Town Houses at Ptolemais, Cyrenaica: A Summary Report of Survey and Excavation Work in 1971, 1978–1979

Abstract

This summary presents the main results of three seasons of survey and limited excavation work carried out by the Society at Ptolemais in Eastern Libya. The survey concentrated on two major town houses which had been partially excavated by Richard Goodchild (House G and House T), whilst excavation was carried out on the adjacent site known as the North-east Quadrant. All of the sites revealed complex structural histories and it is evident that in this quarter of Ptolemais, at least, life within the town continued well into the Islamic period.

Excavations at Tocra (1985-1992)

“…A characteristic feature of this building was the use of stubs of walling butted against the inner faces of the walls and matched in pairs projecting from opposite sides. This feature is exactly paralleled at Ptolemais (especially House G; Ward-Perkins et al 1986); but at Tocra they cannot have been intended to support vaults as the structural walls are too thin. On average the walls were 0.60 m wide and survived to heights varying from 0.20 to 0.90 m.…”

“…Although no pottery was found that, on its own, need necessarily be attributed to the Islamic rather than the Byzantine period, the attribution of some of the cookwares to the Islamic period relies on the finds of two Islamic coins, probably minted in the earlier eighth century AD, in Room III of Building A. The poor straight jointing of the later walls parallels that noted by Ward-Perkins et al (1986) at Ptolemais for the Islamic period, and may be taken as a further reason for assigning some of the structures to the post-Byzantine period. In this connection it is worth recalling the Arabic inscription and a type of green glaze lamp of the tenth century AD found respectively in the bath and fortress of Tocra (Jones 1983;.…”

“…Lloyd (1977, 33) reached a similar conclusion for Berenice on the basis of a late tenth-century AD coin and domestic occupation of the former church. The discovery at Ptolemais of an Arab inscription in the North-East Quadrant and a radiocarbon sample from one of the rooms of House G, with a date given by Little (1990) as AD 680-780 indicated that there too occupation continued beyond the end of Byzantine rule (Ward-Perkins et al 1986;Little 1990).…”

Water supply systems in Cyrenaica during the Greek and Roman periods: Cyrene in context

“…In addition to the aqueducts, some studies and excavations of Roman townhouses at Berenice and Ptolemais have found that these contained at least one water cistern, and sometimes two in large houses. Such rock-cut cisterns were used to collect rainwater from roofs and courtyards (Lloyd and Lewis 1977, 38; Ward-Perkins et al 1986, 118).…”

Some Notes on Islamic Tolmeita

“…The summary publication in 1986 of the excavations in Houses G and T and the North East Quadrant (Fig. 2) provided strong evidence for some sort of continuity of urban life at Tolmeita after the Islamic conquest of 642/3 AD (Ward-Perkins et al 1986). This evidence consists principally of secondary phases of occupation in classical town houses in which the original house plans were altered and subdivided, in one case involving the installation of an olive press.…”