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The Latino-Libyan Inscriptions of Tripolitania

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

R. G. Goodchild
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Extract

Explorations made in the interior of Tripolitania during the last fifty years, and intensified since 1946, have brought to light a series of inscriptions which promise to yield much useful information relating to the language and life of the indigenous population of Libya during the Roman period. These inscriptions, which are best described as ‘Latino-Libyan’, are inscribed in Latin characters in a language which, although still largely unknown, must have been in common use between the Fezzan and the Tripolitanian coast during the first four centuries A.D. Basically, this language may be a great deal older than the Roman period and related to the equally obscure language of the Libyan inscriptions of French North Africa. Similarly, it must in many areas have survived the Arab invasions, and may be the origin of the Berber language still spoken in the western Gebel of Tripolitania.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 30 , Issue 3-4 , October 1950 , pp. 135 - 144
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1950

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References

page 135 note 1 Beguinot, F., ‘Di alcune iscrizioni in caratteri latini e in lingua sconosciuta, trovate in Tripolitania’, Rivista degli Studi Orientali, xxiv (1949), 14–19.Google Scholar It must be noted that some of Beguinot's conelusions, in that paper, are based on faulty copies.

page 135 note 1 I.R.T. = Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania, publication forthcoming by the British School at Rome. I am indebted to Mr. J. B. Ward Perkins, Director of the British School at Rome, and editor of this forthcoming corpus, for the encouragement he has given to the collection of texts from the interior.

page 135 note 3 Nouvelles archives des missions scientifiques, xii (1904), 30 and pl. xxi. In C.I.L. the location of this inscription is inaccurately given as north of Lachadie’, in the Wadi Nfed: it stands, in fact, in the Wadi Merdum, 8 kilometres west of Bir Gebira.

page 135 note 4 Vida, G. Levi della, Libya (formerly Rivista della Tripolitania), iii (1927), 114Google Scholar, refers briefly to these discoveries. Only two texts were published, both by Bartoccini, prior to 1949: one is from Leptis (Bartoccini, R., Le antichita della Tripoli-tania (Milan, 1926), 30, fig. 32Google Scholar), the other from Zliten (Africa Italiana, i (1927), 233)Google Scholar.

page 136 note 1 The Bir ed-Dreder inscriptions, first reported (without details) in Belardinelli, A., La Ghibla (Tripoli, 1935), 24Google Scholar, were examined by the writer i n 1949 and subsequently transported to Tripoli Museum by arrangement with the British Administration of Tripolitania. The bases, into which the stelae fitted, remain in situ to mark the graves to which these epitaphs refer.

page 137 note 1 The frequent occurrence of the praenomen Flabius, at Dreder and elsewhere, suggests a terminus post quem for many of the inscriptions. This name must have been adopted by the limitanei in honour of emperors from Constantine onwards, The fact that Flabius and Julius both occur at Dreder suggests that the tribunes buried in that necropolis received their commissions under Constans and Constantius II (c. 340-50).

page 137 note 2 For the history and general character of the limitanei settlements in Tripolitania, cf. Goodchild, R. G. and Perkins, J. B. Ward, ‘The Limes Tripolitanus in the light of recent discoveries’, J.R.S. xxxix (1949), 81–95Google Scholar.

page 137 note 3 Comparison of the forms in which native names appear in Latino-Libyan inscriptions and in orthodox Latin texts will probably help to resolve this problem; but the existing evidence is still insufficient.

page 137 note 4 The inscription was fortunately photographed in situ before its removal to the Fortino; cf. Petragnani, , II Sahara Tripolitano (Rome, 1928), pl. opp. p. 80Google Scholar, where the structure is inaccurately described as a ‘mausoleum’.

page 138 note 1 I.R.T. 864, built into the outer wall of a mosque at Msufiin. Terminations in -e, rather than the correct Latin forms, seem to be characteristic of Latino-Libyan epigraphy. Cf. Macrine for Macrinus, Rogate for Rogatus, etc.

