Small fort Ksar Chetaoua

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Small fort Ksar Chetaoua
limes Limes Tripolitanus
front Limes line
section Limes Bizerentanus
Dating (occupancy) diocletian ?
Type Small fort
size Side lengths: 20 m × 25 m (= 0.05 ha)
Construction stone
State of preservation Complex with a rectangular floor plan, at least temporarily overlaid by the desert sand
place Chetaoua
Geographical location 33 ° 24 '42.8 "  N , 9 ° 37' 56.5"  E
height 162  m
Previous Centenarium Tibubuci (southeast)
Subsequently Bezereos small fort (northwest)
The small fort (left) in the Limes Tripolitanus network

The small fort Ksar Chetaoua is a site on the edge of the Eastern Sand Sea at the western foot of the Dahar mountains in southern Tunisia , Kebili Governorate . The small, rectangular facility on Wadi Hallouf, as an advanced Roman military camp, could have taken on security and surveillance tasks on the Limes Bizerentanus , a section of the Limes Tripolitanus in the Province of Tripolitania . The border fortifications formed a deep system of forts and military posts.

Location and research history

The small facility, which is in the flat sloping terrain to the west, lies in the chain of small tripolitan forts between Bezereos and Tibubuci that runs from northwest to southeast on this section . The site, known since the 19th century, is located on the eastern edge of the Hallouf wadis . Around 2.5 kilometers to the northwest, on the western edge of the Hallouf wadis, an important landmark is a former fort on the Burj Zoumit hill that dominates the area. In the investigation of 1907, the Ksar itself was "on the top of a small hill overlaid by a sand dune." The Roman fortifications above the wadi offered a wide view of the country. From here it would have been possible to send optical signals to the Limes watchtower to the northwest on the Mergueb ed Diab and to the southeastern hills near the Bir Soltane waterhole, which was already used in antiquity . The French officer Raymond Donau , who was doing research at the time , saw the fortification as a small fort. This impression has also been confirmed by recent research by the archaeologists Pol Trousset and David J. Mattingly .

Building history

Among other things, Danube noted a certain structural analogy between the Ksar Chetaoua and the Centenarium Tibubuci with a view of the cistern discovered next to it , which could also result in a chronological assignment. The oldest fortifications of this type are known to have been in the early 3rd century AD. As with Tibubuci, the water reservoir at the foot of the fort hill was dug directly into the wadi. Through his follow-up examination, Trousset came to the conclusion that the Ksar Chetaoua was regarded as a centenarium. With its dimensions of 20 × 25 meters (= 0.05 hectares), the central core of the rectangular complex was somewhat larger than the Reduit of Tibubuci (15 × 15 meters), but no enclosing wall could be found at Ksar Chetaoua. Fragments of African terra sigillata ("sigillées claires africaines") were still found on site.

Limes course from the Ksar Chetaoua

The Roman imperial border is formed in this section by the transition from the semi-desert to the unmanageable Sahara, whereby the Wadi Hallouf as a natural landmark illustrates the demarcation. The Limesbegleitstraße also ran here. Most of today's scientists speculate on this route also the course of the road recorded in this area by the Itinerarium Antonini . The Antonini Itinerarium is a directory of the most important Roman imperial roads from the 3rd century AD.

Limes structures between the Ksar Chetaoua and the small fort Bezereos .
Burj Zoumit / Bordj Zoumit Traces of the Roman road were discovered early on at the foot of Fort Burj Zoumit.
Mergueb ed Diab On the Mergueb ed Diab hill, high above Wadi Hallouf, there is a square, 5 × 5 meter tower, which the archaeologist David J. Mattingly described as the "eyes" of the Bezereos small fort about one kilometer northwest. This fort was built during the reign of Emperor Commodus (180–192) at the latest. Here was a vexillation of the Legio III Augusta . According to the orally transmitted epic Taghribat Bani Hilal of the Bedouin tribe of the Banu Hilal , the hero is said to have signaled from the Mergueb ed Diab with a mirror on the terraces of the eastern Berber village of Tamezret in the Matmata Mountains. The Matmata Mountains form the northern part of the Dahar. The archaeologist René Rebuffat saw the localized tradition of the Banu Hilal as a distant memory of this Limes watchtower . Today only a few large, regularly made stone blocks can be found at this point in the tower on the summit of Mergueb ed Diab.

literature

  • Raymond Donau: Recherches archéologiques effectuées par MM. Les officiers des territoires du Sud Tunisien en 1907. In: Bulletin archéologique 1909, p. 38.
  • 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. 89.

Remarks

  1. ^ 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. 89.
  2. ↑ 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.
  3. ↑ The progress Burj Zoumit 33 ° 25 '9.3 "  N , 9 ° 36' 52.47"  O
  4. ↑ The summit at 33 ° 29 ′ 41.85 ″  N , 9 ° 30 ′ 23.91 ″  E
  5. ↑ Bir Soltane at 33 ° 17 '2.36 "  N , 9 ° 42' 35.81"  O
  6. ↑ a b c d 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. 89.
  7. ^ David J. Mattingly: Tripolitania. Taylor & Francis, 2005, ISBN 0-203-48101-1 . P. 170.
  8. ^ Raymond Donau: Recherches archéologiques effectuées par MM. Les officiers des territoires du Sud Tunisien en 1907. In: Bulletin archéologique 1909. p. 38.
  9. ^ David J. Mattingly: Tripolitania. Taylor & Francis, 2005, ISBN 0-203-48101-1 . P. 106.
  10. ^ A b G. Barrère in: Gabriel Camps (Ed.): Encyclopédie berbère. Vol. 5: Beni Isguen – Bouzeis. Édisud, Aix-en-Provence 1991, ISBN 2-85744-549-0 . P. 1488.
  11. ↑ Bezereos small fort 33 ° 30 ′ 13.33 ″  N , 9 ° 29 ′ 52.96 ″  E
  12. ^ David J. Mattingly: Tripolitania. Taylor & Francis, 2005, ISBN 0-203-48101-1 . P. 130.
  13. ↑ Tamezrets highest point at 457 meters altitude at 33 ° 32 ′ 13.76 ″  N , 9 ° 51 ′ 53.23 ″  E
  14. ^ Pol Trousset: Tours de guet (watch-towers) et système de liaison optique sur le limes Tripolitanus. In: Hermann Vetters , Manfred Kandler (ed.): Files of the 14th International Limes Congress 1986 in Carnuntum. ( The Roman Limes in Austria 36, Vol. 1–2) Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1990, ISBN 3-7001-1695-0 , pp. 249–277; here: p. 262.
  15. ^ 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. 78.