Euesperides (Benghazi): Preliminary report on the Spring 2002 season

2002 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 85-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Wilson ◽  
Paul Bennett ◽  
Ahmed Buzaian ◽  
Ted Buttrey ◽  
Kristian Göransson ◽  
...  

AbstractThe fourth season of the current project at Euesperides (Benghazi) took place in Spring 2002. Excavations continued in Areas P, Q and R, accompanied by limited augering work to determine the limits of surviving archaeology to the south of the Sidi Abeid mound. Excavations in Area P revealed part of a courtyard house from the penultimate phase of the site, with a probableandronandgunaikon. Its destruction is dated to after 261 BC. In Area Q work concentrated on the dismantling of street deposits and associated flanking houses from the later phases of the city's life; a soakaway drainage feature under the street was also investigated. The sequence of city wall circuits and their post-abandonment robbing was clarified. In Area R excavations established the structure of the mound of deposits deriving from the production of purple dye fromMurex trunculusshellfish, and its relationship to the robbed-out walls of the courtyard building within which this activity occurred. The processing of ceramic finds underlines the active trading contacts enjoyed by Euesperides, with most of the fine pottery and a fifth of the coarse pottery being imported from overseas, and transport amphorae ranging in origin from the Straits of Gibraltar to the northern Aegean. The coin finds confirm that the city was abandoned after the death of Magas (258/250 BC); and it appears that the Herakles types, common at the site, were minted there under Thibron (323–322/322 BC).

2000 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 121-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Bennett ◽  
Andrew I. Wilson ◽  
Ahmed Buzaian ◽  
Kenneth Hamilton ◽  
David Thorpe ◽  
...  

AbstractThis paper reports on the second season of the new fieldwork at Euesperides (Benghazi). Excavations continued in Areas P (a large building with early Hellenistic mosaics) and Q (an area of streets and buildings built against the line of the Archaic period city wall), and were commenced at a site in the Lower City (Area R), where evidence for purple dye production from the Murex trunculus shellfish was found. In addition, a programme of machine-cut evaluation trenching was carried out in an area to the south of the Sidi Abeid mound to determine the limits of the archaeological area; this showed that occupation deposits continued for some distance to the south-east of the zone formerly considered to have encompassed the city. Geophysical prospection was completed in the Lower City, giving a fuller understanding of the city plan and of manufacturing activities. Preliminary quantification of the fine pottery suggests heavy reliance on imported wares (some 90%) to meet demand for tablewares, and carries important implications for the volume of ancient shipping and trade reaching Euesperides.


1975 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry Hurst

SummaryIn the first season of excavation by a British team participating in the UNESCO Save Carthage Project, two sites in the harbour area and one inland were examined. On the site on the island in the circular harbour, the remains probably of the νεώρια described by Appian succeeded earlier Punic occupation periods and were in turn followed by two successive Roman temples and a building, probably a pharos, associated with the second temple. After this, there appears to have been domestic or commercial occupation in the fifth and sixth centuries A.D. On the north shore of the circular harbour, remains of the late Roman quayside and associated streets and buildings were found. On the inland site, situated to the south of the Roman street grid, there were the remains of third–fifth-century and fifth–sixth-century buildings fronting a street and backed by a substantial wall identified as the city wall constructed in the reign of Theodosius II.


1925 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 176-194
Author(s):  
S. N. Miller

In the course of last summer the York Roman Excavations Committee invited me to direct some excavations at the east corner of the Roman fortress as a preliminary to more extensive work in the future. It was supposed that the remains of a bastion—similar to the Multangular Tower in the Museum Gardens—might be found under the mound upon which the city wall is built. Before exploring that possibility, however, we decided (1) to see what evidence would be given by a section through the north-east rampart close to the east corner; (2) taking advantage of the fact that a yard off Bedern was available for excavation, to supplement our first section by cutting a trench across the south-east defences where they have parted company with the later mound, city wall and moat, and where, therefore, one might hope to get a profile of the Roman ditch; and (3), guided by the results so obtained, to examine the east corner for traces of the rounded turn and internal angle-tower of the pre-bastion type of fortification. It was after those evidences had been secured that we proposed, if there was still time, to trench outside the corner and prove (or disprove) the existence of the supposed bastion.