page 138 note 2 This same term, in the form centenare, also occurs in a Latino-Libyan inscription from a fortified building at Breviglieri near Tarhuna (I.R.T. 877). A Latin inscription found in 1948 at Gasr Duib in the upper Sofeggin records that a centenarium was constructed there in the reign of Philip (A.D. 244.-6). For the Tripolitanian centenaria, in general, cf. Goodchild, R. G., ‘Some Inscriptions from Tripolitania’, Reports and Monographs of the Antiquities Department in Tripolitania, no. 2 (1949)Google Scholar.

page 139 note 1 It should be noted that in the Libyan texts of the Dougga bilingual inscriptions, parentage is shown by the prefix U-, and not by the Semitic BN.

page 139 note 2 Beguinot (art. cit. 15) reads flyriraban and interprets accordingly, but the letter before Y is clearly a T, not an L.

page 139 note 3 Bates, Oric, The Eastern Libyans (London, 1914), 42Google Scholar.

page 139 note 4 The existence of this inscription was reported to Sig. Conti of Tarhuna Experimental Station by an Arab of the neighbourhood. To Sig. Conti and to Professor Caputo, Superintendent of Antiquities in Tripolitania, the writer is indebted for the information which led to the examination of the site.

page 140 note 1 Beguinot, , art. cit. 17Google Scholar, where he reads Machrusu zeb. (cf. p. 139 above).

page 140 note 2 The Umm el-Agerem inscription, known only from a poor-quality photograph by a certain Giorgini, is likely to prove one of the most important Latino-Libyan texts. It appears to contain Libyan, Punic, and Latin elements, including dinario (= denarid) followed by the Latin numerals (00) for thousands. Very probably it quotes the cost of the tomb, as do some of the Latin inscriptions from Ghirza.

page 141 note 1 Beguinot, art. cit. 16, where the FL of Flabius is confounded with fel.

page 141 note 2 Ibid. 18.

page 141 note 3 Strabo, , Geog. xvii, 3, 19.Google Scholar The confines of the territory of the Libo-Pioenices and that of the more southerly Gaetuli are not known.

page 142 note 1 Chabot, J.-B., Recueil des inscriptions libyques (Paris, 1940), i and xivGoogle Scholar, where Levi della Vida is misquoted as having referred (in Libya, iii (1927), 114Google Scholar) to inscriptions ‘in unknown characters’. Levi della Vida's reference is, in fact, to texts ‘in Latin characters, but in an unknown language’; and it is regrettable that Chabot did not investigate this statement more closely.

page 142 note 2 For the Amud texts, known only from rough copies, see Vida, Levi della, Libya, iii (1927), 113Google Scholar(no. 22). Owing to the difficult terrain, an attempt to reach this site in 1949 was abandoned. The fragmentary neo-Punic inscriptions on obelisk tombs at Mselletin and Bir Gebira were first observed, during our 1949 expedition, by my colleague Mr. M. de Lisle, and have been communicated to Professor Levi della Vida.

page 143 note 1 The sanctuary of Ammon, at Ras el-Haddagia near Breviglieri, was excavated by the writer in 1947. Additional fragments were found of the dedicatory inscription (now in Leptis Museum) which had been brought to light on the same site many years ago. The name of the dedicant, Taksaph, reveals his Libyan origin.

page 143 note 2 It must be borne in mind that one obelisk-tomb stands in the outer necropolis of Ghirza; but the other mausolea on that site are exclusively of temple type,

page 143 note 3 Bates, O., op. cit. 84Google Scholar.

page 144 note 1 Chabot (Recueil, xiv) dismisses—no doubt rightly—as ‘pseudo-Libyan’ the alleged Libyan inscription on a gem bought by Vattier de Bourville at Derna in 1848. If Graeco-Libyan inscriptions exist at all they are to be sought in the interior rather than on the coast.