GHIRZA
Libya.
A Romanized Berber settlement on the left bank of the wadi Ghirza 10 km above
its confluence with the wadi Zemzem, ca. 250 km SE
of Tripoli. The settlement contained over 40 substantial
buildings, five of them large two- or three-story structures with interior courtyards; lesser houses had one
room, or two or three end to end. They are built of
small, roughly squared masonry, and entrances are on
the E or SE. Water was collected in cisterns; two wells
were found. There are large middens on the site. One
building was a temple of native type with porticos round
a courtyard, a sanctuary on the W, and an entrance on
the E. Over 20 small altars were found (ht. 20-24 cm),
three with inscriptions in the Libyan alphabet. The
temple was burned (6th c.) and later (10th c.?) rebuilt
as a house. The settlement depended on its crops, flocks
and herds, and hunting. Over 3 km of the wadi had
transverse walls, 40-50 m apart, to slow down flash
floods and to preserve the silt. Barley, a little wheat,
and olive trees could be grown between the walls.
There are two major cemeteries, each with monumental tombs of large dressed stones. The earliest tomb
(A) in the N cemetery is in the form of a small Doric
temple (10.20 x 7.40 m) with debased Ionic capitals.
It has tomb chambers under the podium and within the
cella. There are sculptures on the E and S walls of the
cella, which had a false door (now gone) facing E and,
above it, a Latin inscription. The five principal tombs remaining (B-F) have external columns with Corinthian
capitals which carried arch-heads cut from single stones.
They stand on high podia, their cellas are solid piers,
and the larger ones have false doors. Tombs B and C
have 4th c. inscriptions. The tomb chambers are under
the podia and offering-ducts led into them from the
exterior. Above the arcades are friezes with barbarous
sculptures showing the life of the departed and the
common funerary symbolism of the Late Roman world.
Names on the inscriptions are all Libyan except for
the family name Marcius. The S cemetery has one of the
tall, obelisk-like tower tombs that are characteristic of
Tripolitania; its upper stories are now fallen. The other
mausolea resemble tombs B-F of the north cemetery,
but are generally smaller; the smallest has been reerected in the Tripoli Museum.
Of the pottery found in the settlement, a few sherds
can be dated to the 2d and 3d c. A.D. but the largest
quantity belongs to the 4th c., the most prosperous period, continuing in diminishing volume into the 6th c.
There is no sign of Christianity save for a few pieces
of “Christian” lamps. Early Fatimid sherds and coins
were found in the Berber house, which seems not to
have survived the 11th c.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
D. Denham and H. Clapperton,
Travels
and Discoveries in North and Central Africa, 1822-24
(1826) 305 (Hakluyt Society ed. 1964); H. Méhier de
Mathuisieulx,
Nouvelles Archives des Missions (1904)
XII; G. Bauer,
Africa Italiana (1935) VI, 61; O. Brogan,
ILN (Jan. 22 and 29, 1953)
I; D.E.L. Haynes,
Antiquities of Tripolitania (1955) 154; O. Brogan and D. J.
Smith, “The Roman Frontier Settlement at Ghirza,”
JRS 47 (1957) 173
MPI; E. Vergara-Caffarelli, “Ghirza,”
EAA (1958)
I; for inscriptions, see J. M. Reynolds et al.,
Inscr. of Roman Tripolitania (1952) nos. 898ff;
BSR 22
(1955) 135;
Antiquity 32 (1958) 112ff.
O. BROGAN