2001 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 155-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Wilson ◽  
Paul Bennett ◽  
Ahmed Buzaian ◽  
Vanessa Fell ◽  
Kristian Göransson ◽  
...  

AbstractThis article reports on the third season of the current project at Euesperides (Benghazi). A programme of geological augering has begun to investigate the presumed location of the ancient harbour and the process by which the harbour and neighbouring lagoon silted up during antiquity. Continued excavation in Area P has revealed two phases of buildings, with a plain pebble floor of the fourth century BC and mixed pebble and irregular tesserae floors of the late fourth/early third century BC. In Area Q work has identified buildings either side of a street, and two phases of city defences; outside the defences excavation has confirmed the continuation of a linear quarry ditch. In Area R the occupation sequence has been elucidated and it seems that the two main phases of purple dye manufacturing activity, using Murex trunculus shellfish, follow the abandonment of a courtyard house. Comprehensive study and quantification of coarsewares and transport amphorae has begun alongside continued study of the finewares, and confirms a wide range of trading contacts. The excavations have also produced evidence for the minting of silver coinage at Euesperides.


1906 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 284-288
Author(s):  
A.J.B. Wace

From the 3rd till the 26th of May a series of trial excavations was made along the river bank, north of the precinct of Artemis Orthia. These resulted in the discovery of the Greek wall of the city and of traces of an, at present, nameless Heroön close to it. The following description begins from the south. (General Plan, Pl. VII.)The part of the wall found south-east of the Artemisium is, as far as it has at present been uncovered, of a normal type (Plate VII.). It is three metres thick, built of hewn limestone blocks laid in courses with irregular jointing. Not more than two courses are preserved, and they rest on a foundation of small stones and rough blocks. Most remarkable is the deep drain running out through the wall, which here comes obliquely from the cliff to the south, between the Roman building and the river. Where the Eurotas has eaten into the bank and destroyed part of the Roman arena, the wall also has been carried away. On the cliff (General Plan, O 16) a few trial pits produced one tile-stamp (of type 17, see p. 348), and revealed a long block of hewn rock, but the line of the fortification has still to be found here.


X ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federica Carta ◽  
Diego Ros McDonnell ◽  
Pedro Enrique Collado Espejo

The Atalaya Castle (eighteenth century), in Cartagena (Region of Murcia, Spain). Formal and constructive analysisThe Atalaya Castle (eighteenth century) is one of the military fortifications that were part of the defense of Cartagena. The defensive system of the period was composed of an important walled enclosure, which surrounded the city, the arsenal, and a group of fortresses outside the city wall, located on the nearby hills. One of these defensive constructions is the Atalaya Castle or Fort, located to the west of the city from its position it protected the population from attacks both by land and by sea. To the north and west by land, through the Almarjal and the Pelayo mountains, the south by sea covered the possible landings in the bays of the Algameca Grande and the Algameca Chica. The building is a magnificently construction, the fort has a pentagon ground plan with five bastions at each angle. It has an interior building in U arranged on a solid bastioned platform the whole complex is surrounded by a dry moat. The fortification present certain formal elements used in other constructions that had been lifted in the city at that time, circumstance gave unity to the whole. The materials consisted of employed mainly stone and brick, the constructive elements introduce certain heterogeneity. The purpose of the communication is to present the results of the comprehensive analysis carried out in the Atalaya Castle as well as to contribute, through its dissemination to raise awareness of the need for its restoration and enhancement. Research has studied the characteristics of the formal and constructive system of the fortification currently in a state of semiabandonment, a proposal has also been conducted for a new cultural use as a guarantee of its correct recovery and conservation.


