Excavations at Ajdabiyah: Second Interim Report

Extract

In 1971 the Libyan Department of Antiquities invited the Society to conduct a trial excavation at Ajdabiyah to find out whether further investigation might throw light on the medieval Islamic settlement. Documentary evidence showed that Ajdabiyah was already a caravan town in the ninth century A.D., that it flourished under the Fatimids and that it was destroyed by the Banu Sulaim and the Banu Hilal in 1051. Earlier excavations had revealed two major Islamic monuments; a ruined qasr and a mosque (Abdussaid 1964a). It was known, too, that in the first century A.D. a Roman detachment was stationed at Ajdabiyah, which is identified with Corniclanum, a name on the Peutinger Map.

The short season of 1971 established that remains of the medieval town survived on the south-east side of Ajdabiyah, in the area of the modern cemetery (fig. 1). A scatter of Roman material and a group of burials, apparently of Roman date, suggested that future excavation might reveal something of the history of Corniclanum, as well as of the Fatimid settlement (Blake, Hutt and Whitehouse 1971).

In 1972 we returned to Ajdabiyah. We resumed excavation at the mosque and planned in detail the remains of the qasr (Whitehouse 1972). Both buildings have considerable importance. The qasr had been stripped in 1952 (Abdussaid 1964a). We planned the building at a scale of 1: 40, drew elevations of the principal rooms and made a full photographic record; the structure now awaits final publication. At the mosque we found evidence for two periods of construction, both evidently Fatimid, the earlier of which was probably commissioned by Abu'l Qasim, the son of Obeid Allah. An inscription from the mosque (unfortunately not in situ) bears the date (3)10/922-3 or (3)20/932, possibly the date of construction (Lowick 1972, 5 and pl. VIIa). Among the masonry re-used in the mosque were no fewer than seven fragments of Roman inscriptions, including SEG ix, 773–95.