Auru

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Auru
limes Limes Tripolitanus
(back line)
section Limes Tentheitanus
Dating (occupancy) 2nd century AD to early 5th century
Type Vexillation fort?
unit Vexillation of the Legio III Augusta ?
Construction Stone?
State of preservation Location and size unknown
place Ain el-Auenia
Template: Infobox Limeskastell / Maintenance / Untraceable
Previous Medina Ragda
(backward Limes line) (southeast)
Subsequently Tentheos
(rear Limes line) (southwest)
Auru in the network of the Limes Tripolitanus

Auru is the traditional ancient name of a Roman village and a presumably smaller fort , which is most likely to be located in the area of ​​the village of Ain el-Auenia , east of the city of Zintan in northwest Libya . Ain el-Auenia is located in Jabal Nafusa , a layered mountain country in the hinterland of Tripolitania . This mountainous region separates the Djeffara plain with its agriculturally usable areas , which extends north to the Mediterranean , from the Sahara desert and the stony plateau of the Hammada al-Hamra . To date, there is no archaeological evidence that could contribute to the exact location or history of the garrison of Auru, but inscriptions and brick stamps leave no doubt that a Roman military site should be sought in Ain el-Auenia.

location

The Roman Auru was located in the hinterland of the Limes Tripolitanus near the border . Near the presumed fort site, the land slopes south towards the Fezzan . In Zintan , the largest and most important starts Arroyo of Tripoli, Wadi Sofeggin which forms an unmanageable river system along the south and southeast side of the Nafusa- and Garian mountain range with its many tributaries.

Surname

The names Auru and Limes Tripolitanus - as the southern border of the Roman Empire - are mentioned in the 3rd century AD through the Itinerarium Antonini , a Roman imperial street directory. According to this directory, the term Limes Tripolitanus referred to a road that stretched from the coastal town of Tacape ( Gabès ) in the west to Lepcis Magna (al-Khums) to the east . At the garrison town of Bezereos , the route reached the immediate border area and then ran back to the Mediterranean coast on the heights of the Nafusa and Garian mountain ranges via the stations of Tentheos , Auru and Thenadassa (Ain Wif).

As reported by the Notitia dignitatum , a late Roman state manual , this section of the Limes still existed administratively in the late 4th and perhaps even in the early 5th century AD.

research

During the construction of an up to now unknown fort, a military bath, which in 1960 by small archaeological emerged with its infrastructure excavations of students from the University of Cambridge was cut under the direction of Gavin Simpson. From the vicus (camp village) of the garrison, an important civil settlement of over eight hectares in size developed over time . Soldiers of the Legio III Augusta, which is obviously important for this place, were also buried in the cemetery of the settlement . In the first half of the 2nd century this legion had its headquarters in Lambaesis , Numidian . Important inscribed documents from Ain el-Auenia also show military bricks with the stamps of the Legio III Augusta and the province of Africa proconsularis. These brick stamps, recovered during the excavations in 1960, were the first to be known from Tripolitania.

For the military-historical development of the place, a fragmentarily preserved building inscription is particularly important, which was created between 197/198 and 211 AD:

Solos Hierobolo per sa [lute]
dominorum nnn (ostrorum) Augg [g (ustorum) Se] -
veri et Antonini e [t Getae]
e [t] Iuliae totiusq (ue) do [mus]
divinae per vexilla [tio] -
nem leg (ionis) III A [u] g (ustae) et mil [ites]
coh [o] rt [is IS] yro [r] um sagit-
[ta] riorum a solo

Translation: “To [God] Sol Hierobolus for the salvation of our lords, Augusti Severus and Antoninus and Geta and Julia as well as the entire imperial family. A vexillation of the Third Legion of Augusta and soldiers of the First Cohort of Syrian Archers ... was [restored] from the ground up. "

The text no longer reveals which building was rebuilt at that time, but it must have been in a military context, as the construction work was carried out by legionaries and Syrian auxiliary troops . As the archaeologist David Mattingly reconstructed, the Cohors I Syrorum sagittariorum was most likely in the nearby fort of Tentheos. The Third Legion, on the other hand, had stationed various vexillations in various border forts along the Limes Tripolitanus. So in the small fort Bezereos and in the fort Cidamus .

