Medina Ragda

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Medina Ragda
Alternative name Medina er-Ragda, Medina Doga
limes Limes Tripolitanus
(back line)
section Limes Tentheitanus
Dating (occupancy) End of 1st / beginning of 2nd century
up to 4th year A.D.
Type Small fort
size approx. 38 × 38 m
(= 0.14 ha)
Construction stone
State of preservation well-preserved remains are visible in the area
place Medina Ragda
Geographical location 31 ° 52 '55.4 "  N , 12 ° 50' 32.3"  E
height 763  m
Previous Auru
(backward Limes line) (northwest)
Subsequently Thenadassa Fort
(rear Limes line) (northeast)
Upstream Hadd-Hajar-Clausura (south)
Medina Ragda as part of the Limes Tripolitanus

Medina Ragda , also known as Medina er-Ragda , is a Roman site in the northwest of Libya , which is most likely to be addressed as a former small fort. The remains of the fortification are in the Jabal Nafusa , a layered mountain country in the hinterland of Tripolitania in the municipality of al-Jabal al-Gharbi . The crew of the facility in question would have been responsible for rearward security and monitoring tasks on the Limes Tripolitanus in the province of Africa proconsularis , later Tripolitania . The border fortifications formed a deep system of forts and military posts. Not far from the fortification, the upstream barrage of the Clausura Hadd Hajar can be identified. There, border traffic into the interior of the country could be channeled and monitored.

location

Medina Ragda is located in the Nafusa Mountains. This 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 the south of Medina Ragda, the mountainous terrain slopes down to a mighty steep step , partly criss-crossed by wide dry valleys . There is the upper reaches of Wadi Sofeggin, the most important and largest dry valley in Tripolitania. This upper course also formed the Roman imperial border. It received a regional section name in this area after an organizational reform of the Tripolitan border guards carried out during the reign of Emperor Philip Arabs (244-249) and was now referred to as Limes Tentheitanus .

The fortification is located at a branching off to the south of the road known from the Itinerarium Antonini , a Roman imperial road directory from the 3rd century AD, that runs from the coastal town of Tacape ( Gabès ) in the west to Lepcis Magna (al-Khums ) was enough. According to this directory, the term Limes Tripolitanus referred to this route. 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) . The junction leading to Medina Ragda was between the garrison types Auru and Thenadassa and ended in the plain of the upper Wadi Sofeggin on the border road of the Limes Tentheitanus leading from Tentheos to Fort Mizda . The course of this route used by caravans is secured by milestones that were erected during the reign of Emperor Caracalla (211-217).

Research history

The ruins of Medina Ragda were first known under the name Medina Doga from a description documented in 1817 by the British admiral William Henry Smyth (1788-1865). After Henry Swainson Cowper (1865–1941), who traveled to the Orient, tried in vain to rediscover the location during his stay in Libya in 1895/1896, it was then forgotten again. At the beginning of the 20th century the officer explored Henri de Méhier Mathuisieulx of Algeria made on behalf of the French Government in the form of multiannual research trips at that time the Ottoman Empire subordinated region Tripolitania. As part of his extensive land surveys, de Mathuisieulx also undertook expeditions to many of the country's ancient sites. In 1904 he was the first to identify the fortification as a military station, but his report was not reflected in the Limes research either. It was only when the archaeologist Olwen Brogan (1900–1989) explored the Hadd Hajar barrage a few kilometers away and came across Medina Ragda again that the discussion about this site began to move. Brogan did not view the remains as a military site, but cautiously postulated a fortified fortified farm. More recent investigations in connection with the situation behind the border barrier at Hadd Hajar and directly on the road into the Nafusa Mountains, however, rather allow the conclusion to agree with Mathuisieulx's opinion. This was the result of the research group of the UNESCO Libyan Valleys Archaeological Survey (ULVS), which was active between 1979 and 1989 .