1906 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 295-302
Author(s):  
Guy Dickins

About 100 metres south-east of the new bridge over the Eurotas a line of large blocks can be seen in the right bank of the river running out into its bed. These are the remains of the city-wall, which originally must have made a sharp bend to the south-west, as it reappears in the field of the Heroön. But this angle, and the land which it enclosed, have been carried away by a change in the course of the river. Close to the northern arm of the angle, and abutting on the present river-bank, lies the large structure illustrated in Figs. 1 and 2. Its eastern front has long been visible, but seems to have escaped the observation of travellers. Excavation revealed at a depth of 0·70 m. below the present surface, a great platform 23·60 m. long by 6·60 m. wide and 1·90 m. high. There are four foundation courses, averaging 0·34 m. in height, of a softish crumbly stone, and a sillcourse 0·55 m. high, projecting 0·10 m. beyond the foundations. This sillcourse consists of squared and dressed blocks, which extend all round the building with a uniform breadth of 0·90 m., and vary from 1·60 m. to 2·50 m. in length. Their surface is carefully smoothed, leaving an edge on the outside, raised 0·003 m. and 0·07 to 0·08 m. wide. This careful finish, combined with the regularity of the foundation-courses, and the absence of all trace of bonding-mortar, suggests Hellenic workmanship.


2003 ◽  
Vol 98 ◽  
pp. 387-435 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Blackman ◽  
Maria Costanza Lentini

Remains discovered in excavations at Naxos in 1981–3, underlying structures belonging to the settlement which has been recognized as the mansio mentioned in the Antonine Itinerary, have now been firmly identified as the dockyard of the Greek city, the first Greek colony in Sicily and a Chalcidian foundation; an ally of Athens in the fifth century, it was therefore destroyed by Dionysios I of Syracuse in 403 BC. One rock-cut shipshed has been excavated for its surviving length (the lower end is lost under modern buildings); there is pottery evidence for the construction of its north wall in the mid-fifth century BC.As with the installation of the democracy after the return of the Chalcidian exiles from Leontinoi, the work may have been inspired and encouraged by Athens. Installations of an earlier phase are also starting to appear. A selection of pottery evidence and of the remains of roof components (tiles and antefixes) is published.The side walls of at least four shipsheds have been found just inside the city wall, and these respect the orientation of the fifth-century urban plan. The clear width of the shipshed excavated (5.45 m) confirms the evidence of other recent excavations: the previously held view that trireme shipsheds had a clear width of 5.75–6 m will have to be revised. The back 5–6 m of the shipshed do not seem to have been part of the slipway proper; possible explanations are suggested.


1999 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 147-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Wilson ◽  
Paul Bennett ◽  
Ahmed Buzaian ◽  
Susanne Ebbinghaus ◽  
Kenneth Hamilton ◽  
...  

AbstractThis paper reports on the first season of a new project at Euesperides (Benghazi) aimed at studying the urban development and economy of the city. Two area excavations were started, the first on the site of early Hellenistic pebble and tessellated mosaics discovered in 1998, and the second in what appears to be an area of houses and workshops built against the city wall on the east side of the mound of Sidi Abeid. Geophysical survey and surface prospection was also undertaken; it appears that the lower-lying extension to the city was much larger than previously thought, and several modifications are necessary to previously published plans of the site. Much of the lower city is covered with large spreads of deliberately crushed shells of Murex trunculus, indicating the production of purple dye on a significant scale. Other evidence of urban production was also recovered, notably metal-working, while study of the ceramic assemblage shows widespread trading connections, with significant imports of coarsewares besides the expected fineware and amphora imports.


Author(s):  
Eva Schmalenberger

Ø  Basic Facts on Nimrud:Left Bank of the Tigris, North of the Greater Zabcapital of the Neo-Assyrian empire since 878 B.C. under King Aššurnaṣirpal (883 - 859 B.C.)The city wall encloses an area of 380 haThe main architectural features are located on the northern and the south-eastern acropolis, including various palaces and temple buildingsØ  The ekal mašarti:Built under King Šalmaneser III. (858 - 824 B.C.)completed 844 B.C.on the south-eastern acropolismainly used for military purposes (Areas NW, NE, SW and SE)Representation rooms (Area T) and private quarters (Area S) in the southØ  Women in the ekal mašarti:Clear archaeological evidence for the presence of women in the palace; Finds: Amulets (Bes, Lamaštu, Pazuzu), skorpion, fibulaeImportant rooms in area S: throne room of the queen (S 5) and bureau (S 10) of the šakintu (female high-official)Reception rooms and working areas on the ground floorLiving quarters on the upper floorNot all women belonging to the household of the queen, also lived in the (same) palace


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