The Roman finds from Ain el-Auenia also include coins whose time spectrum ranges from the middle of the second to the early fifth century AD.

Lost property

Roman finds from Ain el-Auenia were brought to the Archaeological Museum of Tripoli.

literature

  • David J. Mattingly : Tripolitania . University of Michigan Press, 1994, ISBN 0-472-10658-9 , p. 102; E-book with identical content: ISBN 0-203-48101-1 ; the number of pages in the e-book is different for technical reasons.
  • Joyce Maire Reynolds , WG Simpson: Some inscriptions from el-Auenia near Yefren in Tripolitania . In: Libya antiqua 3-4, 1966-1967 (1969), pp. 45-47.

Remarks

  1. ^ A b David J. Mattingly : Tripolitania . University of Michigan Press, 1994, ISBN 0-472-10658-9 , p. 102.
  2. ↑ Olwen Hackett , David John Smith : Ghirza. A Libyan settlement in the Roman period. Department of Antiquities, Tripoli 1984, p. 33.
  3. ↑ Itinerarium Antonini 73-77
  4. ^ Itinerarium Antonini 74, 5; Fortlet Bezereos at 33 ° 30 '13.33 "  N , 9 ° 29' 52.96"  O .
  5. ↑ Florian Schimmer : New evidence for a Roman fort and 'vicus' at Mizda (Tripolitania) . In: Libyan Studies 43, 2012, pp. 33–39, here: p. 33.
  6. ^ Richard Goodchild: Libyan studies. Select papers of the late . London 1976, ISBN 0236176803 , p. 28; the Notitia dignitatum calls this Limes section Limes Tentheitanus or Limes Tenthettanus .
  7. ^ A b c David J. Mattingly : Tripolitania . University of Michigan Press, 1994, ISBN 0-472-10658-9 , p. 134.
  8. ^ Massimiliano Munzi: La decolonizzazione del passato. Archeologia e politica in Libia dall'amministrazione alleata al regno di Idris. L'Erma di Bretschneider, Rome 2004, ISBN 88-8265-310-2 , p. 56.
  9. ↑ AE 1962, 00305 .
  10. ↑ AE 1972, 00683 .
  11. ↑ AE 1972, 00684 ; AE 1972, 00685
  12. ^ Joyce M. Reynolds, WG Simpson: Some inscriptions from el-Auenia near Yefren in Tripolitania. In: Libya antiqua 3-4, 1966-1967 (1969), pp. 45-47.
  13. ↑ AE 1992, 01761 .
  14. ↑ Eric Birley : The Religion of the Roman Army: 1895-1977 . In: Rise and Fall of the Roman World . Volume 16, de Gruyter, Berlin, New York 1978, ISBN 3-11-007612-8 , p. 1518.
  15. ↑ John Spaul: Cohors2. The evidence for and a short history of the auxiliary infantry units of the Imperial Roman Army. BAR, Oxford 2000, ISBN 1-84171-046-6 , p. 416.
  16. ^ René Cagnat , Alfred Merlin , Louis Chatelain : Inscriptions latines d'Afrique. Paris 1923, No. 26; AE 1922, 54 ; Epigraphic database Heidelberg .
  17. ↑ Joyce Maire Reynolds, John Bryan Ward-Perkins: Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania. British School at Rome, Rome, London 1952. p. 226.
  18. ↑ Mabruck Zenati: Department of Antiquities, Sabratha . In: Libya Antiqua, New Series , I, 1995 (1996), pp. 156-157; here: p. 157.
  19. ^ Barri Jones: Veii: The Valchetta Baths ('Bagni della Regina') . In: Papers of the British School at Rome 28, 1960, pp. 55-69; here: pp. 51–52.