Building history

The square complex, located on a hill, takes up an area of ​​around 38 × 38 meters (= 0.14 hectares) and has only one entrance. On one side of this entrance depressions can be seen, possibly the remains of a surrounding trench. The ashlar masonry is still preserved up to a height of five stone layers. The four outer corners of the structure are oriented at right angles to each other. Both the eastern fence and parts of the north and west walls are made of ashlar that are around one meter thick. The remaining sections of the wall consist of a shell construction made of carefully worked rectangular stones. Its core is filled with rubble stones. Here, too, the wall thickness is one meter. Some areas of the wall were also built using the Opus africanum technique. Inside there is a small rectangular atrium around which a series of chambers are arranged. The construction concept can be compared with that of the even better preserved, but much smaller Centenarium Gasr Duib .

Dating

The ceramic fragments recovered from the fortification and its surroundings date from the first to fourth centuries AD. These finds also include early terra sigillata and early forms of African red slip pottery . According to archaeologist David J. Mattingly, the heyday of the complex was in the late first and second centuries AD. It is precisely this early period that strengthens the military interpretation of the buildings. The analysis of the finds makes it clear that Medina Ragda was founded a little earlier than the Clausura Hadd Hajar, but a conceptual connection between the two plants is not unlikely.

literature

  • Henri Méhier de Mathuisieulx: Report sur une mission scientifique en Tripolitaine . Imprimerie Nationale, Paris 1905, p. 18.
  • Olwen Brogan : Hadd Hajar, a clausura in the Tripolitanian Gebel Garian south of Asabaa . In: Libyan Studies , 11, 1980, pp. 45-52.
  • David J. Mattingly : Tripolitania . University of Michigan Press, 1994, ISBN 0-472-10658-9 , p. 102.
  • Eleanor Scott, John Doie, David Mattingly: The UNESCO Libyan Valleys Archaeological Survey Gazetteer 1979–1989. In: Graeme Barker, David Gilbertson, Barri Jones, David J. Mattingly (Eds.): Farming the Desert. The UNESCO Libyan Valleys Archaeological Survey. Volume Two: Gazetteer and Pottery . UNESCO, Paris 1996 (inter alia), ISBN 92-3-103273-9 , p. 127.

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. ↑ Itinerarium Antonini 74.5; Fortlet Bezereos at 33 ° 30 '13.33 "  N , 9 ° 29' 52.96"  O .
  3. ↑ Itinerarium Antonini 73-77
  4. ↑ Kastell Mizda at about 31 ° 26 '41.76 "  N , 12 ° 58' 48.71"  O .
  5. ↑ Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania: IRT 964 (with photo) ; Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania: IRT 964 (with photo) , accessed May 23, 2015
  6. ^ Richard G. Goodchild : Libyan studies. Select papers of the late RG Goodchild. Elek, London 1976, ISBN 0-236-17680-3 , p. 15.
  7. ^ A b c David J. Mattingly : Tripolitania . University of Michigan Press, 1994, ISBN 0-472-10658-9 , p. 102.
  8. ^ A b David J. Mattingly : Tripolitania . University of Michigan Press, 1994, ISBN 0-472-10658-9 , p. 80.
  9. ^ Eleanor Scott, John Doie, David Mattingly: The UNESCO Libyan Valleys Archaeological Survey Gazetteer 1979–1989. In: Graeme Barker, David Gilbertson, Barri Jones, David J. Mattingly (Eds.): Farming the Desert. The UNESCO Libyan Valleys Archaeological Survey. Volume Two: Gazetteer and Pottery . UNESCO, Paris 1996 (inter alia), ISBN 92-3-103273-9 , p. 127.
  10. ↑ centenarium Gasr Duib at 31 ° 39 '8.6 "  N , 12 ° 28' 3.4"  O .
  11. ^ David J. Mattingly: Romano-Libyan Settlement: Typology and Chronology. In: Graeme Barker, David Gilbertson, Barri Jones, David J. Mattingly (Eds.): Farming the Desert. The UNESCO Libyan Valleys Archaeological Survey. Volume One: Synthesis . UNESCO, Paris 1996 (inter alia), ISBN 92-3-103214-3 , pp. 111-158; here: p. 147.