Henchir Rjijila small fort

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Henchir Rjijila small fort
Alternative name Henchir Sidi Rjijila, Hennchir Sidi Rjyila, Hanshir Sidi Rujayjilah
limes Limes Tripolitanus
(back line)
section Djebel Dahar
Dating (occupancy) 4th century
Type Small fort, Quadriburgus
size without towers: 17/18 × 21 m (= 0.04 ha);
with towers: 32 × 26 m
Construction stone
State of preservation dilapidated remains of the surrounding wall, badly damaged inside
place Henchir Rjijila
Geographical location 33 ° 0 ′ 33.1 ″  N , 10 ° 43 ′ 3 ″  E hf
Upstream Talalati Fort
(rear Limes line) (west)
The Limes Tripolitanus with the small fort

The small fort Henchir Rjijila , also known as Henschir Rjijila or Rgigila , is a small late Roman military camp that was responsible for security and surveillance tasks on the rear Limes Tripolitanus , a deep system of forts and military posts in the Roman province of Tripolitania . The facility is located on the Jebel Rjijila, a mountain on the western ascent to the mountain ranges of the Highlands of Dahar in southern Tunisia , Tataouine Governorate .

location

The Romans built the small fort east of Tatahouine on a crest-like plateau located around 50 meters above Wadi Fessi, one of the more important wadis in southern Tunisia, which forms the entrance to the Djebel Dahar. At this strategically well-chosen location, an almost unlimited view over the wide plain of the Wadis Fessi was guaranteed. Just to the south the view is through a small, rising there witnesses Mountain severely limited. From their fortifications, the crew could control all movements that took place from the passes of the Djebel Demmer mountain range, protected by barriers , over the Jura main stage of the Dahar into the fertile Djeffara plain, which plunged flat towards the coast . The Wadi Ghomrassen breaks through the Jurassic level of the Dahar in a gorge west of the small fort near Ghomrassen , flows into the Wadi Fessi, which in turn runs across the wide plain to the east.

Research history

The various remains of the building on the Djebel Rjijila were first recognized by the French artillery lieutenant Henri Lecoy de La Marche . At the foot of the small, northwest-oriented Zeugenberg, which forms a ridge , he found several remains of buildings to the north and west. Among these, the officer particularly noticed a large building with rectangular structures, which had an inner courtyard in which graves had been dug in Islamic times. On March 6, 1894, he carried out a small excavation on this defense structure. Lecoy de La Marche noted that this building had "mighty walls" that were still erect. During his excavations, which he completed on March 12, 1894, he could not find any entrance. Below the ridge, Lecoy de La Marche found four fragments of an ancient column shaft that were 0.75 meters in diameter. He therefore assumed that this pillar had rolled down from the top of the mountain. For this reason, he believed that the remains of the building that were on the highest point of the Zeugenberg also included Roman ruins. The French archaeologist Pol Trousset declared after an inspection of the Djebel Rjijila in 1974 that there was no indication that the ruins located directly on the plateau of the Zeugenberg were considered Roman. In 1909, the French major Raymond Donau (1862-1930) proposed a program for future excavations in southern Tunisia, including an extensive excavation at Rjijila as necessary, which has not yet taken place.

Building history

Enclosure and interior development

According to British archaeologist David Mattingly , this small fort could be an outpost of Talalati Fort . The almost square complex was built in the late antique style of a Quadriburgus (four [towers] castle). Without the defensive towers protruding far from the surrounding wall, it covers 17 or 18 × 21 meters (= 0.04 hectares). If the rectangular towers are included, the fortification has a circumference of 32 × 26 meters. The four corners of the surrounding wall are reinforced by a tower each, as are possibly the four flanks. The building thus had at least seven defense towers, because according to Trousset, the entrance could have existed on the western defensive wall instead of a tower. There is also a natural esplanade here . Lecoy de La Marche believed that the entrance he was looking for was to be found in the fallen rubble on the east side. The quarry stone masonry of the surrounding wall is made of the existing sandstone, whereby the edges of the corner towers are reinforced because they were made of much larger corner stones. The middle sections of the towers are also equipped with somewhat smaller stones of the same type, at least on the north and east sides. Trousset found some arch stones and a fragment of a column drum inside the Quadriburgus , but he could no longer see any traces of an associated construction, as the Roman structures of the interior had been destroyed by the grave installations after the Islamic conquest of the Maghreb .

Chronological order

Plan of the Quadriburgus Gasr Bularkan based on the historical building by Richard Goodchild

No inscription has been found on the Djebel Rjijila, but a few small late Roman coins and lamp fragments from the fourth century AD emerged from the ground. The examined ceramic samples included common goods and sigillates of the late antique North African type Chiara D, which were still produced at the beginning of the 5th century. Trousset picked up these shards around the Castellum and in the remains of the building to the north. These finds also included a fragment of an oil lamp decorated with palm trees from the fourth century AD. Lecoy de la Marche mentions a piece from the reign of British King George III in the coins he picked up . (1760-1801). He believed he could assign another piece to the reign of the Eastern Roman emperor Constantine IV (668–685). Trousset contradicted this, because according to his analysis, the ancient coins dated by Lecoy de la Marche could not be that old. In connection with the dating and the small-scale Henchir Rjijila, Trousset pointed out that the small fort Gasr Bularkan in Libya is a similar building with protruding watchtowers, Henchir Rjijila being even smaller than the Gasr Bularkan (0.05 hectare).

