is not impossible that another site became the new military base; there's a lot of sand out there to hide another castle.

[Robert Vermaat]

It may indeed be a graffito of the fort but there must be an element of doubt over whether it is Roman in date - those crenellations look awfully Ummayad to me, compared to the typical T-shape that tends to be shown in Roman representations.

That could be so, but if there are only Roman graffito's that would make it far more likely that this one is Roman too.
Jona, could you answer that? Are there more inscriptions and graffito's from the early Islamic period?

[Jona Lendering]

It may indeed be a graffito of the fort but there must be an element of doubt over whether it is Roman in date - those crenellations look awfully Ummayad to me, compared to the typical T-shape that tends to be shown in Roman representations.

Jona, could you answer that? Are there more inscriptions and graffito's from the early Islamic period?

I have not seen the graffiti yet; they have been removed to a museum and I have not been able to find out which one. I will give it a second try in January.

It is probably relevant that I did not seen anything else in Gholaia that dates back to medieval times. The bathhouse was probably covered by sand for centuries, as it is close to the northern wall, and there's an almost eternal southern wind ("ghibli") that pushes up the sand.

I think that as soon as the site was abandoned, the sand took over; or perhaps the other way round - when the war against the sand was lost, the castle was abandoned.

[Caballo]

Mike Bishop wrote "It may indeed be a graffito of the fort but there must be an element of doubt over whether it is Roman in date - those crenellations look awfully Ummayad to me"

I hate (and am always a bit nervous) about disagreeing with you , Mike, but attached is a llink to a late fourth/ early fifth century mosaic of a great estate from the Bardo Museum in Tunisia. Perhaps that style of crenellation started much earlier than the Ummayads?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v221/ ... Museum.jpg

[Jona Lendering]

For those who want to read more about the Limes Tripolianus, go here.

[Jona Lendering]

I have now added a better scan of the ancient drawing; it can be found here. If you need a larger file (4 MB), drop me a p.m.