Barque (Libya)

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Barke ( Greek  Βάρκη , Latin Barca , Italian Barce , French Barqa , Arabic برقة) was an ancient Greek colony and later a Roman , then Byzantine city ​​in North Africa , in what is now Libya . It was the predecessor town of today's el Merdj .

location

As a Greek city, Barke belonged to the Pentapolis of Cyrenaica and the city of Cyrene . It is not to be confused with “Barca” or “Barqah”, which are other names of the Cyrenaica province .

In the opinion of many archaeologists, the ancient barque is identical to the modern al-Marj , but Alexander Graham locates it in Tolmeitha ( Ptolemais ).

In 1911 Italy captured the city from the Turks. Located on the Cyrenian plateau , Barca - also known as al-Jabal al-Achdar or "Montagna Verde" - was a major center of Italian colonization in Cyrenaica.

history

The Christianity arrived from Egypt in the North African Pentapolis. From the Council of Nicea in 325 Cyrenaica was established as an ecclesiastical province below Alexandria, according to the prescriptions of the Church Fathers of Nicea. The Pentapolis is subordinate to the Patriarch of the Coptic Church to this day.

After frequent destruction and reconstruction during the Roman period, it became a major district and diocese . Its bishop Zopyros was a participant in the council of Nicea in 325. In the writings of Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451) the names of two other bishops can be found, Zenobius and Theodorus.

Barca belonged to the Exarchate of Africa until it was conquered by the Arabs in 643/644 during the Islamic conquest of North Africa . Originally, Barca was the capital of the Caliphate's Barqah province of the same name . When the Ottomans conquered the region in 1521, the province was named after the Turkish form of the name “Barka”, but the city did not remain the provincial capital.

Barca is now a titular Roman Catholic diocese , but is currently vacant. The eparchy of the western Pentapolis belongs to the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, since the Patriarch of Alexandria is the Patriarch of Africa. The second highest position in the Holy Synod of the Coptic Orthodox Church after the Patriarch is the Metropolitan of the western Pentapolis.

The current city at this point, el Merdj (capital of the al-Mardsch municipality ), was built around a Turkish fort from the 19th century. The city was founded by Italians in Libya during colonial times and today has 120,000 inhabitants. The Italian city was destroyed in an earthquake in 1963 and is largely abandoned today. No remains of the ancient site are visible, while finds by Italian archaeologists can be seen in the nearby Museum of Ptolemais (Tolmeitha).

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literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Barce in: Encyclopædia Britannica. (1964 edition) p. 153.
  2. ↑ Alexander Graham: (1902) Roman Africa: an outline of the history of the Roman occupation of North Africa, based chiefly upon inscriptions and monumental remains in that country. Longmans, Green, and Co., London, p. 312 , OCLC 2735641 .
  3. ^ Aziz S. Atiya : The Copts and Christian Civilization. Coptic.net, accessed May 19, 2009.
  4. ^ "Barca" The Catholic Encyclopedia (1907) Robert Appleton Company, New York

Coordinates: 32 ° 30 '  N , 20 ° 54'  E