Later re-use

A mausoleum for the Muslim saint Lalla Rjijila was built in the courtyard of the small fort, around which many more graves were later laid.

literature

  • Néji Djelloul: Les fortifications en Tunisie . Ministère de la Culture, Agence de mise en valeur du Patrimoine et de Promotion Culturelle, Tunis 1999, ISBN 9973-917-33-2 , p. 24.
  • David Mattingly : Tripolitania. Batsford, London 1995, ISBN 0-7134-5742-2 , pp. 193-194.
  • Olwen Brogan : Some ancient sites in Eastern Tripolitania . In: Libya Antiqua. Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Libya . Volume 13-14, 1976-1977. Pp. 93-129; here: p. 124.
  • Pol Trousset : Recherches sur le limes Tripolitanus, du Chott el-Djerid à la frontière tuniso-libyenne. (Etudes d'Antiquites africaines). Éditions du Center national de la recherche scientifique, Paris 1974, ISBN 2-222-01589-8 . Pp. 105-106.
  • Raymond Donau : Recherches archéologiques effectuées par MM. Les officiers des territoires du Sud Tunisien en 1907 et pendant le 1st Semestre de 1908. In: Bulletin archéologique du Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques 1909, pp. 30–50; here: pp. 39, 49–50.
  • Paul M. Toussaint: Résumé des reconnaissances archéologiques exécutées par les officiers des brigades topographiques d 'Algérie et de Tunisie pendant la campagne de 1903-1904 . In: Bulletin archéologique du Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques . Paris 1905/1906, p. 234.
  • Henri Marie Albert Lecoy de La Marche: Recherche d'unevoie romaine du golfe de Gabès vers Ghadamès, par M. le lieutenant Lecoy de La Marche . In: Bulletin archéologique du Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques 1894, pp. 409-410.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Michael Mackensen : forts and military posts of the late 2nd and 3rd centuries on the "Limes Tripolitanus" . In: Der Limes 2 (2010), pp. 20–24; here: p. 22.
  2. ↑ a b c d Olwen Brogan : Some ancient sites in Eastern Tripolitania . In: Libya Antiqua. Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Libya . Volume 13-14, 1976-1977. Pp. 93-129; here: p. 124.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h Pol Trousset : Recherches sur le limes Tripolitanus, du Chott el-Djerid à la frontière tuniso-libyenne. (Etudes d'Antiquites africaines). Éditions du Center national de la recherche scientifique, Paris 1974, ISBN 2-222-01589-8 . P. 106.
  4. ↑ Wadi-Skiffa-Clausura (south) at 33 ° 0 '32.79 "  N , 10 ° 9' 45.6"  E ; Wadi-Skiffa-Clausura at 33 ° 2 '16.89 "  N , 10 ° 9' 12.82"  E ; Chenini-Clausura at 32 ° 53 '32.92 "  N , 10 ° 14' 37.78"  O ; Wadi-Zraia-Clausura at 33 ° 6 ′ 13.63 "  N , 10 ° 9 ′ 17.7"  E
  5. ↑ Horst Mensching: The southern Tunisian layered landscape as a living space . In: Mitteilungen der Fränkische Geographische Gesellschaft 10, 1963, pp. 82–93; here: p. 83.
  6. ↑ Horst Mensching: The southern Tunisian layered landscape as a living space . In: Mitteilungen der Fränkische Geographische Gesellschaft 10, 1963, pp. 82–93; here: p. 86.
  7. ↑ Wadi Ghomrassen at 33 ° 3 '34.11 "  N , 10 ° 20' 59.85"  E ; Wadi Fessi at 33 ° 4 '31.85 "  N , 10 ° 51' 37.01"  O
  8. ^ A b c d Henri Lecoy de La Marche: Recherche d'unevoie romaine du golfe de Gabès vers Ghadamès, par M. le lieutenant Lecoy de La Marche . In: Bulletin archéologique du Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques 1894, pp. 409-410.
  9. ^ Raymond Donau : Recherches archéologiques effectuées par MM. Les officiers des territoires du Sud Tunisien en 1907 et pendant le 1st semestre de 1908. In: Bulletin archéologique du Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques 1909, pp. 30-50; here: pp. 49–50.
  10. ^ David Mattingly : Tripolitania. Batsford, London 2005, ISBN 0-203-48101-1 , p. 314.
  11. ↑ Kastell Talalati at 32 ° 59 '13.29 "  N , 10 ° 20' 38.75"  O
  12. ^ David Mattingly : Tripolitania. Batsford, London 2005, ISBN 0-203-48101-1 , p. 318.
  13. ^ Dénes Gabler : Terra Sigillata research since István Paulovics . In: Acta Classica Universitatis Scientiarum Debreceniensis 30, 1994 (1995), pp. 83-105; here: p. 101.
  14. ^ Olwen Brogan : Some ancient sites in eastern Tripolitania . In: Libya Antiqua 13-14 (1976-1977), 1984, pp. 93-129; here p. 124.
  15. ↑ Neji Djelloul: Les fortifications de Tunisie . Ministère de la Culture, Agence de mise en valeur du Patrimoine et de Promotion Culturelle, Tunis 1999, ISBN 9973-917-33-2 , p. 24.